we were there a few yrs ago. the old ptea quit and ran and we came in and took over what we thought was going to be the toughest battle we ever had. we held a ptea sign up at the schools open house and met the parents at the front door with a booklet that showed what exactly we were wanting to do and offered to guide the parents thru the school. we signed up 50 parents the first nite and our school only had then 200 students and that was k-8. we managed to get thru the first yr and had over 90% parental involvement and 100% faculty involvement. so it can be done and in fact our school won the illinois governors home town award (3rd place) that year!!! IT CAN BE DONE!! with your past experience you are already a step ahead!! you can do it!!!!
Thanks ptomomof5, I am new to the posts so hang in there with me. I do appriciate your response and suggestions are great but open house was today and I didn't get your message in time.All we did anyway was meet the teachers(no meeting first). I did give the Principal a volunteer sign up sheet and I will check with him to see how that went. I also have made it a point to be at the school helping out so the staff realizes that I really am willing to offer my support and volunteer. I am hoping that they will see that soon they will need to have fundraisers and other family activities, but right now they are all just focused on opening the doors. I have been reading everyone's posts and it does help me get ideas.Thanks again and if you have any other ideas on how to get this ball rolling please let me know!!!
Hey Tsmom, We started with no PTO last year and not knowing many of the parents. Is your principal holding a meeting before allowing the parents to go find their classrooms? If so then get up and speak, let them know you want to get a PTO going and anyone interested please come talk to you. If not then be at the door where parents enter and hand out the volunteer forms and talk to them about starting a PTO. See who responds. We held our elections at our open house last year. We had a "supply basket" to give away to those that joined that day and stayed for the meeting. I'll be honest and say we got our officers but they were people we didn't know and they didn't do much of anything all year. Just bragged that they were this officer or that officer. Maybe you can take a bit of time and get to know the parents that are really interested. Good luck!!! and read this forum their are so many with great advice and offers of help it's a wonderful site. Please post your email address.
I am hoping someone can help me on this one. I enrolled my daughter in a new charter school this year.This is the first year for the school for grades 4-6. The school can except 120 students and has 70 as of today. I was the President of the PTA at her old school and am getting the VP ready to take over. My concern is that this new school is so small and new witch means that the school opens with no volunteers and no PTO. How can I get parents involved once the school opens? I have talked to the Principal of the school and he is more than willing to work with me but Where do I start? Our open house is Wed. and I suggested we have a volunteer sign up form available on that day. :confused:
