November PTO Leader Tasks

It is time once again to take a look at your November Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) leader tasks and to-do list for the month.

This post is the 11th in the monthly series of checklists for school parent group volunteers with timely reminders of what to pay attention to in your volunteer role.

General Considerations for November

November is the first month to take a beat and check your PTO’s pulse as a whole as well as look at how things are going for individual aspects.

The school year has been in session for a few months, so it’s a good time to check in and see if things are on track.

November is early enough in the school year to make adjustments if not.

Each back to school season feels like a sprint to get through all of the welcome back activities like Meet the Teacher Night, Open House, the first PTO fundraiser, family and student events and Parent-Teacher Conferences.

With the winter holidays fast approaching, bringing with it all of the busyness of the season, it can be hard to maintain a workable balance between home and family obligations with your PTO volunteer role.

It is totally fine to take a breather from PTO tasks when family and holiday prep demands ramp up.

Resources for All School Parent Groups

The Organized Leader Bundle: All you’re missing is the right set of tools to be an effective, confident and knowledgable leader! Picture your entire board:

… Knowing exactly what to do … Having plug and play strategies and systems to get every aspect of your PTO organized … Working as an organized team, reaching all your goals and then some! This bundle combines essential officer success and binder kits, customized for each role:

• President’s Success Kit (Planner + Agenda Template + President’s Insider’s Guide)
• Treasurer’s Success Kit (Planner + Editable templates + Treasurer’s Insider’s Guide)
• Secretary’s Success Kit (Planner + Newsletter template, Calendar Template + more)
• Fundraising Success Kit (Planner + Strategy Guide + A-thon Kit + Fundraising Insider’s Guide)
• Parent Involvement Success Kit (Planner + Strategy Guide + Video Training + Editable Templates + Membership Insider’s Guide)
• Family Events Binder Kit (Planner)
• Historian’s Binder Kit (Planner)
• Staff Appreciation Binder Kit (Planner)
• Vice President’s Binder Kit (Planner)

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Presidents

With the school year in full swing, I hope that you’re feeling more comfortable in your position and that you’re not feeling too overwhelmed. And I especially hope that you’re not feeling burned out yet. It is awfully early to be feeling stretched thin—there’s lots of school year left to be had!

Check In with Your Leaders

The biggest thing that you should be doing in the month of November as the PTO President is to check in with your other leaders.

See what they need help with.

What questions do they have?

If volunteers aren’t staying on top of volunteer tasks, that usually means that they don’t know how to do them and they need help.

Taking the time to check in with them at this point of the school year will let them know you’re there as a resource for them.

You will know where the volunteers are and know who needs extra support and it won’t turn into a case where a volunteer flakes on their responsibilities.

Be a Resource Facilitator

If a fellow volunteer needs help, you don’t necessarily need to be the one that provides the help.

This is a great thing to delegate to another volunteer, perhaps someone who previously served in a similar role.

The point of checking in with other volunteers is to see where help is needed before it gets to a point where it’s too late to recover or it ends up getting dumped on your to do list list.

Continue Developing the Principals Relationship

In addition to checking in with the other PTO volunteers, be sure to touch base with the school Principal.

Each month is another opportunity to further develop the Principal-President relationship, so don’t skip contacting them.

Their plans may have changed, and the same may be true for your school parent group, so get together and update each other on the latest news.

Resources for PTO Presidents

Picture this: you, the PTO/PTA President, taking charge like a boss, armed with a treasure trove of resources that will make everyone else wondering exactly how you manage it.

Your secret weapon? The President’s Success Kit!

This isn’t a bunch of busywork templates that look really pretty, but don’t actually amount to anything.

This kit is a collection of game-changing, mind-blowing arsenal of systems, tools, and templates designed to make your life easier and turn your dreams of doing fantastic things for your school community into reality. 

The President’s Success Kit is jam-packed with bite-sized nuggets of guidance that will empower you to lead with confidence.

Get your copy today!

Creating or updating bylaws shouldn’t be a nightmare.

Our Bylaws and Standing Rules Made Simple breaks down the process of creating or updating your PTO’s governing documents into easy to follow process anyone can do.

Written in straightforward English, the kit transforms your bylaws into off-putting legalese into powerful tools that’ll get everyone on the same page.

Take your school parent group from disorganized and unclear to professional and effective.

Treasurers

November is the month where Treasurers have firm deadlines to meet with regard to IRS and tax filings. 

If you haven’t already, make sure that you have your 990 filled out and submitted before November 15th. 

If you don’t meet the 990 filing deadline, it’s not a huge deal for you and your group, and you’ll likely get a letter of non-compliance and be assessed a late filing fee penalty.

Don’t freak out—just get the 990 filed!

Your state may have additional filing requirements for your organization, so check with your local Secretary of State Office for more details.

If you’re in Ohio, this page has all the details you’ll need to know about filing the initial charitable organization registration and subsequent annual updates.

Organize Your Treasurer’s Binder

November is a great month to get your Treasurer’s Binder organized. 

By this point in the year, you probably have a fair amount of receipts and paperwork that you’ve already accumulated.

Wrangle it all into order now to avoid end of year audit prep headaches.

File the receipts under the appropriate month and keep this up throughout the rest of the year. You’ll thank yourself when it comes time to close the books at the end of the year!.

