DREAM, BELIEVE, ACHIEVE, SUCCEED
Chair Positions & Committees
The PTO President, in conjunction with the Executive Board, is responsible for: the appointment of the Leadership positions (committee chairs); planning and implementation of Back to School events and activities; scheduling and facility of the bi-monthly General PTO meetings and monthly Executive Board meetings; with the Treasurer, establishing and maintaining the annual budget; with the Executive Board and based on faculty and parent input, establishing and executing funding priorities for the school year; appointing PTO Vice- Presidents to oversee all PTO programs and events; with the Newsletter Chairperson, creating the monthly PTO newsletter; acting as a liaison between faculty/administration and parents; communicating information to parents as needed; and being available for parent questions and comments.
PTO Vice-Presidents are responsible for overseeing the on-going PTO programs and events throughout the year, such as: Auction, Picture Day, Field Day, Back to School Transportation, Hospitality, Springfest, Directory, School Promotions, Health Screening, Book Fair, Art Masterpiece/ArtWalk, Artist-in-Residence/Arts in Education, and Music Memory, and act as a contact and support for these programs to committee chairs. They are required to attend monthly Executive Board meetings and the bi-monthly General PTO meetings and are appointed other tasks as needed.
PTO Secretaries are responsible for keeping and maintaining record of all meetings in a written format that is available to all members of the PTO and school community; making sure that these minutes are forwarded to the PTO Webmaster for posting on the school website; acting as a liaison for designated PTO committees (Friday Folders, Copy Cats, Publicity, Room Parent Coordinator; Volunteer Coordinator, Webmaster and 5th Grade Celebration); attending all PTO General meetings and Executive Board meetings; preparing agendas and sign-in forms for these meetings; maintaining a binder with all correspondence for the school year; writing/sending thank-you notes as needed throughout the school year; attending to other duties as needed.
The PTO Treasurers are responsible for creating an annual budget; tracking costs throughout the year and maintaining the PTO checkbook. All financial records are maintained on Quickbooks Basic, which is extremely user-friendly. Quickbooks is an all-inclusive computerized accounting system on which the budget can be created, checks can be written, bank accounts can be reconciled, and any accounting reports can be run. The Treasurers are also responsible for collecting, counting, and depositing funds generated at PTO-sponsored events throughout the year.
The main focus of the Parent Council Representative for DCES is to relay information from the SUSD Parent Council Executive Board to the DCES PTO Executive Board. The Parent Council Representive attends monthly meetings at the SUSD Education Center, located at 3811 N. 44th Street, Phoenix. Meetings include programs of interest on education issues affecting the SUSD as well as Scottsdale Parent Council business. The Parent Council Representative then informs the DCES PTO Board on any issues relating to DCES. This position is an important way for our elementary school to stay informed on state and district issues that may affect our school.
The PTO ECHO liaison is our contact with the Educational Coalition for Heightened Opportunities, a group of community volunteers formed to address the consequences of fewer District, State and Federal educational dollars. This foundation assesses and grants financial support from DCES and other area schools. The PTO ECHO liaison attends regular ECHO meetings and, with the PTO Executive Board, informs faculty of grant opportunities.
The PTO Sister School Representative is in contact with our sister school, Scottsdale's Tavan Elementary, community specialist who informs us of their needs. Our school then tries to help this less-privileged school as much as we can, in ways such as the adopt-a-family program and donation drives. Every year we adopt over 100 underprivileged kids from Tavan Elementary School during the holidays and facilitate donation drives for school supplies, clothing, and hygiene items throughout the year. The Sister School Representative is responsible for transporting donated items to Tavan.
The PawPrint is the DCES monthly newsletter that serves as the PTO information source. The chairperson for the PawPrint is responsible for the gathering of ideas/articles from PTO Leadership and other sources and creating this newsletter. This position must be in contact with all PTO committee chairs on a semi-monthly basis to facilitate the generation of articles concerning upcoming school events or issues that concern DCES students and parents. This position requires attention to detail, a degree of creativity and proof-reading skills. Familiarity with a desktop publishing program is essential.
In its goal as a community outreach committee, the chairs of this program maintain an active list of volunteers to provide services such as meal preparation and/or delivery, or carpools to school families who experience need due to serious illness or death in the family, fire, military deployment, or other situations.
