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PTA Directory

Does anyone publish a PTA Directory from year to year that parents have opted into that has everyone listed by classroom: child's name, address, phone and mom & dad's names? Is it published on paper or on a CD? Has anyone ever had a problem with this directory falling into the wrong hands or being "corrupted" by a sex offender, etc?

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Permalink Reply by Carrie Schor on August 31, 2010 at 4:31pm
How does everyone have it arranged? By teacher?
Permalink Reply by Robert Taylor on August 31, 2010 at 4:44pm
well, when we first went live with it, we found that elementary schools mostly wanted it done by teacher. However middle and high schools didn't really have that concept so they wanted it done by grade.

So, what we ended up doing is allowing the administrator to select whether they want to have the results viewed by grade or by teacher. If they select grade then it removes the ability to search for families/students by teacher since it won't display an entire class.

I'm sure that there are other views, but since we had to change it once, it wouldn't be too hard to add additional views if there was some other way of organizing it. For the middle/high schools, they still follow the same process as the elementary schools by associating a student to a teacher, but the teacher that they assign might be a homeroom teacher or some other type of class.

Does that make sense?

Robert
Permalink Reply by Tracy Case on March 11, 2012 at 1:12pm

Our directory has an alpha list in the front that shows the home phone and the teacher for each child.  then it has it by grade/teacher with all the information.  So if you are looking for John Smith you can look at the alpha list and call from there or you can go to the teacher he has and find his information, phone, address and email.  We are at the elementary level so this is important for play dates and homework help.

Permalink Reply by Tracie Oken on September 7, 2010 at 10:44pm
Carrie,

I've attached a generic form that you can use for your school. It's not unusual for your principal to want a signed form. One of the posters mentioned that this is "public record" information anyway but I would disagree from the standpoint that having my kids information available is much different than having my information available. I've heard of schools actually being sued because a family was included when they shouldn't be.

Tracie
Attachments:
Permalink Reply by Carrie Schor on September 9, 2010 at 11:56pm
Thanks!! I found out that justbetweenfriends.com, partnered with National PTA generates directories. So I think I may use that. I'm not sure. Has anyone used it before?
Permalink Reply by Tracy Case on March 11, 2012 at 1:16pm

We used it and did not like it.  You can not print the cell phone numbers on it. Cell numbers are crucial today.   And once everyone is in there you can't get to their information again.  I uploaded everything from my excel spread sheets and then the parents were in charge of updating their information. The problem is they don't and also JBF does not allow  you to print a newsletter so you have to attach the newsletter to a group email. We use constant contact and need to be able to import the emails to Constant contact, well now we can't get to the emails that have been updated because we cannot access the data anymore once the parents take ownership of it.  This was a big problem for us.  Also David Radin of JBF said in Septemeber that he was going to allow us to print the directory with the cell phone and then his people never returned emails etc and I had to back track and do it the old way because they never made it happened. Same with the newsletter.  You get what you pay for and you pay nothing for JBF....just saying

Permalink Reply by Tanja Eltze on March 11, 2012 at 5:20pm

Wow, that's a lot of trouble you had to go through!

Were you also annoyed by the "family friendly advertising" that is not endorsed by your PTA? Just curious.

Permalink Reply by Tanja Eltze on May 5, 2011 at 11:53am

With the tool we created for our PTA and that is now used by many schools (www.membersandmore.com) your families can even choose which information they want to have published in the directory or the electronic directory. It is great for a PTA to have all family information in one database, but still respect the wish of a family to only publish certain information, like the phone number  for example. That way, your PTA can still use the other information like email to send out newsletters or the address to plan a Walk-to-School day .  Members & More is a software that you use to create directories, print membership cards, create the membership roster and dues report for your state PTA, send mass emails to your members and more. It is all based on one family/student database that can be used by different board members for different purposes without re-entering the same information over and over. It also graduates your students from grade level to grade level, to make it really easy for you. The software can be used with Windows, Mac or Linux operating systems.

If you would like a sample form for the permission to publish or need other help, let me know at tanja.eltze@membersandmore.com

Permalink Reply by Brian Katzung on March 9, 2012 at 9:31pm

I have a directory solution (that I authored) as well: http://onlinepto.com. It evolved from the version I developed while on the directory committee at my daughter's school.

Highlights related to the discussion here:

  • It supports online and/or printed directories (with extensive publishing controls)
  • Families can self-register (with administrative review, e.g. against a school-supplied enrollment list) or you can import from your school or district (default publishing can be set to either opt-in or opt-out; general directory access can be restricted to admins during the "opt-out period" and you can make the system read-only while reviewing/correcting for print)
  • Multiple households are no problem (multiple families can "share" kids; directory import supports this directly; an admin from your organization will have to get involved if using self-registration)
  • Students can be registered to classes or grades
  • You can run a report on families that haven't approved their information for follow-up
  • You can customize the login page restrictions-on-use message (or whatever else you might want to include there)

Send me a message if you want more info or to try it out.

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Pomeroy on June 5, 2012 at 6:02pm

My daughters elementary school has a student directory that ALL students are in.  Only teachers and PTA members get a copy of the directly.  Students are listed by last name, first initial, grade/classroom.  This have been an amazing tool for getting ahold of other parents.  There has be no opposition from parents.

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