We have a wonderful team of dedicated parents,
teachers and staff that support our Northern Hills’ programs. The PTO is a very
important part of that team - and our PTO Board of Officers
and Committee Chairman help to coordinate our efforts
as a PTO.
PTO Board
- Officer & Chairman/Co-Chairman Responsibilities:
1) Oversee their office or committee’s
operations as described in the Profiles (duties) below.
2) Serve as a member of the PTO Board. Serving on the Board does require the
attendance of each officer and committee at a majority of the Board
meetings (approximately 6 meetings). Co-Chairman
would share in this responsibility (approximately 3-4
meetings each).
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OFFICERS:
President:
The President presides at all meetings of the PTO and the Board. She/He will also perform such other duties
as described in the By-laws or assigned to her/him by the PTO or the
Board. The President shall coordinate
the work of the officers and committees of the PTO in order that the purposes
of the PTO may be promoted.
Vice-President:
The Vice President shall act as aide to the President and will perform
the duties of the President in the absence or disability of that officer to
act. She/He will also act as
Parliamentarian. The Vice-President
will be in charge of the Newcomer’s Orientation and oversee/coordinate the
efforts of the Grade Coordinators.
Secretary:
The Secretary will record the minutes of all meetings of the PTO and the
Board and shall perform such duties as may be delegated to her/him. She/He will also be responsible for relaying
all email communications to the Board as needed. The Secretary will be in charge
of maintaining/overseeing the inventory of the PTO’s storage in the
school’s basement.
Treasurer:
The Treasurer will have custody of all the funds of the PTO; will keep a
full and accurate account of receipts and expenditures; and will make disbursements
according to the approved budget or as authorized by the PTO or Board. The Treasurer shall present a financial
report at every meeting of the PTO, and when requested by the Board. She/He will be responsible for the
maintenance of the PTO’s books of account and records.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:
Assistant Treasurer:
The Assistant Treasurer is responsible for reconciling the bank
statement each month. The bank statement will be sent directly to the Assistant
Treasurer, and the Treasurer will turn over the checkbook to this chairman for
reconciliation. This chairman may also help with counting money at fundraising
events.
Book Fair:
These Chairmen are responsible for set-up,
take-down and the operation of the Fair which is usually held the third or
fourth week of January (in conjunction with Open House). You will need to
coordinate and schedule volunteers to work at the Fair and will be responsible
for ordering and restocking books during the week. Responsibilities also include delivering money to the Treasurer
and keeping detailed records of income. Comprehensive notes are included with
the Handbook, which make the duties self-explanatory. You will spend a
significant amount of time two days prior to and during the week of the Fair,
but requires no other work during the year.
Campus Improvements:
This position is one of the
newer ones at our school. It will focus
on the many needs we have in both maintaining and updating our campus. This chairman will be responsible for creating
and overseeing both the short-term and long-term plans of our PTO with regards
to our campus. The Campus Improvements
chairman will work closely with the Expenditure Committee and be responsible
for obtaining any required bids, as well as, overseeing any Campus Improvement projects. Previous experience in working with the
Expenditure Committee is highly desirable, but not required. (Please Note:
CAPITAL improvements to our building/structure are the
district’s responsibility and not within this PTO’s scope of operation).
Community Outreach:
This committee is responsible for researching, organizing and promoting
special outreach projects, which encourage and foster a charitable spirit among our Northern Hills family. Historically,
these projects have included, but are not limited to, the annual Northern Hills Toy Drive in December and the annual Food
Drive in February. Both of these projects benefit the Edmond Hope Center.
Cut, Color & Copy (Workroom):
The Cut, Color & Copy Crew provides the service of preparing
classroom materials for the faculty & staff of Northern Hills. Various machines (Xerox, Ditto, dye cutter)
are available. The chairman is
responsible for scheduling, recruiting, and directing the volunteers and making
sure all of the teacher’s requests are completed on time. Volunteers for the workroom turn in Tickets
for Time at the beginning of the year.
Teacher’s requests include making copies, posters, letters, collating,
stapling, cutting patterns and crafts, etc.
Coordination with the Welcome Center chairman is needed to familiarize
Welcome Center volunteers with the functions of the CCC workroom so they can
assist with projects, as time allows.
Directory:
This position’s activity is highest during the first four to six weeks
of the school year. There is only light activity during the rest of the year
with providing updates. You would be
responsible for collecting all completed directory forms and money on
Information Day. You and your committee will then collate the forms and type in
the information. You must acquire bids from area print shops and receive the
PTO Board's approval before awarding this contract. When printing is complete,
directories are distributed to the children through their backpacks. A Microsoft Access database is already
established. Most of the data entry involves entering new students and
kindergarteners. Much of your work involves double-checking the information on
the form with the information in the database. Additionally, some pages in the
directory are typed using Excel and will need to be updated. After the directories are printed, you will
be responsible for collecting any updates submitted by parents and publishing
them in the school newsletter. This is
not a fundraiser, but rather a service project the PTO provides for our school
(no profits desired).
