We are thinking of doing the same thing at our school. Our thought was to do a type of babysitting service. Use the local bounce house or organize a fun filled afternoon at the school on a Saturday, parents drop off the kids for a fee. Have it well staffed with PTO parents, National Honor Society Students. The kids bounce for a few hours or play games at the school, make crafts, dance, bring in a WII game set, get tattoos, bring in pizza's and drinks etc. The parents can go to shopping, dinner, etc. and have an evening or afternoon for themselves. Since, we do not always get to do that. We are thinking of doing it during the Christmas season.
Our PTO has been doing the same Sock Hop for families for over 20 years. We have become too large for this event and it is now chaos.
We have been tossing the idea around to changing this to a Parents Event to allow parents to mingle and get to know each other.
I have two concerns;
1) Will they really mingle or will they stay in their "groups"
2) The type of event is going to be crucial, for example, a golf outting will leave some feeling left out or a dinner/dance/casino night may be too expensive of some.
Any ideas to what you may have done or thought of would be greatly appreciated. I think that as the years go by, we keep doing what we know and this upcoming school year is all about reaching outside the box for our organization.
