That sounds like a lot to ask the teachers to be honest. I am the secretary of my kids' PTA and we work closely with the School secretary but only ask her for very minimal things with plenty of notice. Our Head Teacher (Principal) attends PTA meetings as well so knows what is coming and can let us know of any clashes. Our funding directly buys a lot of the extras for the classrooms so the teachers do have a specific interest in helping us once in a while but definitely with quite a bit more notice than it seems like you're doing at the moment.
We have set events during the year and the School Secretary will email parents and send a reminder or two. We also have a FB page and our own email account that parents can sign up for - but for the larger events (pre-Covid that was the Halloween party, Christmas fair, some competitions, summer fair - that sort of thing), we email all the parents via the School Secretary to start. The only time we have the teachers themselves hand anything out is for our christmas card fundraiser - they all know that they'll need a half hour during a specific week for the kids to draw their cards and we tell them the week at the start of the year.
If I could change our methods, I would, but as I said, we're very limited this year with COVID. This is our only fundraiser, so after this, everything else is family engagement type events.
We've already brainstormed ideas to get stuff out next year (if it's a more normal year) to avoid having the teachers do the work. I completely understand it's one more thing, but if we don't do the event, then we have no $ to help the school. Our dues basically cover what we have to pay the state/county PTA and insurance. We don't make money off dues or spirit wear.
Do you have Google for Non-Profits? If so, you probably want to do it under one of those accounts so the calendar will stay with the organization instead of being tied to someone's person calendar. Ours is currently tied to mine (but people can't see my stuff, just what I designate as PTA). I label everything with our school initials and PTA. I also include reminders on there that are really just the school, like picture day, book fair days, etc.
If I could change our methods, I would, but as I said, we're very limited this year with COVID. This is our only fundraiser, so after this, everything else is family engagement type events.
We've already brainstormed ideas to get stuff out next year (if it's a more normal year) to avoid having the teachers do the work. I completely understand it's one more thing, but if we don't do the event, then we have no $ to help the school. Our dues basically cover what we have to pay the state/county PTA and insurance. We don't make money off dues or spirit wear.
FWIW, I am a former classroom teacher and current PTA President on my 3rd year. I do not think you asked the teachers to do anything unreasonable. Every school has a different culture, of course.
ETA: And I don't think I have PTA blinders on, the teachers LOVE me because I am extremely mindful of their time. You can ask them to distribute things a few times a year, especially if all they have to do is pass it out!
Sadly there doesn't seem to be a perfect way to communicate. There are always going to be people who don't check anywhere and then say they never got the info. My son is in a new school and they seem to hit every means of communication except for the automated callouts. There is a Facebook group for the PTA, there are PTA emails you can sign up for, they do a weekly newsletter and they send forms home for events that you need to sign up for. There are multiple reminders about events and multiple warnings that the forms are coming home if you can't print them at home. And still there are people who say they never got anything!
I bet the communication got lost in translation. If a pack of school tattoos showed up in my mailbox, I'd assume they were mine to use if no note was attached. I get 50+ emails a day and one from the PTA wouldn't be a priority, TBH. I can see how I could miss that easily.
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
I guess I don’t understand why it can’t be done via email?
We don't have access to parent emails. We only have access to member emails if they pay the dues. And with COVID, membership is down by A LOT.
We do send stuff in the principal's newsletter as well. It's bi-weekly.
Can you just invlude all emails in the directory regardless of dues. It could be touted as a school directory rather than a PTA directory. I am in a PTO, so dues are not required, I know a PTA is different. We have a subscription to A to Z connect that is renewed yearly. The parents can choose to have their info shared in A to Z. Almost all families were in the directory.
Also get your social media up and running. So much info is relayed on Facebook and Insta.
We don't have access to parent emails. We only have access to member emails if they pay the dues. And with COVID, membership is down by A LOT.
We do send stuff in the principal's newsletter as well. It's bi-weekly.
Can you just invlude all emails in the directory regardless of dues. It could be touted as a school directory rather than a PTA directory. I am in a PTO, so dues are not required, I know a PTA is different. We have a subscription to A to Z connect that is renewed yearly. The parents can choose to have their info shared in A to Z. Almost all families were in the directory.
Also get your social media up and running. So much info is relayed on Facebook and Insta.
We've thought about doing that next year, but otherwise, the PTA has no access to parent emails.
ssmjlm, This year our PTA started a Facebook group in addition to the page they've always had. Pages have a really hard time showing up in the news feed organically, so a lot of stuff gets missed. The group has been much easier for me to stay on top of and has led to more/easier interaction for people too. Something to consider exploring!