Frederick PTA Membership
Membership is key to PTA
Local units are built through memberships from parents, teachers, students (PTSAs), and even community members. Below are guidelines adapted from Maryland PTA and other resources to help you build your membership. We believe you will find this information very useful and, if you have ideas you would like to share with us, please contact us at membership@frederickpta.org.
Building PTA Membership
Throughout the entire year, invite individuals to join PTA. Membership promotion is a year- round activity. Help all members feel a part of the PTA while encouraging them to remain loyal to their culture and heritage. Look at your PTA’s programs, policies, and projects. Do they meet the needs of all cultural and socioeconomic groups, single-parent families, dual income households, males as well as well as females? Are they sensitive to the circumstances and needs of all parents and others who are concerned about the future of children or interested in being active in PTA? Remember that one program cannot meet all needs, but you can have several programs to cover many needs.
Every Child. One Voice.
PTA’s mission is to make every child’s potential a reality by engaging and empowering families and communities to advocate for all children.
Six Steps To Creative Membership:
Step 1 — Identify – Identify any groups in your community missing from your active membership. Work with the principal; identify the make – up of your school community. Who is involved in PTA activities and who is not? The people who are not involved are the ones at which to aim your outreach efforts. Look for some common threads that make them identifiable as a group or collection of groups. This might include, but not necessarily be limited to, ethnic or cultural differences.
Step 2 — Approach – Find out more about what keeps these groups from becoming involved and create a plan to overcome those barriers. Find an effective way to communicate with your members. They won’t come to your meetings if they are not asked. (But there may be more to it.) How they are asked and who asks them may make a big difference? It may take a little work, but it will be worth it.
Step 3 — Reach Out – Getting people to attend a meeting is an important first step in getting involved. Increasing the attendance at meetings should be one of your goals. Determine what may be preventing people from coming. Change what you can to remove those barriers. You must be sensitive to the needs of new members while respecting the needs of the people who are already involved and regularly attending PTA meetings.
Step 4 — Retain – If people enjoy themselves at a meeting they will be more likely to come again. To enjoy themselves, they must feel welcomed and accepted by the others there, and interested in what is being presented at the meeting. The PTA meeting must be important and meaningful to the membership. People live busy lives and will not waste time coming to a meeting that does not meet their needs.
Step 5 — Dissolve the “Them” Attitude – Sometimes when people are asked to serve on a PTA board, they say no because of the way they have been treated at meetings or because they don’t feel like they are part of the “in-crowd”. They feel closed out. Ask them to serve on a committee or board. Because they will know members of the PTA board from the meeting, they will feel more comfortable in agreeing to serve.
Step 6 — Check Your Success – Evaluate what you’ve done and what still needs to be done to include everyone in the community. Evaluate your PTA’s programs and policies. Are they sensitive to the needs and circumstances of the school community you serve?