PTA Communication Issues - Any Ideas?

[ssmjlm]

I know a few of us are heavily involved in the PTA and we're having some issues with teachers and communication.

Basically, teachers are not timely handing out flyers/packets/prizes for us.  We give them at least a week lead time, but that doesn't seem to be working or successful.

Two most recent issues:

-Our walkathon was Monday, October 11.  The night of our PTA meeting, October 4, I placed baggies of temporary tattoos in every teacher's box, with even a couple extras, that said "These are the participation prizes for our walkathon.  Please hand out to students at the end of the day on October 11."   We also put up a FB post on the PTA page telling parents they were coming home (they are small and I'm afraid they would be lost.)

We found that some teachers are using them for other things.  One teacher was using them as "good listening" prizes.  The entire 3rd grade is using them for the guidance bullying week this week instead.  None of this was asked and they are out of PTA funds, so they needed to go each student (we have specific rules for spending and fundraising).  Unfortunately given lack of volunteers allowed at the event, we could not hand them out ourselves day-of.

-We had a spirit night last Thursday.  Several classes did not get the flyers home until Friday, they day after the event. The flyers were done the Friday before, thinking they would get them Monday morning.

I just sent another email to the Principal and AP to see if they have any ideas.  I already brought it up to the AP at the last PTA meeting after I had to track down the back to school flyers from my own kid's teacher.

Do you all do anything differently?  We do not have email access to the school.  The Principal does do a bi-weekly newsletter and include info from PTA. We have an active FB page and memberhub (which is awful, but we're stuck).

*ETA: I changed the title, it's a communication issue.  I just want to know the best way to get the info to families.

[hermione]

The principal needs to nail this down. For us, the things you are talking about would go home in "Friday Folders." We would have to get them in teacher mailboxes by the Monday before. As for them using prizes incorrectly - that's just odd. Do any teachers attend your meetings? We have a dedicated liaison each year and the principal always attends as well.

[ssmjlm]

So we have a new principal this year who attended our first meeting, but the AP has attended the last two.

We have one teacher rep, the other left the area. I have asked for a second, but we probably need to bring that up again.

[redpenmama]

That's frustrating. I would ask the principal/asst principal to communicate clearly that these items need to go out at the right time. This is a hassle, but can you (or someone on the board) hand deliver to the classrooms when it's urgent vs. just putting them in a mailbox? We have some teachers who do not check their mailboxes often enough.

I'm our PTA VP of Communications. We use our Facebook page constantly to share information, which I'm sure you do too. We'll post spirit night flyers on there in addition to sending them home in folders. Our assistant principal manages the school's public FB page and he's good about reposting that type of stuff there so it reaches a broader audience. He also sends a lot of PTA communications via email and in a weekly newsletter. We have a monthly PTA newsletter too.

We don't have email access to the school, but I can write emails and have our front office admin send school-wide emails on the PTA's behalf. I'll also ask them to send the teachers an email when needed (like...spirit night flyers are in your mailbox; please distribute on Monday).

We still have occasional communication issues despite all of this, but these strategies work fairly well and have streamlined communication quite a bit.

[ssmjlm]

redpenmama, so the school just got a FB page last year. We just had to show the front office how to share a post from our page because they were saving it and sharing it direct, like it was from the school.

I recommended they reach out to someone at the main office to get the social media rules, etc so they were covered.

[redheadk]

This sounds like a disorganization problem on your school's behalf, which makes it very frustrating.

The principal at DD's elementary is pretty controlling but also not difficult to work with which actually makes things much easier on us.

For the most part, I work out the details of anything we are sending home and when with the principal. She or her secretary communicates that to the staff via email. We normally only have one or two teachers who don't get things out in a timely manner and that is a pattern with them in general, not just with PTA communications.

For our general communications, we put everything in multiple places:
our FB page
Twitter (our district requires teachers to use Twitter so this actually is great for getting things in front of teachers eyes if they follow us and most do)
push notifications from our website (Membership Toolkit)
posted on our website
on our Google Calendar (parents can subscribe to auto populate in their own Google Calendar)
weekly emailed school newsletter

For something like the tattoos, I'd put simple, clear instructions on the bags and hope for the best.

Are you friends with any of the teachers? I have some good friends on staff so I ask them questions like this because they can give me the best answers.

[redheadk]

Oct 18, 2021 10:39:04 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

So we have a new principal this year who attended our first meeting, but the AP has attended the last two.

We have one teacher rep, the other left the area. I have asked for a second, but we probably need to bring that up again.

