We have parents bring their children to the meeting. During the day they stay in the room and we have toys. If it's a night meeting we have a teenager who needs volunteer hours watch them for a couple of hours. We have 11 chairs that work full time. We send out a list at the beginning of the year letting parents know which activities are coming and when. We send out a sign up sheet to see if those parents 1. Want to help coordinate 2. Work behind the scenes from home 3. Be responsible for sub committees.
I am the chair for this fall’s Back to School picnic so far this is what I have done. 1. Ask for a parent to sponsor us. We want to have it at the coast guard base and need a military family to sponsor us. This person is responsible for being the POC with the base, providing a driver's list of all attending, handles makes the payments and signing the contract. I already have a family volunteer. I in turn am dealing with the POC at the base to figure out a date and time once that is done the sponsor will go fill out the paperwork and provide a check for deposit. 2. I have asked for someone to help me create a flyer to send home in the summer mailing--a working parent has volunteered because it is something that can be done at home. The flyer is already created waiting on the final date. 3. Someone to copy the flyers- done a stay at home mom has volunteered because she can go to the school anytime over the summer to make copies 4. Someone to help with sending out the summer mailing- done a working parent said she can stuff envelopes at night. 4. Coordinate the food - I maintain this one. 5. Someone to help keep track of RSVP's.--again a working parent has signed up as this is something they can do at home. RSVP's won't be coming in until school starts. We will just send home the RSVP's in the child's bookbag. 6. Make a list of all driver's -- again working parent - just types up the list of all parents in the directory. Coordinate with the RSVP lady to ensure no other guests will be attending. Provides the list to the sponsor. The sponsor will send to the CG base and receive parking passes. Once the passes are at the school this person will ensure a pass is given to all families attending. 7. Coordinate with the inflatable games – I will maintain this one.
At back to school meet and greet, I will have a list of items that need to be handled the day of the event 1. help with set up 2. help with clean up 3. someone to pick up and bring the sheet cakes that are already ordered 4. parents to help cook 5. someone to maintain the spirit store items 6. people to help keep the food out – 7. someone responsible for the paper products, drinks, handsoaps. 8. someone to take pictures for the yearbook . Asking parents 6 months prior to the event to help with the above items are hard because you don’t know what little league schedules are, parents being on travel, what other children in the family have planned. I send this list out around 2-3 weeks prior to the picnic and by then people usually know if they can help. I
The day of the event everyone knows what to do, no one is stressed and everyone can enjoy the day..
We do the same type of things for our silent auction and golf tournaments. All the chairs will tell you that the day of the event none of us are stressed and can actually enjoy it. The day of the event we usually have more volunteers then we need but we never turn them away. We break out every little task that needs to be done and usually one person will sign up for 1-2 task to be handle. I hope this helps
Our meetings were at 6:00pm and attendance is not good during sports season. (which is most of the year) We're going to try 4:00pm next year. (to avoid ball games/practices)
We started sending home PTO meeting summaries that include Box Top reminders each month. We also email it to everyone who has given us their email.
We've gotten responses from both as some parents have said they can't make the meetings at all. (second shift work, etc)
backtofundraising;132894 wrote: Our school has tried several things to increase attendance at meetings-we offer babysitting, pizza and soda are served, and the PTA meeting has been combined with the school monthly meeting so parents are only asked to come out for one meeting a month. The phone tree calls every parent to remind them and some of us room moms call again the day of the meeting. It has helped grow attendance somewhat, but what our PTA has decided is that WE DON'T CARE IF YOU DON'T COME TO MEETINGS! Sure there are things you won't know if you don't come, but that's your choice;flyers are sent home for anything truly important, as long as you read them you probably won't miss much.
Instead of devoting time and energy to meeting attendance, we prefer to concentrate on getting parents to come to school functions so that they can see what is going on in their child's school. More volunteers have come from chatting to other parents during a school function than from standing up in front of a meeting and saying we need help with this or that.
There are a few things you can do to get people interested:
Look like you're having fun. Who wants to be involved if they think it's just going to give them more grey hairs?
Ask people personally if they'd like to help. I never responded to general requests or flyers saying we need help, but when someone asked me personally I said yes.
State exactly what you need. Don't just say, "Can you help out?", say, "We need someone to help with the pizza party in Suzy's classroom on Thursday."
Try to make the first job you ask a parent to help with meaningful to them. Generally this means doing something that will directly affect their own child.After helping with the pizza party in Suzy's room, maybe mom will want to help with other pizza parties and you can go from there.
Don't forget to say thank you. Saying it in person is important, but what a great response we got when we sent actual thank you cards to volunteers! It cost a little bit in time and money but the return was worth it.
Wow -- love it! Sounds just like a keynote talk I've given a couple of dozen times. Good stuff.
Our school has tried several things to increase attendance at meetings-we offer babysitting, pizza and soda are served, and the PTA meeting has been combined with the school monthly meeting so parents are only asked to come out for one meeting a month. The phone tree calls every parent to remind them and some of us room moms call again the day of the meeting. It has helped grow attendance somewhat, but what our PTA has decided is that WE DON'T CARE IF YOU DON'T COME TO MEETINGS! Sure there are things you won't know if you don't come, but that's your choice;flyers are sent home for anything truly important, as long as you read them you probably won't miss much.
Instead of devoting time and energy to meeting attendance, we prefer to concentrate on getting parents to come to school functions so that they can see what is going on in their child's school. More volunteers have come from chatting to other parents during a school function than from standing up in front of a meeting and saying we need help with this or that.
There are a few things you can do to get people interested:
Look like you're having fun. Who wants to be involved if they think it's just going to give them more grey hairs?
Ask people personally if they'd like to help. I never responded to general requests or flyers saying we need help, but when someone asked me personally I said yes.
State exactly what you need. Don't just say, "Can you help out?", say, "We need someone to help with the pizza party in Suzy's classroom on Thursday."
Try to make the first job you ask a parent to help with meaningful to them. Generally this means doing something that will directly affect their own child.After helping with the pizza party in Suzy's room, maybe mom will want to help with other pizza parties and you can go from there.
Don't forget to say thank you. Saying it in person is important, but what a great response we got when we sent actual thank you cards to volunteers! It cost a little bit in time and money but the return was worth it.
I think it is both. We start the year with about 12 parents and no teachers. They all say that they are too busy. By the last couple meetings of the year it dwindles down to myself and the principal.
We do have kids come to our meetings. They usually head to the gym while we meet. You could also contact your high school child care vocation kids about coming into babysit. Even if you pay them a little something.
We absolutely have this same problem, I am hearing that a lot of schools are and it seems to be getting worse not better. I don't know if more parents are going into the workforce or if it is just a sign of our overscheduled times. I agree unless you are there you have no idea the work some of the events take. We have parents sign up at the beginnign of the year and then can't help later when called. We also had a halloween carnival that we almost had to cancel. We are trying to set up notebooks for each event that is filled with all info and copies of fliers, volunteer phone numbers etc to help our volunteers. We also spent the year hosting many free family fun nights to help change the PTO as only a fundraiser image. I have also tried to ask people in person for their help and this seems to realy help. My hope is now that people have seen what the events are and have fun that they will be more willing to help out. Have you considered the 2 hour pledge? We havent tried this yet.
As far as PTO meetings we have hired a sitter and also used the honor kids that need volunteer hours to watch the kids while we meet, we provide a snack a movie and games/puzzles.
