Oh my, msychel, you've really done a LOT!You too, mum24kids!!

Our PTO is about 5 years old. We've learned that we actually need to do LESS. Quality over quantity is more successful for us. The school itself can do only 2 fundraisers per year--Entertainment books in the Fall and Fall& Spring school pictures. PTO does bingo night in October with a second one after the new year if most attendees request another,Holiday shop in December and Carnival in the Spring.Those are the major fundraisers.
We're mandated to give 20% of all fundraisers directly to the school(principal).That's in addition to what money we already spend on funding things the principal feels necessary.

We'd tried all the usual ones( pizza/cookie dough, catalogs sales) but found that the response was much greater when it was something fun and not just a plea for sales.So those are the ones we concentrate on. We also do other little things during the year, but they aren't really intended to be money makers. They're more fun things for the kids and staff appreciation week. We've got skate night and pizza night on a monthly basis where a certain percentage of business generated is rebated to the school, but it's not something that we have to DO anything to get other than participate. We've found that not having something going on every month gives us a breather so we can concentrate on the big things. At first we tried to do it all, but were burning out.
We do Boxtops & Tyson actively, but Campbell's was very disappointing so we're not actively seeking the labels.We have one person who takes care of those programs without any other PTO duties.That way, all her energy goes into making the programs really pop.
Set your goals high, but not so high that you kill yourself getting there--you want to be around next year! And not make it impossible for those who come after.

We did had a ton of fundraisers this year. Mostly run by teachers and staff and a few parents. There were so many because each class was running their own in order to raise money for field trips. Then the 1/2 organized parents group raised some money that paid for things like assemblies (including each teacher will get a gift at our last assembly)and a catepillar for the Kindergarten playground. The Special Ed teacher did a Spring Book Fair. So we have done a few things. We have also had several plays. All that w/out an organized group. But most was done by teachers & we need to eliminate that stress from them.

The Exec. Dir has said we can only only have 3 big fundraisers. The first will go to the PTO & we decide where the $ goes. The second will be run mostly by teachers, the school gets the $ and they decide how to spend the $. The third is a combined effort and we find one large area that both teachers & PTO want the money to go to.

We have already decided on our first 2 fundraisers - catalog & a local company that sells pies, cookies, pizza & coffee. The teachers also decided on another before our Exec. Dir. asked for only 3. They are doing the Entertainment books. The money earned per class will stay within the class for field trips and supplies. We have yet to decide on our 3rd fundraiser.

We had 2 awards assemblies this year & will do the same next year. And we'd like to have a fall & spring book fair.

We also are looking to add easy things like Box Tops, Campbell's, Tyson, and recycling printer cartridges.

Oh - we also did a fall festival and each class ran their own booth - again money stayed in each class. We'd like to continue that next year. I'm not sure how it will run though. The teachers did so much work raising money this past year because we had no PTO. Hopefully we can a combined effort.

We are currently working on by-laws and have someone who is working on paper work for the 501c. She will also be working w/ the VP to start writing grants for the school.

Other than that I am sitter here with a huge list I have compiled on what else we need to do.

I was thinking that maybe the rest of the board could make their lists of ideas & I could compile them all together. Then from there we could start listing our top 10 priorities for next year. Does that sound like a good idea?

We have been working on pulling things together since Mid April. I think there are a few of us how have put in hunderds of hours just in the last couple of months! I am already exhausted, but having fun!

Oh just as a side note we also did all the things we did despite the fact that our school was finished being built when school was supposed to start Aug. 13, 2003. We start in September, a week after Labor day in a church that offered us their facility. We didn't get into our school until the first week of Novemeber AND there was still some construction going on at the time. We have an outdoor campus so we had to gate off the construction areas.

