Have you tried a guest speaker? We start our meetings with a speaker with a topic pertaining to curriculum, nutrition, health, a new math program, a club, sports health/how a parent should behave at a game(sad but true)..sometimes this gets the ball rolling and you never know what other parent has in regards to talents, hobbies, networking ideas and the like. You get the idea.
We then proceed to the business portion, i.e. PTO news. Sometimes having the carrot to entice parents to come to a meeting makes them more apt to participate in other ways.
Good Luck!

At each of our meetings when I get to the Questions, comments, etc section I ususally have a few topics written down for myself. Alot of times nothing gets said none of the parents wants to come right out.
I like to have something to get the ball rolling per se so that while I have parents there I can see their perspectives on things happening in the PTO or school. I am having a brain freeze though. We have discussed these topics fundraising, were they would like funds to be aloocated, ideas for events.
I usually throw out the question of topic and see if anyone bites if not then I say something on both sides and it ususally goes from there. This has really helped our PTO and the parents aren't being singled out they are all contributing to the discussion.

Any ideas out there????


Cindy