Resources for PTO Treasurers

As a PTO/PTA or Booster Club Treasurer, you’ve got enough on your plate and don’t need another full time job.

Stop spending precious volunteer hours battling confusing spreadsheets and struggling to make sense of your group’s finances.

The Treasurer’s Finance Manager is your all-in-one solution, designed with your unique needs in mind.

Imagine: auto-magically generated reports, budgets that update themselves, and complete financial transparency without having to do any math.

Finally, a user-friendly tool that saves you time, reduces stress, and delivers exactly what you need to easily manage your group’s money.

No fluff or confusing features, it’s all been distilled down to a streamlined, low learning curve experience that anyone can do.

Purchase once, use forever!

Empower Your Role as Treasurer. Effective financial management shouldn’t be stressful. Instead of piecing together systems on the fly, imagine having a proven framework at your fingertips.

The Treasurer’s Success Kit provides that framework. This expertly designed system empowers you to manage your group’s finances with confidence and ease, saving you valuable time and eliminating unnecessary stress.

Experience the difference:

• Certainty and Peace of Mind: Know you’re covering all your bases, every time.
• Clear, Actionable Roadmaps: Follow a simple monthly plan for consistent success.
• Streamlined Organization: Enjoy a perfectly organized system that keeps everything in its place.
• Increased Confidence: Feel in control and prepared for any financial task.
• Simplified Record Keeping: Effortlessly manage past and present records.
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Membership Chairs

Hopefully, you have had a fantastically successful membership drive and have a good base of members and volunteers to draw upon for the rest of the school year.

Document Your Membership Drive Success

With the initial PTO membership drive behind you, it’s time to break out your binder and write down what you did to make it a success. 

Document what you sent out and when, what tweaks you had to make, and what suggestions you would make for the future. 

All of that information—there are all those prompts in that form that’s contained in the Parent Involvement Success Kit, specifically in the binder section of the kit.

Keeping track of the details in a binder is an easy way to not forget anything crucial that made your drive a success (or hampered efforts).

Keep Recruiting

The opportunity for parents, teachers, and staff to join your PTO should not be limited to the beginning of the school year.

Really, your job as membership chair is to constantly be bringing people in and looking for opportunities to add to your member and volunteer base. 

This doesn’t mean you need to do a gigantic drive; it might be that the bulk of your members come in at the beginning of the year, and then they kind of trickle through one or two every month. 

Every parent or guardian that you get to sign up as a member is another potential volunteer for your group, so you’re widening your volunteer pool as your membership grows. 

Definitely keep on that track; it’s only going to benefit your group for the positive going forward.

If your efforts have stalled out a bit, then it’s time to implement a new approach.

Have you tried the No Begging Volunteer Magnet Method (free download)?

This approach is guaranteed to work, so give it a try!

Resources for Membership Chairs

Stop struggling to recruit PTO members.

Get results with the Parent Involvement Success Kit.

This comprehensive toolkit provides everything you need to attract, recruit, and engage families effectively.

Forget generic flyers; we’re talking customizable action plans, proven engagement strategies, and ready-to-use templates for welcome packets, back-to-school information, and new member orientation.

Streamline your membership drive, build a strong parent community, and make a real difference in your school.

Get organized, get results.

Staff Appreciation

In November, Staff Appreciation Chairs have the opportunity to really lean into the turkey-themed “grateful for you” themes.

My PTSA gets about 15 different pies from Costco for all of the teachers and staff, which makes it a really economically way to treat the crew.

If you haven’t yet had an appreciation event, now is the time because spreading out the teacher and staff love throughout the school year is ideal.

The staff will appreciate whatever you do.

Fundraising Chairs

It’s time to assess the fundraising situation.

How did the fall fundraiser go? Did it meet expectations or not?

If it failed to bring in as much money as you expected, see if your PTO budget needs to be adjusted and a second fundraiser planned.

If so, it’s ok!

There’s plenty of time left to recoup the difference.

Plan for Next Year

If on the other hand, you have met your fundraising income goals for the year (and no new needs have arisen), then you can take your foot off of the fundraising gas pedal. 

You don’t need to be doing something every single month; you can kind of step back, still be involved as a PTO leader, but not necessarily be 100% focused on bringing in more money for your group.

Because if you’ve hit your fundraising target for the year, there’s no need to do anything else (even if you theoretically could).

It’s a bad look for the PTO to always have its hand out.

It’s close to crying wolf to ask when you don’t need more.

Instead, start mapping out a fundraising plan for next school year, especially if you’ll be continuing on in the position for another year.

Resources for Fundraising Chairs

Family Fun and Program Chairs

I hope the first family fun program was a success!

Similar to the recommendations for the Membership Chair, take some time now to note in your officer binder what you did for the event.

Get specific: which vendors you used and note all of the details so that they can be reused to recreate the event in the future.

The Family Events Planner Kit has all of the Event Planning and Event Summary Forms to help you easily document all f the details.

Watch this

I cover the top November PTO leader tasks in this video:

Over to you!

And that about wraps it up for all of the tasks PTO leaders should take care of this month.

November is a good way into the school year, so I hope you’re gaining more confidence and clarity about your volunteer role.

Be sure to check out the other posts in this series of monthly leader reminders.