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Articles by Christy Forhan
Robert's Rules: What You Should Know
If you’ve ever been tempted to tell someone to “just shut up” when you were conducting a meeting and couldn’t figure out how to get her to sit down, there’s a guy named Robert with some rules you ought to know about. Now, lots of people groan when they hear Robert’s Rules of Order mentioned. They think of some overly complicated stuff about primary motions, points of order, and moving the question. Conducting a meeting is enough work. Why deal with all that? Certainly when Major Henry M.
How To Take Meeting Minutes
Minutes are the official permanent record of the business of your parent group. It is the PTO secretary’s job to make sure they are accurate yet concise. Minutes are intended to document the outcome of business decisions (i.e., motions), not every word of discussion leading up to the decision, so you don’t need to learn shorthand to take minutes. It is appropriate to take minutes at every formal meeting of the PTO, including executive board and general membership meetings.
PTO Officer Elections FAQs
How do we elect our officers? First and foremost, check your bylaws. If they include election guidelines, you have an obligation to follow them. If there aren’t any election guidelines in your bylaws, you should be guided by Robert’s Rules of Order. But even RRO offers a lot of latitude for nominating officers and electing officers. So your PTO is free to develop the method that works best for your membership. Usually, elections are fairly informal until the PTO encounters a controversial election.
How To Retire Gracefully
For many parent groups, late spring is a time of transition. The election of new officers can bring new energy and excitement, new ideas, and new challenges. But what about the people who have served the group faithfully, some for years, who are now giving up their offices? If you are a retiring officer, this can be a time of uncertainty. Before your term of service comes to a close, ask yourself: “What kind of ex-officer will I be?” Maybe you have not really considered this phase of your service.
Change Your Micromanaging Ways
The carnival committee is scheduled to meet at noon. Allison isn’t technically a member this year, but she organized the carnival in the past. Even though she has handed over all her notes and binders, Allison figures she’ll just drop by in case anyone has questions. As the meeting progresses, Allison eases her way from the sidelines into the driver’s seat. She starts leading the agenda. She makes decisions. She overrides the committee chairwoman. She personally takes on all the tasks.
38 Ideas To Start the Year Right
As parents, we mark the end of summer with a few important rituals. You take the kids shopping for new clothes, pick out school supplies, receive your child’s teacher assignment. The kids become anxious, sad to see the end of vacation but excited about what lies ahead. The summer quickly pushes toward a close, and everyone’s attention turns to school. The parent group can have a direct role in getting the school year off to a strong start.
How To Be a Successful PTO President
Through formal election or friendly coercion, you’re now president of your school’s PTO or PTA. Congratulations, and thank you for taking on this important challenge. Even if you have never led a volunteer group before and have little PTO or PTA experience, don’t panic. You can be a successful president, and many parent group leaders across the country are in the same situation. These tips will help you get off on the right foot.
Your PTO Year-End To Do List
Organize your PTO files and storage. This is a great time to go through your files and purge unnecessary items. If you store food or soft drinks, check the expiration dates and toss as appropriate. Get rid of mangled decorations, boxes of old school directories, calculators with leaky batteries, posters that announce activities your group hasn’t sponsored in ages, and piles of reports from the fundraising company your PTO used eight years ago.
What Does a Vice President Do?
The role of vice president is typically one of the least-defined jobs on the PTO executive board. Most bylaws identify the duties with a vague description like “Assist the president.” These loose guidelines allow vice presidents the unique opportunity to tailor the job to their own skills and interests.
What Every Treasurer Should Know
It’s not so much that it’s hard to be a PTO treasurer. The responsibilities are structured and procedural, which makes learning the job fairly straightforward. The tasks don’t change much year to year, so if you’re transitioning from a well-organized predecessor, you’re in great shape. Even if you’re inheriting a heap of financial gobbledygook, you can get control and keep your sanity all year long. But the job does require attention to detail, good organization, and an affinity for numbers.
