[tim] When Julie Talks, the PTO Listens!

Last week, I made a brief entry about the night that Julie attended her first Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO) meeting. She was going out of curiousity -- curious as to whether that would be a good place for her to invest her time and energy.

The two pieces of information about the meeting that she relayed to me were: 1) that she sat next to Carson's teacher, and 2) that Glacier Ridge Elementary (GRE) has a monthly "CiCi's Pizza" night where a small percentage of earmarked proceeds from the evening's take go to the school. CiCi's does this for several schools and, at the end of the year, the school whose parents have spent the most money at CiCi's get an end-of-year pizza party. I haven't quite figured out how the teacher's reconcile lessons on balanced, healthy meals with "don't forget to go get pizza tonight" reminders, but that's beside the point.

What came up at the PTO meeting was that, last month, GRE had a rather dismal showing on their designated CiCi's night. Julie spoke up and said, "At the school my son went to in Austin, when the local ice cream parlor did this sort of thing, they always sent the kids home that day with a sticker on their shirt as a reminder."

Any guesses as to what Carson had on his shirt when he came home from school today?

We went to CiCi's for dinner.

It was mobbed.

With GRE families.

I mentioned in passing to Julie that this was a good, albeit simplistic, example of the sort of thing my company, Bulldog Solutions, does with our clients. It's all about the timeliness (within a few hours of dinner time) and relevance (we have to eat...and should also support our school) of the Marketing!

Her eyes glazed over at "example."

I do think she might be convinced now that PTO involvement is time well spent!