Can you adjust the meeting dates/times so that the principal can attend? We need ours at our board meetings especially though I work closely with her so there are no surprises for either of us at a meeting.

[ssmjlm]

redheadk, I'm close with our music and PE teachers, but not any of the grade levels. Our rep is also the music teacher.

[ssmjlm]

Oct 18, 2021 11:00:19 GMT -5 redheadk said:

Oct 18, 2021 10:39:04 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

So we have a new principal this year who attended our first meeting, but the AP has attended the last two.

We have one teacher rep, the other left the area. I have asked for a second, but we probably need to bring that up again.

Can you adjust the meeting dates/times so that the principal can attend? We need ours at our board meetings especially though I work closely with her so there are no surprises for either of us at a meeting.

He didn't attend due to health issues (non-COVID).  It's not a schedule thing.  We did our audit with the PTA from the school he left and they told us he may be out a bit due to health.  I just don't know if the AP is back briefing him.  I know the music teacher sends notes for the staff to him, the AP, and us.

[redheadk]

ssmjlm, in that case I'd push for a classroom teacher representative.

Generally each team has a team lead. Do you know who the team leads are? While I don't email the staff as a whole, I DO email the team leads for each grade level when needed. That works really well. That could be a better approach for you. Just make it clear in your email that it's only going to them so they know to disseminate the info.

Example:

" Good morning Grade Level Team Leads,

PTA is placing a baggie of tattoos in each homeroom teachers box this afternoon. These are the participation prizes for the walkathon and should be sent home with students on Tuesday afternoon (an email will go home to parents so they know to expect them). We appreciate your help with this since we cannot currently be on campus to distribute them ourselves.

Thanks for everything you do for our kids!
ssmjlm
PTA title"

and I'd bold or enlarge "sent home with students on Tuesday"

[twinmomma]

Our front office admin assistant is the one who really helps our PTA make sure this stuff gets done, in conjunction with the principal. She runs a tight ship, so all the flyers and instructions go through her and out to the staff. She attends all the PTA meetings to take notes and make sure that she can represent the school side for scheduling and input. The teachers are not really involved at all, it's all her and the principal.

[devonpow]

Do you have a teacher rep on your PTA? We are a PTO and have 2 teacher reps who come to our meetings - I would go to them first. We also have a monthly meeting between me/my co chair and the principal. That would be my step 2. Do you generally have a good relationship between the PTO and teachers? We have a really strong teacher appreciation comittee, plus a lot of what we do is funding teacher grants/materials requests, and we have a pretty strong and I think respectful relationship between us.

For our communication to parents in general, we do a Sunday newsletter (emailed through constant contact), plus we have an online family directory that we can use for emails. It was a lot of work up front to get families to sign up for both (we are not allowed email lists, it’s all opt in), but we bust our butts constantly to remind people to sign up. We go to every open house/back to school night/meeting/whatever to talk about it. We utilize the room parents a LOT to nail down families who aren’t listed in the directory and encourage them to sign up, etc. I would say we have 80-90% of families signed up.

For events we put up a lot of posters at the school but rarely do flyers home due to paper waste. A few times a year when we have something that is critical to reach all parents of a certain grade (or the whole school) our principal will send it via email for us. Our principal is also great about including messages from us in her weekly principal update email.

[InBetweenDays]

For communication our schools seem to rely on a weekly PTSA newsletter, the school PTSA Facebook page (which is then usually shared to the "Friends/Parents of XXXX School" Facebook page), and occasionally "backpack mail". I know this is difficult during COVID, but for backpack mail we rarely put the responsibility on the teachers. It was usually a volunteer (or group of volunteers) who made sure the information was sent home with each student.

[ssmjlm]

I should add, access to the building is limited right now. We have an "in" as PTA, but that's it. I couldn't even have just 1 parent per class help at our outdoor event last week.

[tamarindy]

Address it with the principal or the staff in admin.

As a teacher I can assure you that these things can often fall at the bottom of a very lengthy priority list. I’m fortunate that our school office takes on these duties.

[cricketwife]

You've gotten some good ideas, and it does sound like there may be some systemic disorganization and perhaps odd school culture things thwarting your efforts (like teachers just taking the prizes).

a few thoughts -
Do you know how/when mailboxes are checked? I've been at schools where they're checked multiple times a day and where people maybe pull things once every few weeks. If intra-school communication is electronic, teachers may not be regularly checking their boxes.

Could you reduce what you are asking of teachers?  For example, if volunteers are limited and you can't give the tattoos the day of, do they really need to be given out at all? (That would be one less "Please distribute these" coming from the PTA.)  

