We wondered how we were going to get parents to come to these meetings, recognizing that most PTO meetings attracted only the PTO officers and a few school staff members. Whole Family Invited The meetings with the greatest attendance were our occasional school potluck dinners. We decided to incorporate school effectiveness goals into parent-teacher organization meetings, and invite the whole family to come along. The 3-4 annual PTO Potlucks have been a great way to motivate parents to come to meetings, talk with teachers and other parents in a relaxed setting, and help all parents especially those new to our school feel that they belong. We publicize the potlucks in our monthly school newsletter and in the school calendar.
Parents move to the school library for the night s program.
Featured Some of the topics we addressed include discussing district and school goals, ideas for age-appropriate learning activities at home, child discipline, and what families and teachers could do together to improve student reading and writing. We try to make the meetings fun. Each spring, students receive a packet of seeds to plant at home. We kick off the first potluck of the school year by inviting students to bring their produce back to school and show off their gardening efforts. We award prizes for the most creative, biggest, roundest produce, and other categories.