1) Open House--held a couple of days before school starts. This year, one of the elementary schools did it in the afternoon as an ice cream social, and the other did it in the morning with donuts/juice/coffee. This is when you get to find out who your teachers are and see your classroom. Most people go so they can figure out who the teachers are. (Class assignments aren't posted before the Open House.)
2) BooHoo Breakfast--not huge, but done on the first day of school for the kindergarten parents.
3) Back to School night--Done about two to three weeks after school starts. Meet in the classroom with teachers to go over curriculum for the year; there's a presentation by the teachers, with a short Q&A period. There's also a parent group meeting the same night to approve the budget for the year. Plus that's the big night for signing up members and volunteers, selling spirit wear, and asking questions about the fall catalog fundraiser. Most parents go, although attendance does seem to fall off a little in the upper grades.
For the PTO this is where we get most of Our PTO volunteer sign ups for the year. Hint; make sure you have all your events planned so you can recruit volunteers at the kickoff event . For this September we plan to enroll volunteers online with PTO Manager.
Open House and Meet and Greet. You get introduced to all the teachers, listen to the principal talk about what she wants for the school, visit the classroom and eat dinner.