PTO President’s Planning Checklist
Becoming a PTO president can feel a little bit like getting engaged. When the initial excitement wears off, it’s often replaced by anxiety over all the work that lies ahead of you! As with wedding planning, it’s best to break the PTO president’s work into manageable tasks. Here’s our spin on the traditional wedding planning checklist, with items for PTO presidents to accomplish organized by when they fall in the school year. Monthly Preside over the executive board meeting.
Which School Fundraiser Is Right for Your PTO?
With all the different ways to raise money for your parent group—product sales, special events, collections, and much more—how do you find the fundraiser that fits your needs best? There’s no single type of fundraiser that works for all groups and all situations. Traditionally, product sales have been the most popular choice, and for good reason. A product sale with a professional sales rep can be easy to run and profitable—whether you have a wealth of volunteers or just one person doing it all.
Responding to Criticism
No one likes to be confronted with criticism, but unfortunately it’s inevitable when you take on a leadership role. No matter how good you are, there will be people who disagree with how you handle a situation or make a decision. An important and often underappreciated element of being a good leader is dealing with criticism of your group or of you personally in a professional and appropriate way. Criticism has two elements: fact and emotion.
10 Key Points About Bylaws
The best PTO advice, ideas, and inspiration delivered weekly. Don’t miss it!
How Good Are Your Bylaws?
Bylaws just don’t get a lot of love. If your parent group is like many, your bylaws are the most important document that no one can find. They may be stuffed in the back of the PTO filing cabinet or jammed in the 4-inch policies binder or lost in last year’s president’s basement. Or they may not really exist at all. Bylaws have a way of disappearing into the black hole of a parent group’s archives.
Know Your Group's Legal Status
“EIN” is short for “employer identification number.” It’s the number the IRS issues to keep track of businesses, including nonprofit organizations. Despite the name, it has nothing to do with whether you have employees or not. There are a couple of different ways for parent groups to organize. You can function as a committee of the school, using a school bank account and the school’s nonprofit umbrella.
Build a Strong Executive Board
PTO leaders all have an important job to do based on their particular office. But there’s a second role: How well your officers work together as executive board members can determine the ultimate success of your group. Taking a few key steps early can help these individuals function as a team. Failing to lay the groundwork can have serious consequences when real challenges and disputes arise during the year. Get To Know Each Other Start by taking a little time to get to know each other better.
Budget Basics for PTOs
It’s December. Your major fundraiser for the year is over, and your parent group is sitting on a big wad of money. People start lining up at the proverbial door. How do you decide which project is most worthy of your group’s support? How do you ensure your executive board is acting in the best interest of its members when spending decisions are made? How do you know whether your PTO earned enough to do all it wants to do this year? Will there be enough money left for the spring concert?
PTO Finances: Midyear Budget Review
How much money will your PTO have in the bank on the first day of school? Will you carry over just the bare minimum specified in your bylaws? Will there be a comfortable cushion for starting the year so you won’t have to begin the year with a fundraiser? Will your PTO set aside a large sum that is earmarked for a special project, such as playground equipment? Or will you carry over thousands of unallocated surplus dollars?
16 Tips for Executive Board Members
The best PTO advice, ideas, and inspiration delivered weekly. Don’t miss it!
How To Manage Your Budget
I'm not trying to be difficult; I'm just not sure we have enough money for that. —Treasurer's lament PTO committee chair to treasurer: "I want to have the spring staff appreciation luncheon catered next month. I think it will cost about $300 extra, but the teachers are worth it." Treasurer: "That's a nice idea, but I don't know if we have the money to pay for it. Your budget is only $200, and that's assuming all the food is donated." Committee chair: "What's the matter?
Finding Auction Donations for Your Fundraiser
Of all the tasks necessary for a fundraising auction, procuring items is the one that can intimidate even the most enthusiastic volunteer. Great auctions are dependent on great items. There might be a hundred enthusiastic guests at your party, but they’ll go home with money in their pockets if they are not motivated to bid on your items. So what’s the secret to securing a wide variety of high-quality items at every price point?
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