Happy June!
Let’s talk all about what you should be doing for your school parent group, whether a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) or Parent Group Organization (PTO), in the month of June.
Note that all of these suggestions apply, no matter the specific year since, just like a school, the PTO runs on a similar cycle.
The list of tasks to take care of in June as well as the issues to be aware of for PTO leaders remains the same in June, year after year.
Top Tasks for PTO Presidents in June
The main focus for PTO Presidents right now is really preparing for the upcoming school year.
Fill Open Volunteer Roles
You’re going to be reaching out to your network and filling any open board or committee chair positions.
This is going to be so crucial to free you up to do other things because it’s not actually the President’s job to do everything, rather making sure other leaders and volunteers are keeping up with what they should be doing.
PTO Presidents need to become the master of delegation, and recruit good volunteers for the open PTO positions.
Early recruitment means the new volunteers can be trained over the summer to learn what’s involved in their volunteer role and be ready to hit the ground running when the new school year starts up.
If they’re experienced volunteers, they can just refine their plans and get to it making it all happen.
Meet with the Principal
Now’s the time to schedule a meeting with your building Principal so that you can get on the same page with them.
Aim to sketch out a plan with goals and tentative events or programs with them in advance of your summer planning meeting with the rest of your board.
It is vitally crucial that you start establishing a really good and strong relationship with your Principal as soon as possible.
Be open to communication and be open to their ideas.
Really find that common ground to work together; otherwise, it’s going to be a really long year for the both of you.
Meet with the Outgoing PTO President
If you’re a brand-new incoming President, then be sure to schedule an officer transition meeting with the outgoing President.
During that meeting, you’re going to, of course, try to download all the relevant information from that President’s brain, but it’s kind of difficult to do if you’ve never been President.
You’ll know at the end of your term what you wish you would have asked during this transition meeting, but at this point, if you can, in advance, get officer materials from the President so you can be ready for the meeting.
Look through everything in advance, write down questions, and begin to think about what you want to do for the next year.
Hopefully, you’ve started talking about it. I’m sure there are some things that were apparent that worked really well that your group wants to repeat in the upcoming year.
And there’s probably even a dud or two that you need to kick to the curb and replace with something new and fresh.
Schedule the Summer Planning Meeting
You’re also going to want to get together with your entire board and probably the committee chairs too, at least once over the summer for a Summer Planning Meeting.
Now, I know you think it’s summer break, and I want to take time off at the PTO and not worry about this, but I’ve got to tell you, if you do that, you’re going to make your job so much harder in the fall.
So, you’ll feel more prepared because you will be more prepared because you will have thought about things in advance.
You won’t be in the position of trying to build the airplane as you’re trying to fly it, which makes taking a few hours over the Summer to meet and get prepared for the Fall totally worth it!
PTO Treasurer June To Do List
Depending on when the end of your fiscal year is, Treasurers should be wrapping everything up to ready for the close of the books and the audit.
This includes, getting your binder in order, making sure that you have receipts attached to check reimbursement requests, and having everything organized.
Really get prepared for the annual audit so that you can hand everything over and feel good about not giving the auditor a mess.
If you’re using the Treasurer’s Finance Manager, then it’s going to make your life a lot easier to get this prep work done.
Once audit preparations are complete, turn your attention to the upcoming school year by sketching out a budget for the year.
Meet with the President to go through the financial information and kind of get an initial idea of where things stand.
The Treasurer’s Finance Manager is a great tool to use to create your budget since the program auto-calculates things, making balancing the budget simple.
You’re also going to want to take into account the information that the officers provide during the Summer Planning Meeting into the budget calculations.
But you don’t have to wait for the planning meeting to start creating the new budget.
Instead, get a head start on everything by looking at where the year is ending, where you have surpluses, where you have deficits, where you had to move money from because there wasn’t enough to cover due to unanticipated expenses, etc.
Also, take a look at your supply of checks, make sure that you have enough for the next year.
If you don’t have a healthy supply, go ahead and order those now so they will come early, and you’ll be all set for the next year, ready to pay the group’s bills and expenses.
What All Other PTO Leaders Should Do in June
For everyone else, including Fundraising Chairs, Family Event Chairs, and Staff Appreciation Chairs, you’re going to want to take a look at the information that you’re getting from the outgoing officer.
Or if you are staying in your same position, go ahead and look at the materials you have.
Make sure you have copies of the bylaws and standing rules.
Get your binders in order, and get all the information you might need to plan for the next year and start planning so that when it comes time for the summer planning meeting, you’re coming with ideas about what you would like to do.
There are going to be some things that you need to retire and some new things that you want to support and make even bigger for this next year.
Get those plans in place, make the calls, figure out how much things are going to cost, really start to fill in some of those details so you’re not just leaving it all for later.
Because what I’ve found most is that something is going to come in and eat up that time that you anticipate having later.
So go ahead and do it when you have the time now, even if it’s just sending out emails to kind of get the ball rolling to different vendors and the like.
New Leaders
If you are brand new to your position, make sure to meet with the outgoing officer or committee chair to get information from them, especially hard copies of flyers and forms, and get access to the Google Drive or other cloud storage system.
Watch this!
Give this video a watch to learn about what to handling in June as a PTO / PTA volunteer:
Over to you
So now you have the rundown of what to be handling during the month of June in your PTO volunteer role.
June is a nice transition month as you move from one school to the next.
It’s also a really fantastic time to do more casual planning for your position and the PTO, generally.
With the past school year fresh in your mind, you can use the lessons from the year to inform how you’ll move forward in the upcoming school year.