Are you meeting the needs of the teachers?  I'm still baffled by the teachers taking the prizes for something else.  Is it a like of communication?  Are they so under-resourced that they feel they need them?  Could you say "Hey, we need every student to get one of these, you decide how and when." I sometimes do things as "prizes" that I would do anyway, but use it as a carrot.  

Agree that you need another liaison and they should be a classroom teacher.  I teach French and depending where have been an "academic subject" (not in elementary) and a "specials" (elementary).  I can tell you that the specials teachers are just not valued nor integrated in the same way as classroom teachers. (I don't mean to start a massive debate about the value of learning arts, languages, etc. I believe in them! A lot of the marginalization is simply logistical, but having only one rep who is the music teacher is definitely not going to get you the same feedback or rapport as if you can connect also with a classroom teacher.) 

I'd also suggest multiple communications about the same event.  Like for Spirit Night, depending on how the timing of the principal's bi-weekly newsletter in relation to the event, I would announce it in the 2-3 newsletters preceding the event. 

I'd also try to communicate the social media avenues that parents have to get information from you directly.  Maybe that's a flyer or in the principal's newsletter, but if you can build up your social media, it will really help you long term. 

Kudos for all of your hard work. I hope you are able to figure out some solutions that fit your school culture. 

[wanderingback]

I have no specific experience, but do you talk directly with teachers and get their input on some of these ideas that cause them to have to do some extra work/planning/organizing? You might have better success if you have more buy in from them since they have a million things to worry about during the day.

Otherwise is there a way to shift the things you do so you’re not relying on the teachers to give out prizes, etc?

[waverly]

It's weird they are using the tattoos for other things, but maybe they had planned this bullying awareness week and didn't have the additional resources for prizes. It is not a big ask to say hand out X, but I can see how it might fall through the cracks. This might be something that is fine in a non Covid year when you can be there, but is obviously not working this year.

In terms of the fliers can you give 2 week lead time rather than 1 week. I am one who likes lots of notice on things because we are busy working parents and often don't have time to shop for school stuff last minute (not saying this even required shopping, just a commentary in general on last minute stuff). Lots of schools don't do fliers anymore, and PTO stuff would be included in weekly newsletters.  In terms of letting families know, we sometimes get emails directly from the PTO, and we do have school wide FB groups. 

I agree with all the communication stuff above, and agree it is a communication issue rather than you all doing anything wrong.

[ssmjlm]

Just for a couple points, we have a 3:1 requirement for fundraising. So for our large fundraiser we always give out a participation prize as it's part of engagement.

While I could have not done the tattoos, we have to do "something" and this was thought to be better since it's 2 small tattoos, once they're done, they're done and not another trinket.

Bullying week is planned by guidance. The guidance counselor doesn't GAF about anything but herself. It's an on-going battle with her and the entire school. We're hoping the new principal handles it.

No one asked us if they could use the prize for something else. The music teacher sent out two school wide emails to the staff about the event and how we were managing it. So there was time for them to provide feedback. We started planning this before teachers were even back in the building.

[ssmjlm]

Thanks all, I'll see if we can get another rep and see when the principal is back (out until Thursday) what we can do.

Unfortunately Sept/Oct are the busiest months because this fundraiser funds the PTA for the whole year. We also give back $ to the teachers from this event, so the lack of support is a new one for us. Pre-Covid we almost made $25k, which meant tons of classroom grants, etc.

[expectantsteelerfan]

What's your school secretary like? How is your relationship with him/her/them?

Our elementary school secretary is the one who handles all PTA communication with teachers, i.e. we send her an email and say 'please send this out to the teachers' and she does it. If we asked her to send a reminder on the day the teachers are supposed to do something, she will do that too. She really is the hub of our school.

Now, the teachers misusing the rewards is an issue that needs to be dealt with by administration, but if you have a helpful secretary I could see them really helping with the communication.

[MDmomof2]

I'm not a teacher, but my sense is that they have SO MUCH on their plates this year that the less you put in front of them, the better off you'll be. I understand that you couldn't have many volunteers at the walk a thon, but the tattoos are a "thanks for coming" gift and should have been given out then. I can see how a baggie of tattoos a week early could get lost or teachers might forget or be confused as to what they should be used for. Our PTA sends a regular email, asks the principal to include important PTA events and details, and posts on their FB page. As a parent, I prefer electronic communications! Lastly, our school sends home a "Thursday folder" with info it. I used to be FULL of papers but they've really reduced the amount of paper over the past few years. Is there any regular folder that goes home with kids?

