This is an update...everything suggested this year was put on hold till next year and I am sure if the same officers are in charge very little will be done next year...Apparently they prefer to keep the meetings small...only officers (5 )...I had the support of the school but not the pto..I am looking into other ways to help our school and community. I do know that they visited this site because they are a little more organized. It is all a little complicated and very confusing.

We did the same thing when starting up our website. Actually, I felt it was a vital tool and suggested it and after several software glitches (or better yet my learning curve) it has finally taken off again.

If you strongly believe in the site and it isn't a negative impact on the family budget offer to pay any hosting fees (depending on who you go with) for the first 6 months (or whatever time frame you wish) until the site takes off and shows it's value to the PTO. Part of any reluctance may be that most see it is a technical black hole and scares them depending on how computer savvy they are.

As to the school having any type of input. We used to have a "page" on the school's website, which was fine but basically only listed the board officers. After we started our own site we were able to add so much more. (Our site has more pages then the school site currently does.) We link back to the school and they link to us so parents can go to either source and find out what they need and normally if one doesn't have it the other one will. We ask for input from the school but for the most part, since the site is maintained by the PTO privately, there are seldom any questions or concerns about anything posted. The largest advantage (and a great selling point to the school) is we purchased our own domain name. Yes, it cost more but the schools' site is linked to the counties main site so the web address is long and complicated to remember. The PTO's address though is short and simple and since parents know they can get to the school's site through the PTO site we are gtd. to have hits. Even if the parent comes with the intention of only going to the school site the chance of them spotting something and looking further on the PTO site is increased and makes it better for us!

We also do some of our ongoing continues sell items on the site and next year we are considering adding a forum board set up as well as start group email notifications from the site!

Take a look... TES PTO Home Page . I'm the webmaster (bottom of the first page) so feel free to contact me with any questions.

I think it depends on how you want your website handled. Are you wanting to put a link from the schools site to the PTO's (A good thing to do).... and what are wanting to put on the site.

We have a separate website from the School Districts-- it's an easier address to remember and go to.... Untitled Document
We did not get input from the school district though-- we pay for the domain name out of PTO funds--- so there is no attachment to teh district or the school. We ask if the teachers want anything added to the site, to let us know and we will add it in..... we do keep the site a little more generic--- parents can't add personal comments on the site-- only the board can add items to the site, that way we know what's going on at all times on the site-- no hidden agendas and such... and we had added a link on the schools site, so when they clicked the PTO icon, you would go right to our site.... it's been great for us, but we are always changing the site to keep it updated.... I biggest thing to remember when doing your site, either make it generic, so there is nothing outdated when a parent checks it, or have 1-2 people in charge that can spend time keeping the site up to date-- nothing worse, then going onto a school site and seeing a calendar from 1-2 years ago-- a Big Turn off... Good luck!

When creating a PTO Website, is it a requirement to get the District involved? Can they dictate how and what should be on the website? I am trying to find documentation on this. My opinion is that we have a seperate tax ID # and we should be able to create our own website without interference from the District or the Principals.

Feedback?

Keep us posted-- I'd like to know what happened at your last meeting---
did you get approval to work on a website-- or was it put on hold?

I'd like to thank everyone for your help. I have printed pages of the free sites to put on the table for discussion. Our PTO meeting that was set for Monday night was moved to Feb. 19. We are planning a big fundraiser on March 8, but at this rate we are not going to have our Feb. meeting until March. We really need that website up and going. Once again thank you, everyone was so helpful.