The Auction Chairperson oversees all aspects of this principal school fundraiser. Duties include, but are not limited to, securing sponsors, silent auction donations, entertainment, and volunteers. The chair coordinates all event details and manages a committee which includes an Auction Treasurer (secures and coordinates sponsorships to cover the cost of the event, manages all monies, and oversees the checkout and balances auction proceeds), an Auction Secretary (prints placards, bid sheets, programs, banners, and thank you letters; coordinates PR for the event which includes printing flyers which have acquired approval from SUSD and contacting local publications, coordinates registration and check-in process), and an Auction Donation Coordinator (secures all donations, enters items into computer will all appropriate information for secretary to complete job easily, and oversees the placement of all items on the day of the event). The Auction Chair will also appoint and oversee additional volunteer assistance as needed to complete the duties of this committee.
The Picture Day Chairperson is responsible for coordinating the efforts of volunteers to ensure a productive Picture Day for the Yearbook and individual photo orders. This job entails scheduling volunteers to help the photographers and to help groom the children for the photos. The Chairperson oversees the operation on Picture Day and manages the event within a specific time schedule.
This event Chairperson works with the P.E. teachers in implementing the Field Day event which usually occurs in the spring (date determined by P.E. teachers). Once the date has been established, the Chairperson contacts each class for volunteers to serve at each Field Day event station. The P.E. teachers will secure all games and events for this event. The Chairperson is sometimes asked to purchase water and snacks for the parent volunteers (paid from the PTO budget). The Field Day Chairperson will oversee the event on that date and manages the volunteers.
This chairperson helps ensure that students get to their classrooms in the morning and onto the appropriate transportation (bus or parent pick-up) during the first two weeks of school. Duties include obtaining bus schedules/routes from the school office to be posted at the Back-to-School event, coordinate with Kindergarten teachers their preference for indicating which bus students ride, help teachers post bus lists in coves, manage volunteers to assist during drop-off and pick-up times, and post colored flags (which coordinate with bus colors) on the gates before and after school.
The Hospitality Chairperson oversees a committee in charge of all faculty/staff appreciation events including a back-to-school luncheon, recognizing birthdays (usually with a gift card), and the events of Teacher Appreciation Week (which includes a breakfast, gifts, and daily events). This committee also communicates with Room Parents during Teacher Appreciation Week to help facilitate some of the events. They must work within a PTO-established budget for all hospitality events.
The Chairperson of this event oversees all operations of this annual family carnival. It includes the management of a committee which solicits event donations, financial sponsorships, coordinates with the PTO Publicity Chairperson for event publicity, solicits and manages event volunteers, coordinates with Room Parents on game booth management, works within a PTO-established event budget, maintains records of monies spent and acquired, prepares expenditure/profit reports, acquires concessions, prizes, and entertainment for the event, manages ticket sales and an event raffle.
This committee is responsible for selling school Directory ads (which begins in the summer), compiling the student information and class lists, working with a printer to create the Director, distributing the Directory to PTO members, and managing the sale of additional Directories.
The Chairperson of this program organizes fundraising for the school. He/she ensures that cash-back accounts are set up with local grocery stores, collects and remits Boxtops for Education, Campbell's Soup Labels, and printer cartridges; ensures that these collection bins are available and routinely emptied; and ensuring that information is distributed to parents regarding these programs. This committee chair may be asked to manage and promote additional fundraising efforts such as merchant "Spirit Nights."
This program chairperson organizes the school's annual Health Screening. It involves coordination with our school nurse in recruiting, organizing and scheduling volunteers to manage the vision and hearing screenings. It requires picking up equipment from other local schools and coordinating refreshments and lunch for volunteers (paid from PTO budget).
The Chair of this annual PTO event is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the week-long (usually in October) activities, including: coordinating and scheduling the Book Fair with the provider (usually Scholastic Book Fairs) and with the principal; soliciting and scheduling volunteers; working with teachers to coordinate classroom visits; working with PTO Executive Board to coordinate family events (Family Fun Night and Donuts with Dad); marketing the event with flyers, decorations, games, raffles, etc., and; applying teacher credits after the Fair and distributing teacher orders.
