Our school system has changed dramatically over the past 8 years--from 5 separate K-4 schools to a K school, a 1-2 school and a 3-4 school, then to three K-3 schools and a 4-6 school and now to three K-2 schools, and 3-4 school and a 5-6 school. It has been a whirlwind of reorganization! What we have found works best is a separate Parents' Club for each school with good communication with each other, either formal or informal. When we broke up into three K-3 schools we tried to do a combined club but it didn't work--too many individual priorities and WAY too much fighting! Honestly, we all have kids in different schools and need to work together anyway, so it isn't hard to keep the communication going. For example, when the last change happened (3 K-3 schools and 1 4-5 to 3 K-2 schools, one 3-4 and one 4-5) the three K-3 schools all got together to form and fund the new 3-4 school with nary an argument. Okay, there WAS some arguing, but it went much better than expected!
Perhaps it is time for someone to propose a PTO presidents council for you district. This is a group that consists of the PTO presidents that meet every couple of months to discuss upcoming events and activities. This keeps a lot of the conflict in fund raisers down. Your are seems ripe for something like this. It is small enough that it could be a real help. Lack of communication between groups that are eyeballing the same dollars on fund raising can be a real problem.
Connie,
I'm President of a PTO for two schools, PK-2 and 3-5. Our annual budget is around 15k and our enrollment is around 300 (combined for both schools). We have four officers (Pres, VP, Sec and Treas). Our group is very active in our community schools. Besides fun functions, we also have members volunteer in the classrooms, lunchroom and recess. We have found this to be a good process.
Each of the other schools in the district (9 single school PK-5 elementaries, 3 middles and one high school) have their own PTOs. Some are functional, some are administrative (the high school group mainly stays plugged into the District PTO Council, letting booster clubs and student council do the functions that the PTO would). All of the groups send reps to a District wide PTO Council that meets to discuss issues. These issues can be bus transportation, district policies, facility concerns,..... We normally have a rep or two from the district office (Super or Asst Super and Finance Director or Facilities Director...) attend as well.
Each of the PTOs are separate and like it that way. We share ideas and collectively maintain a district calender of events, but otherwise each is its own entity.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for your input, laurib. Can you tell me how many students you have K-8? Do you have 1 treasurer or co-treasurers and how much money do you typically deal with in a year?
We have one Parent Club for the two schools in our district, a K-3 and a 5-8. As a parent and officer of the parent club, I find this to be much better for time management. One meeting per month with the group. We work for the betterment of the District, providing for both schools. An example is our district plan for updating the computer labs. Every two years one of the schools gets a new, updated computer lab. Two years ago we helped update the K-3, and this year we are updating the 5-8. Both schools help to raise funds that go into our technology fund and we pull from there when the money is needed. This gives us a bigger pool to fish for funds from. Also by combining the two schools, we limit the amount of groups asking for donations from local businesses. We can keep a record of when and why a business was asked for a donation.
Good luck, how fun to start with a clean slate. Hope my experience helps.
We are a rural school district of just over 2600 student. We currently have four K-4 elementary schools, a middle school consisting of grades 5-8 and a high school of grades 9-12. We are building 2 new elementary schools which will be K-2 and 3-5 and each building will have approx. 525 students. The new schools will be opening in Fall 2004 and we are in the process of determining how to structure the PTO at the new schools. The 4 elementary schools have completely separate PTO’s and have had no interaction with each other in the past. There is also a PTO group at the middle school which has no interaction with the elementary school groups. The biggest question we are wrestling with is whether to have one PTO over both elementary buildings or two separate ones. In terms of money, the combined budget for the 4 elementary schools is between $ 36,000 and $ 38,000 a year. We are looking for suggestions and comments on the “best†structure for this group.