Fall Fun Fest:
Fall Fun
Fest is our annual Fall Carnival. As
chair of this committee, you will coordinate all aspects of the Fall Fun Fest,
including appointing co-chairs in charge of different areas, deciding on which
booths to have and assigning those booths to the homeroom parents for
recruiting, purchasing all supplies needed, and acquiring food vendors. This job requires coordination and
cooperation with school personnel, homeroom parents, volunteers and teachers.
It takes a considerable amount of time the month before and the month of Fall
Fun Fest. This is a fun and challenging
job. The Fall Fun Fest is one of our
students’ favorite events and a wonderful school tradition!
Fall Fundraiser:
The Fall
Fundraiser provides a great opportunity to help the PTO earn the funds to
purchase many of the items requested for our school. This spring, your committee will select the fundraising company the
school will use in the fall, and present your recommendations for approval
during this May’s PTO Board meeting. Over the summer, you will work with the
selected fundraising company to develop the sales plan and prepare parent
information packets. Your committee will also handle all incoming orders,
merchandise, and money; as well as, distribution of those items. This position requires strong organizational
skills during all three phases of the campaign.
Holiday Store:
Christmas is
the most exciting time of the year and our students really enjoy shopping for
family members and friends at our annual Holiday Store. The chairmen make the
decisions on what type of crafts to make and/or buy. This function also
involves obtaining materials needed for crafts and coordinating/recruiting
volunteers to work on those crafts (including scheduling some craft workshops
over the summer). Other
responsibilities include setting up work shifts in the store and organizing a
classroom shopping schedule, along with setting up and running the store for
one week. After the store is
completed, the last function of this position is to shop the “After Christmas”
sales (in late December and January) for next year’s store. This position works best when there are 1-2
people coordinating the crafting part of the store and 1-2 people overseeing
the scheduling and organizing part of the store.
Homeroom Parents Coordinator:
The Northern
Hills PTO Homeroom Parents Coordinator is responsible for making and
distributing homeroom sign-up sheets for Information Day, making sure each
class has a homeroom parent, scheduling an orientation for homeroom parents to
go over their duties, notifying homeroom parents of dates and times for each
party (including posting our annual holiday giving trees), and finally, working
with the PE teachers to coordinate all homeroom and parent’s efforts for our
annual Field Day (usually in late April or Early May). This position does require light activity
all year long, with increased activity close to parties and Field Day.
Hospitality:
The
Hospitality Chairmen coordinate all hospitality events as directed by the PTO
Board. This includes, but is not limited to, Information Day luncheon for
faculty, Newcomer’s Orientation (food), Teacher Appreciation Week, Counselor
Appreciation, Secretaries Day, Fifth Grade Farewell (food), Open House and Back
to School night dinners, teacher retirements, as well as, goodies/luncheons for
our teachers on holidays and special occasions. This is a great job for anyone who loves to put together small
luncheons and parties and has a desire to make our teachers and staff feel
appreciated and encouraged!
Landscaping/Wetlands:
This chair
coordinates our parent’s efforts towards maintaining and beautifying our
school’s general landscape. They are
responsible for coordinating any parent work days at the school, as well as, overseeing
the maintenance of the school’s Nature Trail and Outdoor Wetlands
facilities. Services not provided by
parent volunteers are contracted out by this committee. The Landscape/Wetlands chairman will also
work closely with the Campus Improvements chairman.
Marquee Messages
(see School Communications)
Media Center:
This
chairman will work closely with the Media Center director and secretaries. This position is responsible for organizing
and recruiting volunteers to work in the media center. In the early fall, these chairmen establish
and distribute their volunteer schedule.
The rest of the year requires just an occasional task now and then.
Previous experience of working in the Media Center is an important criterion
for this job.
Meet the Masters:
NO art
experience is required for this position.
Most of the work for this job occurs in the beginning of the year. You must organize your volunteers, hold an
orientation meeting, and recruit volunteers for any classes still in need. Volunteers sign up on Information Day in the
classroom and by turning in Tickets for Time.
Another function of this position is to make sure that the necessary
supplies for the year are in stock in the Meet the Masters’ closet (located in
the Media Center). And finally, this
chairman is responsible for selecting and scheduling our Artist in
Residence. This program involves having
a professional artist come to the school for a day and work with a designated
grade of students. The chairman will
work with school administrators in making a final selection of the artist and
the grade they will be working with.
Newsletter:
The
newsletter chairman is responsible for the layout and production of the monthly
Paw Prints newsletter. All articles and information are provided to the chair
by board members, teachers, and the principal. During the early summer, this
chair also produces and prints the "Tickets for Time" volunteer
signup booklets. This is a great job for someone with strong computer skills
who enjoys organizing information and creating layouts and simple graphics on
the computer. Many times, this chairman
will have co-chairmen to help with printing, collating, and distributing the
newsletter to the school.