[DarcyLongfellow]

This sounds like an issue the principal needs to address. Our principal is fairly strict with our teachers about communication -- she lets them know that they are expected to communicate weekly with parents via a newsletter (electronic or paper) and in it they need to include the flyers she sends them. She communicates with them en masse one time per week (on Fridays), and she won't allow us to contact them outside of that because she tries to protect their time as well.

I agree with others that layers of communication are the only way to get the word out. For something like a spirit night we would advertise it in multiple ways:
- In the principal's monthly newsletter to all families
- With a flyer that goes out to parents from the teacher (usually digital, sometimes printed if we really want to promote something)
- On our PTO Facebook and Instagram accounts
- Direct emails from the PTO -- for us it has to go through the room parents -- each class has a room parent who is responsible for forwarding information from the PTO to all of the parents in the class. This is our primary means of communication, although we're trying to move away from this because there is always a room parent or two who just always forgets to forward emails, then that class misses out.
- Signs up around campus -- sometimes just inside for students, sometimes outside so parents dropping off/picking up will see them
- For very big events the principal also texts all families to remind them the day before

[waverly]

Oct 18, 2021 13:47:39 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

Just for a couple points, we have a 3:1 requirement for fundraising. So for our large fundraiser we always give out a participation prize as it's part of engagement.

I'm not sure what 3:1 requirement is.  I understand that participation prize is part of it, and it sucks the teachers took it and that the guidance counselor is not helpful.  Is there anyway that with the limited volunteers they can make sure it happens at the actual event?  If you don't have this event for another year with the requirement to give out a participation prize, I would let it go and work on it for next year.  But possibly you have more events like this, coming up in this school year that this would need to be addressed for those events to be successful.  

We have a school communication system also, so like pp mentioned the school could send out text messages and emails on our behalf to remind people about the big fundraiser.  

[ssmjlm]

waverly, for every fundraiser there has to be some sort of PTA engagement/event. So we combine the fundraiser with engagement by giving a participation prize. We typically go over the ratio, but some schools got in trouble for basically having $25k sitting in the bank from fundraising, but never just doing an event w/o a fundraiser aspect.

[waverly]

ssmjlm, that makes sense. I am sure it is hard to put on engagement events in the era of Covid and perhaps not wanting crowds indoors.

[InBetweenDays]

Well I'm not sure I would characterize the teachers as being unsupportive. Most teachers that I know have had so many more responsibilities thrown at them due to COVID. It's very possible this was one more flyer/mailer/email/etc that they received that got buried under other higher priority things they were expected to do.

Can you do these types of events without relying on the teachers? Can you have outdoor "spirit nights" and things off site? So you could have other volunteers involved? Can you figure out other ways to distribute rewards?

[af1212]

Our PTO is not connected to the school in any way. We are a completely separate entirety that operates independently. As a result we cannot send any information home with students.

We have an email newsletter that goes out every other week.

We have a Fb page.

Those are our only two methods of communication with families. Not sure if that is at all helpful to you but happy to answer any questions about how we use those methods.

We would hand out whatever needed to be handed to kids at the event - could not ask teachers to do that.

In addition we would need to notify people about events much earlier than you are used to doing.

As a teacher I would feel overwhelmed if the PTA was asking me to hand out random papers. If your school is mostly paper-based, is there a regular communication envelope that goes home? If so then I would recruit some volunteers to stuff those and include your own stuff in there.

[lindyanne]

I was just a "helper" for some events/things (parent/child events/box tops etc) but this is my experience.

The office didn't like sending things home on Fridays if at all possible bc they got "lost" more easily. 
How are papers distributed when they are printed? Our office would separate them and put them in teacher mailboxes with the expectation they'd go home that day or the next depending on how late they were put into boxes/when the teacher had an opportunity to check their mail.
How is the tattoo thing communicated? I would be pissed if it was very clear on the packages of tattoos and they ignored it
I didn't have email access to the school but I could write an email and send it to the secretary and she would either blast it to the teachers and staff or to parents. We also had a very active and engaged PTO page (the principal said they got better results on that than parents being signed up for email) that we would post all events and other important info to.

[outnumbered]

I am no longer at the elementary level, but our communication was almost all electronic. Our Facebook page was very active, almost all the information when out on posts. Each class has a room parent that sent out biweekly emails summarizing classroom and PTO information.

Paper news is not effective. A lot of parents do not even look at flyers closely so even if it goes home it gets tossed. Some teachers send everything home only one day a week (easier for parents to check once per week) so a flyer might miss timely distribution.

ETA:  We do not have email access to the school.  The PTO pays for a directory that is run by the PTO.  Parents are invited to put their info in this electronic PTO directory.  Most parents are willing.