I guess after reading all your posts & writing things down we've really done a lot. I think our biggest problem this past year was communication. I think if we communicate & organize better and add a few more things each year as pals suggested then we'll be OK.

although we are not a new school we are a fairly new pto(sept. 2001). prior to us, our school had a pta that strictly funraised, no fun nights, assemblies, etc.So we brought alot of new ideas, and events. When I look back at our first year we did a bookfair, Holiday Shop at costs, a dj party, student guessing contests , a buy one get one free bookfair,facilitated class pictures and open house,Grandparent Luncheon, and staff appreciation.We had three fundraisers. Last year we wrote bylaws, got incorporated got 501c status and added a Fall Fest, Read Across America Celebration, fieldtrip funding , a luau, a character ed assembly, and all the same stuff from the previous year.
This year in our third school year we added a sock hop, Family Craft night and the school added a game day that we are helping with. Already in the plans next year is to add a movie night and another family fun night.We are also hoping to add two school day events like a Holiday Diversity Day. We do alot of little things as well but our main goal is to get to one family event free of charge each month.
Looking at the whole picture it is very clear to see how much we have grown and how much attendance at our events have gone up. I know it is so easy to want to do it all but I think adding a couple of new events each year and thinking outside the box has really worked for us.
One other thing I would like to note is that our fundraisers do better every year and I think that is because we stress where the money is going , parents can see all of the fun stuff being paid by those funds. hope this helps

A few years ago the other elementary school got a new building so there old building housed the county's pre-k, headstart, and a few other community service offices. My youngest was a student that year and it almost seemed as if the whole thing was set up to fail. It was the building directors first year in administration and all 3 teachers first year as well. They wouldn't even give us a secretary. We started the PTO right around Christmas. The director took care of the red tape stuff and by the end of the year we had raised over $2,000 which the board of ed agreed to match! It was a true learning experience for me.

We're just finishing our first year in a brand new school. The PTA was formed just about a year ago, a few months before we opened.

One of our biggest challenges was that due to various construction issues, we could not have any night time or after school activities for almost the first half of the year--until January.

But we still managed to do quite a bit. Here's some of the things we did accomplish:
--right at the beginning of the year (a few days before school even started), we hosted an ice cream social at open house and a teacher's breakfast
--all during the year, we had a before school science enrichment program
--in the last half of the year, we had the following afterschool programs: chess club, drama club, foreign language club
--we fielded three Odyssey of the Mind clubs that met at the coaches' houses
--hosted several cultural arts assemblies, including one magician who performed as the "grand finale" for our big reading incentive program
--funded a boatload of field trips
--had one "family night" where an interactive singing group (they did stuff related to recycling) performed as part of our cultural arts program
--provided the teachers with a weeks worth of fun activities during Teacher Appreciation week
--held two Bingo nights (which were fundraisers)
--ran two book fairs (one a library fundraiser, one a PTA fundraiser)
--ran one big catalog fundraiser right at the beginning of the year (that's where most of our operating dollars came from)
--sold a lot of spirit wear

The officers and a few others put in literally hundreds of hours getting things going--only one of the officers had any previous PTA experience, and pretty much everything had to be started from scratch. The before/afterschool programs probably took the most time and effort--also the areas where we made the most mistakes--but it also took many, many hours to recruit volunteers and get Board positions filled. All in all, though, we're quite pleased with what we were able to accomplish.

In our upcoming second year, our challenge is to do everything we did before, plus add some family fun nights and some health/safety programs, and not to have any more fundraisers than we did this past year! We're looking to do free or low cost family fun nights--we'll do the College Funding night, probably a couple of movie nights, maybe arts and crafts night. We're also exploring the possibility of having a health fair or a safety day. Kind of depends who we can talk into stepping forward to run all this new stuff!

I have to say--I had so many more things I wanted to do in this first year, but it seems like everything takes a lot longer to get off the ground than what you expect. I had to really prioritize and just accept that some stuff wasn't going to get done, which was hard. While we had lots of great volunteers, there weren't many people willing to go ahead and run something. While the few chiefs we had were really enthusiastic and committed, there are just so many hours in a day.

We are a new school. We will finish our first year in two weeks. We did not start a PTO right away because our Prinipal prefered that we wait until the second year. However our Executive Dir. (we're a charter school) said he wanted us to have one before the end of the year.

So within the month we have started a PTO, elected board members and are now working on our By-laws and future activities, fundraisers, and a mini-budget.

Here is my question. Realistically how much can we accomplish in the first year?

My brain is on overload with all the wonderful info I have gotten on the boards. I even made a list of all the activities we can have throughout the year. I realize we can't do everything, I don't want to. But there is so much I want to see happen this year.

Most of all I want this board to be able to establish a strong PTO, so the future Board Members can just add to or make adjustments to, but not have to clean up messes.

I would love imput from fairly new schools what they were able to accomplish their first year as a PTO.

Thank in advance