It's really very little. I became pres when the regular pres had to resign due to personal problems, it was a surprise. The first thing I did was dig through the cabinets that the PTO has and violi, there were decorations. It was November and there was the cutest turkeys. The kind that open up and you set on the table. So I just put them here and there and the teachers loved it. The lounge also serves as a workroom and it is so drab. For Christmas I went to our local Dollarland, we decorated the shelves with garland and lights put a few candles in there (we love candles at KES!) and such. Like I said they appreciate it.
We often have volunteers that bake cakes etc. and leave it in the lounge. We just do pot lucks for teacher appreciation, it seems more personal. That works for us because we are a small school,small town.
Thanks for the ideas. I love the idea of sending out surveys to the teachers to see what they want from us.
We have tried rotating the meetings and the problem was that although it was a completely different crowd which I was excited about all of them were working parents without flexible hours and so they were not looking to come up to the school to necessairly do any of the work. That frustrated our "regulars" immensely. They felt that these parents wanted to come up and tell them what to do but not take on anything themselves.
Also, I had to laugh when I read about sounding desperate. I am sure at times I do. I have been known to stop people that I recognize from school while out during the daytime. If they look like they may not work I am on them in a flash.
98% of our school activities are during the daytime house. I do try to recruit working parents to do the few nightime activites. That does help some.
We do several things to support our teachers. We are a small K-8 Catholic school with 2 homerooms per grade. Our room moms coordinate a luncheon for the teachers. For example the third grade room moms will each take one day in March so the teachers have lunch provided twice in March. A themed menu is selected and the parents volunteer to cook/bake or buy items from the menu. We have Mexican fiestas, salad days, Italian days etc. The teachers are very appreciative.
This year we are welcoming the teachers back with school supply gift baskets. Two parents have vlunteered to take this on. They are shopping the back to school sales and getting donations. The baskets will include electric pencil sharpeners, pens, dry erase markers, glue, permanent markers, etc. as well as little treats.
We also hold a welcome back luncheon for the teachers to give them a break from getting their rooms set up.
I would start with a survey and find out what is a conveinent meeting time. I would ask the teachers first what kinds of things they would to have volunteers to do. It would be easier if you gave them lots of suggestions. By researching this site you will come up with lots of different ideas. This site is pretty slow during the summer and you won't get as many new postings right now.
After you have things for volunteers to do, you need a volunteer sign up list. I would suggest asking for co-chairs or try to line up the chairs before you get volunteers. I've found that people are more willing to sign up for a committee if they know they won't have to chair it. We send our volunteer and home room sign up list out the second week of school, or the very end of the first week.
There are a lot of reasons people don't participate. It can be that they feel they aren't needed because they see the same names all the time and figure those are the "PTO people", so everything is taken care of. Or the PTO group sounds so desperate that new people are worried that they will be asked to be in charge of everything if they just come to one meeting. Good luck!
