Our meetings are held on either the third or fourth Thursday of every month at 7pm. All of the board members attend in addition to the principal and at least two teacher reps. (one from K-2 and one from 3-5). We offer free babysitting and try to keep the meetings to only an hour in length. We usually have about 15-20 parents show up. Last year we had all of the parents sign in and write the name of the teacher that their child had. At the end of the meeting the list was tallied and the class that had the most parents in attendance at the meeting won an ice cream party.

We hold our PTO meetings on Monday nights and this year are trying the idea of making up the calendar for the whole school year. This way all involved can mark their calendars and know in advance when the next meeting is.

We started alternating meetings this year between 8:15 am (right after drop-off) and 7pm on the 3rd Tuesday of the month. We get a different set of "regulars" at each one. The ultimate goal is to get as many people as we can involved - mixing up the meeting times has helped us reach that goal.

We do get more parents to attend the morning meetings. We usually get a teacher rep at the morning meetings too - the students are at music class or another teacher covers the classroom for 20-30 minutes...

We have both meeting one for just the officers and chairperson working on an upcoming event. The officer meetings we just call and have at someones house whenever we feel we need to get together.
We also have a monthly meeting for all the members. Thats on a set schedule on our school calender. Right now they are for the first Tuesday of each month. But I think next year I am going to make it every other or take a couple out.

Cindy S

For us, its pretty much whenever. During the beginning of the year, we have more due to planning of the Fall Festival. Then after that event, then it comes sporadically. We didn't have a meeting in December (but we had an event), January, but in February we had two meetings to prepare for the Movie Night. So the next time we meet will be next week. The meetings have been all at night. At the beginning of the year, they were better attended, but as the year as gone on..its become less and less. We always have either the Principal or the Vice Principal show, or sometimes both. I'm missing a soccer game to attend next week's meeting.

I do have a question..I sent out a survey to the parents, and only 99 responded. Anyway, one of the questions was if they wanted to know when a PTO meeting was, and over 60 parents said "yes". So my question is should we have seperate meetings (I mean have seperate executive meetings)? Right now, we are calling our meetings "Board meetings" and anyone can come. So we should have meetings just for officers and chairpeople? or just for officers? Then have a general meeting a few times a year for the whole PTO membership? I personally think that we should have officer meetings and then have general meetings for the whole PTO. right??

I hope I made some sense with the above question! Its been in my head since I tallied up the survey results!

:)rac

Personally, I think the answer is to vary your times but our meetings are always on Tuesdays (every month) at 12:00 noon. Our organization is really not geared towards teachers(we don't expect them to attend) and we get almost zero attendance at night. We did try a couple of night meetings but with no luck. I guess our group is just used to the noon meeting format. Working people could come on their lunch hour.
SHC