National PTA offers programs to increase family engagement and support the educational
success, health, and well-being of all children. Tools and resources, as well as best
practices, are available to support you and your PTA in implementing the programs. To
learn more about PTA programs and how to implement them, refer to the PTA Programs
Quick-Reference Guide (PTA.org/ProgramsQRG) or visit PTA.org/programs.
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PTA Take Your Family to School Week
PTA® Take Your Family to School Week® is celebrated each February to pay tribute to PTA’s legacy of building family-school partnerships. PTA Take Your Family to School Week will be held February 12–18, 2012 with the purpose of expanding and enhancing family engagement in schools across the country.
National PTA® offers grants to PTAs to implement programs that engage families in the school community. These grants can be used to build positive partnerships with teachers and families, connect parents to their children’s school experiences, and give children fun ways to share what they are learning and doing in class with their families.
Visit http://www.pta.org/take_your_family_to_school.asp for more information
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National PTA Healthy Lifestyles Program
National PTA Healthy Lifestyles Program promotes good nutrition and regular physical activity in order to address the nation's childhood obesity epidemic. One-third of American children are either obese or at risk of becoming obese. Increased access to high-calorie good-tasting, inexpensive foods, along with increasingly sedentary lifestyles, has contributed to the rise in childhood obesity. The reduction and elimination of recess in as many as 40 percent of U.S. school districts has limited students' physical activity during the school day. Furthermore, consistent findings show that obesity is often associated with poor levels of academic achievement.
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The Application Cycle is Closed | PTAs can play an important role in increasing physical activity and improving nutrition in the school community by engaging families, teachers, administrators, and students in programs and activities that encourage the school community to be active and to eat healthier foods.
National PTA’s Healthy Lifestyles Program is sponsored by Malt-O-Meal®, a Proud National Sponsor of National PTA. Grants available in the summer and due in September every year.
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Parents and caring adults can play pivotal roles in creating a healthy school and community climate that is free of bullying. By working together, educators, parents, concerned citizens, business leaders, advocates, and community members can support the implementation of bullying prevention programs, reinforce bullying prevention messages, and advocate for bullying policies to be implemented. This collaboration is critical as bullying happens everywhere that young people gather, including online, via text, and in social networks. PTA ® leaders and parents can play an important role in convening community conversations to build awareness of this as an important issue and to take action to stop bullying in your communities.
Connect for Respect
In March 2011, National PTA® launched an initiative to encourage PTAs across the country to lead conversations in their school communities about bullying, how it is affecting their communities, and to develop solutions that they can implement collaboratively together. Below are tools and resources that PTAs can use to plan their Connect for Respect events. Visit http://pta.org/bullying.asp for resources
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PTA Back to School Central
PTA provides Back to School Central as a comprehensive resource of information for the back-to-school season. Content will cover topics such as preparing your child for school, adjusting from a summer schedule, evaluating schools and more. Stories and articles will be added throughout the summer. Check back for valuable advice on how to wind down from the summer and get ready for a tremendous school year.
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Three for Me is a PTA program designed to effectively involve parents and families in support of children and their education. Three for Me will help schools, PTAs, parent groups, and other volunteer based organizations reach volunteer hours never thought possible. Learn how to tap into the many talents and skills that parents are happy to offer.
With Three for Me, you will find
- Creative ways to connect all families to their child's school and education,
- Ideas to strengthen home-school-community partnerships, and
- Resources to motivate parents.
Get Three for Me started at your school, or organization today and put a new face on parent involvement!
Visit the Three for Me homepage.
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Nationa PTA Military Alliance for Parents and Partners
The National PTA® Military Alliance for Parents and Partners is a group of organizations that work together to provide resources to and advocate for military-connected families. The alliance identifies and addresses the unique social and educational challenges that these families face due to issues of deployment and mobility, among others.
Specifically, members of the alliance work both jointly and independently with National PTA to develop a collaborative strategy to create awareness around serving military families and provide and develop resources for military families. The founding participants include:
MCEC - Military Children Education Coalition
NMFA - National Military Family Association
MISA - Military Impacted Schools Association
DoDEA - U.S. Department of Defense Education Activity
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The Afterschool Alliance reports that 14.3 million school-age children are responsible for taking care of themselves after school. Only 6.5 million children currently participate in after-school programs, but another 15.3 million children would participate in after-school programs if they had access to high-quality programs. Children who are unsupervised after school are at higher risk of getting poor grades, abusing drugs or alcohol, engaging in sexual activity, and becoming the victims of crime. They are also missing out on extended learning opportunities and additional opportunities to build positive relationships with caring adults in safe environments.