Publicity / Historian:
The duties
of this chairman are to document activities that occur during the school year
through photographs and newspaper articles. The chairman works closely with a
committee of volunteers to insure that pictures are available from all the
major school events. All film and
processing costs are covered under the PTO’s annual budget. The publicity chairman is responsible for
developing and submitting pictures to the Edmond Sun, Edmond Life &
Leisure, and the Daily Oklahoman for publication. Pictures submitted for publication are identified by a short
paragraph outlining the event, as well as, the names of those in the
picture. Another responsibility of this
position is to create a scrapbook of published items or pictures from the
school year. This last task may be performed
by the chairman or designated to a committee member.
Pup Pal Readers:
Pup Pal
Readers are volunteers who are matched up with 1st – 3rd
grade students who need some extra help in reading. Teachers determine which students will benefit from participating
in this program. Volunteers meet with
students once a week or once every other week for thirty minutes to read with
them. The Pup Pal Chairman’s duties include promoting their committee through
the newsletter; recruiting volunteers from both Northern Hills’ parents and
grandparents, as well as, the community; obtaining schedules from all the
teachers on available times for reading sessions; matching volunteer’s
schedules with available teacher schedules; and finally scheduling an
orientation session with their volunteers and the Assistant Principal. This committee works very closely with the
Assistant Principal. The time required
for this position is approximately 1-3 hours per month.
Safety Patrol:
The chair is
responsible for assisting in the training of the Fifth Grade Safety Patrol,
providing a schedule for the patrol teams and planning the end of year
celebration. This committee also works
closely with the Assistant Principal.
School Communications: (formerly Marquee)
The Chairman
of this committee has two responsibilities.
The first one is keeping the school marquee updated with timely
information about different events happening at our school. The marquee may need to be updated once a
week or every other week. The second
responsibility of this chairman is to receive and forward school-related emails
onto our parent population or a specific group of parents (ie; 2nd
Grade parents). This committee provides
another communication tool for our parents that will supplement our monthly
newsletter. While in-depth computer
skills are not a requirement for this position, some familiarity with the
Outlook or Outlook Express program would be helpful. This chairman will work closely with our Directory Chairman.
Spring Fundraiser:
This
fundraiser provides a great opportunity to help the PTO earn the funds to
purchase valuable items for our school.
This fundraiser is much smaller in scale than our Fall Fundraiser. Instead of a variety of items being offered
for sale, this effort focuses on offering one specific item (ie; cookie
dough). The Chairman is responsible for
developing a sales plan, preparing information packs, collecting orders and
money, and setting a delivery date.
This fundraiser usually takes place in late March or early April. It is a quick and easy program to
coordinate.
Spring Fundraising Event:
Formerly the Auction, this event is to be determined by the chairman. This committee can make
the decision to go back to an Auction, stay with Family Bingo Night, or go with something new next year.
There are two aspects to an Auction. First is the planning of the event itself, selecting a theme, location,
date, invitations, menu planning, decorations, etc... The second aspect is acquiring auction items (Acquisitions).
The Acquisitions Committee contacts donors in person, by phone, or by mail. Prizes, class baskets, and recruiting
volunteers are some of the important parts of Family Bingo Night. Many times, chairman will turn different
tasks over to subcommittee chairman…
This is a fun and exciting job and is flexible enough to allow chairman
to recruit volunteers for a variety of positions that can suit everyone’s
individual interests.
T-Shirts:
These
Chairmen decide on the color, style and logo for the t-shirt. The t-shirt
company that you choose can help you with the actual design once you come up
with a theme. The t-shirt design needs to be presented to the Board for its
approval this spring at the May Board
Meeting. Chairmen are also
responsible for organizing an early order of t-shirts for the Board at the May
meeting. This order will be placed along with the shirts that need to be sold
on Information Day. Two to three additional orders should be placed during the
fall semester, the last one being in time for the December holidays. Chairmen
will only need to recruit helpers for Information Day. This is not a
fundraiser, but rather a service project the PTO provides for our school (no
profits desired).
Technology:
This PTO position involves the upkeep of our PTO web site (www.northernhillspto.net)
and provides any needed assistance to the NH staff member who maintains the school’s web site (http://www.edmondschools.net/northernhills).
The technology chair works closely with the staff’s technology liaison to maintain an inventory of the technology equipment that the PTO
has provided to the school. The PTO technology chair and staff liaison also work together to budget for and purchase technology items as
needed. Some basic web design experience is needed.
Yearbook:
The Yearbook
Chairman selects a company to publish the yearbook and submits that vendor to
the Board this spring at its May meeting
for its approval. They are responsible
for collecting orders and money from students and teachers; taking pictures of
various school activities, events, and groups; and creating the actual layout
of the book. Creating the layout of the
book requires strong organizational skills.
The bulk of the work is November – February when you are finalizing the
layout in order to meet the February production deadline. This is a fun job, which doesn't require any
previous yearbook experience. This is
not a fundraiser, but rather a service project the PTO provides for our school
(no profits desired).