The Chairperson of this program solicits classroom volunteers, organizes and provides a volunteer responsibility folder, conducts volunteer meetings, organizes and maintains a supply closet for class projects, arranges for volunteer training at the Phoenix Art Museum for interested volunteers, and is a contact for all volunteer questions. He/she is also responsible for assisting the Executive Board in the management of ArtWalk events.
This position is a liaison responsible for attending Scottsdale Arts and Education monthly meetings (these meetings present vital information about Field level events (field trips to Scottsdale Arts Center), Arts Masterpiece, Music Discovery, and Artist in Residence programs); field level event coordination consists of maintaining contact with the Scottsdale Arts and Education council chairman of Field Level Events; working with DCES administrative secretary to review numbers of students going on field trips to secure buses; forwarding pre-show copies of materials for teachers to include show related info into curriculum, attending the event with the classes to ensure smooth transportation to the event, and providing evaluation forms to teachers to review event for future funding from Scottsdale Council of the Arts. Artist in Residence committee chair would provide all AIR related duties. This includes attending Scottsdale Arts and Education Council Meetings to get AIR updates or working closely with liasion. This person is responsible for working with PTO and principal to coordinate AIR plans regarding application for yearly grant from Arizona Commission on the Arts and SUSD. This process usually needs to begin in December or January prior to the grant due date in March. This person drives the selection of an artist, grant writing and budget process. Then this person works with the grade level Core team on scheduling AIR instruction time, an in-service with the teachers and a concluding performance.
The goal of this program is to expose children to a variety of classical music composers, their backgrounds, place in history and major compositions. The chairperson creates the yearly curriculum or works in conjunction with the Scottsdale Arts Council to create curriculum for grades K-3 (selected by faculty). The chairperson also holds an annual meeting to explain and distribute the curriculum to the music volunteers in each classroom. These volunteers then present lessons approximately five times during the year. Finally, the Music Discovery Chairperson is also responsible for keeping updated supplies and materials, as well as curriculum updates in the music discovery cabinet (located in the Teacher's Workroom).
The Copy Cat program assists teachers in the task of copying classroom materials. This position requires the securing of volunteers to be scheduled each day to complete the teachers' copying requests. The chairperson conducts a one-time training session during the first weeks of school, schedules the volunteers and continues to oversee the program throughout the year.
The Friday Folders Chairperson is responsible for copying and distributing to classroom teachers the information sent home with students in weekly Friday folders. Duties include making copies of documents for all classroom teachers and putting these copies (sets of 30) in the teacher mailboxes, as well as distributing other materials to teachers as provided by the office staff. This weekly Thursday afternoon task can be done solely by the Chairperson or by a group of volunteers managed by the Chairperson.
This position is responsible for providing publicity material of DCES events and information and, at times, photographs to newspapers and local periodicals.
The Room Parent Chairperson is responsible for maintaining a list of room parents and their contact information; providing beginning of the year guidelines for collecting funds and party planning; contacting room parents for school volunteer needs; and to disseminate information to room parents for forward to their classroom parents when requested by other PTO chairpersons.
The Volunteer Chairperson maintains a current list of volunteers for specific school events and for general needs.
The PTO Webmaster maintains and updates the DCES website with current information regarding PTO and school events, PTO Board and Leadership information, and General PTO Meeting minutes. He/she also forwards questions/comments received at the website e-mail address to the appropriate PTO staff.
This Chairperson plans and implements the annual Fifth-Grade Celebration held at the end of each school year. Duties include planning events, distributing information to parents, and collecting funds.
At the Back-to-School event, the Membership Chairperson assists parents in completing the PTO membership form and answers questions regarding PTO membership. He/she then compiles the information in a database and continues to maintain an updated PTO membership list throughout the year. After the Back-to-School event, the Membership Chairperson works with the Executive Board in continuing the membership drive including sending out membership information to the general parent population and to targeted parent populations.
This position is responsible for generating design ideas for DCES student and faculty t-shirts, ordering t-shirts, selling t-shirts at the Back-to-School event, maintaining a re-order list and distributing ordered t-shirts.
The Yearbook Chairperson oversees the yearbook production including sales (pricing, marketing, pre-sales, sponsorship and love-line sales, year-end sales), design (coordinate with other volunteers regarding portraits, photos, school events, layout page), and coordination with publisher (meet periodically with publisher regarding specifications, cover design, invoice remittance, and error correction).
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Last modified: 01/31/07