National PTA supports federal and state incentives for high-quality child-care and preschool programs that are affordable and accessible; coordinated at all levels (federal, state, and local); flexible enough to provide services that reflect local needs; planned, implemented, and evaluated with parent involvement; and characterized by high standards for caregiver and teacher training as well as for health and safety.
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PTA Men Organized to Raise Engagement (MORE)
Organizations in PTA's Men Organized to Raise Engagement (MORE) alliance are dedicated to raising the level of engagement between children and the important men in the lives.
Coalition members of PTA MORE serve as a conduit for greater father and significant male involvement, resulting in positive outcomes and successful relationships for children, parents, schools and communities. PTA MORE helps PTA leaders and units
- Work with schools and communities to provide programs that engage fathers and positive male figures in the educational and social development of children,
- Develop male leaders who work with fathers and male role models to enhance positive male parenting and involvement with youth,
- Act as a resource for families, communities and schools on fatherhood initiatives and issues,
- Increase the visibility and outreach of the quality programming of the coalition members.
http://www.fathers.com/
Shawnee Mission, Kansas
http://www.allprodad.com/
Tampa, Florida
Real Men Cook/Real Men Charities Inc.
http://www.realmencook.com/
Chicago, Illinois
http://www.blackstarproject.org/
Chicago, Illinois
http://www.fatherhood.org/
Gaithersburg, Maryland
http://www.strongfathers.com/
Fort Worth, Texas
http://www.npclstrongfamilies.com/
Washington, DC
http://www.nationalcompadresnetwork.com
Hacienda Heights, California
PTA encourages parent involvement and delivers special resources through its website to support the involvement of fathers and father figures. PTA offers tools, such as the How-To Guide for Promoting Father Involvement, that educate men on the importance of their involvement in the lives of their children. PTA also provides a list of resources for becoming an involved father or father figure. PTA’s bulletin boards enable parents to share ideas and spark interest in parent involvement. The PTA Parent e-newsletter also offers valuable involvement and parenting tips (subscribe on the PTA.org homepage).
Parent involvement is just one aspect of how PTA works to make every child’s potential a reality. PTA also offers resources and programs supporting education, safety, and student achievement. Additional resources available at
http://www.pta.org/pta_more.asp
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Tracking Tool: Log in to this survey to record volunteer hours toward the Million Hours of Power.
To combat historically low male participation in parent involvement groups, National PTA’s MORE (Men Organized to Raise Engagement) Alliance and the National Fatherhood Leaders Group have teamed up to launch A Million Hours of Power, an initiative to inspire 350,000 American men to dedicate three hours of service to the education, health and well-being of children.
Three hours of service—truly a small amount of time to invest—from 350,000 men totals more than 1 million hours of true power to the lives of children, resulting in educational, social and physical benefits to kids across the nation.
For more information visit http://www.pta.org/4197.htm
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Welcome to PTA Goes To Work. This is your gateway to navigating the ever-expanding world of information on career planning and getting your child or student on the path to an exciting and rewarding career. We're proud to have the United States Department of Labor (DOL) at our side in this effort.
We encourage you to explore the valuable resources for employment, training and career information available through the publicly funded Workforce Investment System. That system includes a “one stop approach” to service delivery—making sure you can find in one place the information you need on all the services in your area—as well as the active participation by the private sector and better services for youth.
Whether your child or student's goal is to attend college or go immediately into the workforce, PTA Goes to Work can help you make sense of the often overwhelming amount of information that is available regarding career planning and job training.
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It’s an innovative breakfast and bonding experience for moms and kids, held once a month in the school cafeteria. After a quick breakfast, there’s a short program of fun activities and lively discussion on a variety of topics that are relevant to school-aged children. Topics include serving others, true beauty, managing money and more. And the fun doesn’t stop when the breakfast is over! Moms and kids will be challenged with an iMOM monthly activity. For complete details, go here. Remember, enter the promo code “PTA” to get all the materials at no cost!
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All Pro Dad’s Day is a one-hour monthly meeting, where fathers and their children team up with other dads and kids in the school cafeteria. After a quick breakfast, the dads introduce their children and say why they’re proud of them. Then an interactive discussion follows on topics such as understanding your children, having a positive attitude, overcoming fear and much more. Finally, fathers and kids are issued a monthly challenge and prizes are awarded. For complete details, go here. Remember, enter the promo code “PTA” to get all the materials at no cost!
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