Are you a new school parent group, a Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) or Parent Teacher Association (PTA) Secretary, now tasked with taking meeting minutes?
And you’re wondering what the actual heck you need to be doing to ensure the meeting minutes are proper and complete?
That’s exactly what we’re going to be talking about in today’s post!
But first, let’s take a minute to talk about the purpose of meeting minutes for your school parent group since it’ll make it easier to understand what to be capturing in the minutes.
The Purpose of Meeting Minutes (and When to Take Them)
Taking meeting minutes is a core responsibility for PTO Secretaries.
If your PTO has split the job responsibilities into multiple volunteer positions, learn more about the role of Corresponding Secretary and compare it to that of a Recording Secretary.
The very first thing that you should know is that as a Secretary or (Recording Secretary), you should be taking minutes at all general PTO membership meetings, as well as the executive board meetings (including any summer planning meetings).
The purpose of meeting minutes, whether at a general membership or an executive board meeting, is to memorialize and record what happened at the meeting.
Include enough details to let someone who didn’t attend the meeting understand what happened just by reading the minutes.
What Meeting Minutes Aren’t
Minutes are not a word-for-word transcript.
So as Secretary, don’t worry about capturing every word uttered.
Instead, the best practice for Secretaries is to document the general gist of what happened during the meeting.
The meeting minutes need to have enough details so that anyone would have a pretty good grasp on exactly what happened at the meeting just by reading them.
Meeting minutes don’t need to be complete sentences.
Sentence fragments are absolutely okay for meeting minutes as long as they convey the sentiment of what occurred.
For example, the minutes can read: “Carnival- 2/21 in the school gym Donations due end of day 2/19. Contact co-chair Robyn Craig with questions.” instead of “Carnival Co-Chair Robyn Craig reported that the annual carnival will be held in the school gymnasium on Saturday February 21st. Please bring donations to school by the end of the school day on February 19th.“
Condensing meeting minutes by using sentence fragments is easier for the Secretary and makes the minutes easier to read too.
All Meeting Minutes Should Contain These Details
Although there’s a great deal of flexibility in taking meeting minutes, there are a few essential details to always include:
- Time the meeting started
- List of those in attendance
- Summary of officer reports
- Summary of the Principal’s report
- Summary of the Teacher Liaison’s report
- All motions
- A summary of the discussion about each motion
- Time the meeting ended
- The name of the person recording the meeting minutes
Of this list, the most important thing to document in the minutes are any motions made during the meeting.
Note the language of the motion itself, who made the motion, who indicated their support by “seconding” the motion, how the vote was taken and of course the outcome of the motion.
It’s super helpful for the meeting minutes to reflect all of the different motions made during the meeting since motions represent decisions that the group is making.
If there’s any question about how much you the group decided to spend on a certain program or event, it should be reflected in the minute minutes.
This way if there’s a question about what was decided, then the meeting minutes can be referenced.
The auditor may request a copy of the meeting minutes to complete the annual audit, checking expenditures against the meeting minutes to ensure payments were properly authorized, so it’s especially important for anything involving money to be accurately documented.
Methods of Taking Meeting Minutes
One of the decisions that Secretaries need make is how they’ll take meeting minutes, whether using a computer, tablet or phone to type up notes or a simple pen and paper to write everything out by hand.
This is really a personal choice, so Secretaries should feel free to use whatever method works best for them.
Some new Secretaries even record the audio of the meeting to ensure they don’t miss anything.
This is a great way to gain confidence in the Secretary role.
I don’t like hauling my computer around, so my typical method is to take meeting minutes by hand since I’ve developed my own personal version of short hand from my many years of Iaw school and taking depositions as a litigation attorney.
Once I get home from the meeting, I typically type up my notes into the more formal meeting minutes that same night and finish the task right away.
Memories will be freshest close to the meeting time, so aim to finalize the minutes asap after the meeting to avoid remembering the events incorrectly.
Organizing Past Meeting Minutes
Once you have the meeting minutes, then what do you do with them?
First, distribute to officers and ask for corrections.
You’ll present the minutes at the next meeting and once approved, they can be distributed to all members.
To reach even more parents, consider posting a copy of the monthly meeting minutes on Facebook.
And a copy should be retained, ideally digitally.
This post has more on how to organize PTO records, including meeting minutes.
And for getting organized as a Secretary, more generally, check out this post, including how to organize an archive binder.
Tools to Make Taking Minutes Easier
The easiest way to make sure you’re capturing all the necessary details is to use a template, so you can essentially fill in the blanks.
I like to use a copy of the meeting agenda as a reference for meeting notes.
You can also make a copy of the agenda and easily turn it into a reusable meeting minutes template since the meeting’s order will follow the agenda.
Need some help developing a template?
The Secretary Success Kit has a sample of meeting minutes to help you craft one customized to your PTO/PTA.
Beware of other templates, especially ones that list a certain number of minutes to spend on various meeting aspects (the times will flex with your group!).
Get Organized Instantly: The Ultimate Secretary Success Kit for PTO Secretaries!
Don’t waste another minute juggling paperwork.
This complete bundle provides the exact resources you need to build a powerful officer binder, simplifying meeting preparation, execution, and post-meeting tasks.
Designed for both Recording and Corresponding Secretaries, this kit is your key to efficient record-keeping and streamlined communication.
Take control of your PTO role now!
Watch This
This video gets into all of the details about taking meeting minutes for your school parent group.
Give it a watch to gain even more confidence about the right way to take meeting minutes for your PTO/PTA!
Over to You
Taking meeting minutes for your school parent group as the Secretary shouldn’t be stress inducing.
Just follow the process outlined here and it’ll soon become second nature!
Remember to approach taking minutes like creating a summary.
Rest assured that eliminating complete sentences will ease some of the pressure, especially since there’s no need to capture every word spoken during the meeting.
The Secretary’s job is not to be a court stenographer, but establish a record of what happened during the meetings.
This record will show the business of the group and document the motions and decisions made.
Here’s to streamlined meeting minutes that clearly communicate meeting happenings.
It’s just one part of a healthy and transparent school parent group!
