Please Join the PTO Pilot Project

May 25 14:04 UTC 1996

As some of you may already know, I'm working on a project to assist the AA
Schools PTOs by trying to get them on-line via mail and conferencing.  There
are 30 schools each with its own PTO, and a PTO Council.

These groups are suffering from lack of participation, as do most volunteer
groups.  Some, like the Tappan group, already use email extensively.  Other
groups are intimidated by the technology and shudder at the thought (even
though they may have AOL, Prodigy or CIS at home anyway).  I fyou drive by
Clague Middle School you'll see a sign out front "PTSO Officers Needed".  When
i talked to the outgoing president (of 2 years) she told me they have 675+
families and can only get 10-15 ppl to attend meetings or participate.

The PTO Council wasn't certain until the last meeting that they would even
be able to continue to exist into next year due to lack of participation. 
And yet, the AA Public Schools now have their own server and Internet ethernet
connections (via cable television) is expected to be in each classroom in
about 2 years.  These parents and teachers are going to be overwhelmed at the
change if they don't begin to get technologically tuned now.

HVCN has wholeheartedly supported this venture and i have begun what I'm
calling the PTSO Pilot Project.  It will evolve into some form probably unlike
my current 'vision', which is to include a separate conference for each PTO
and one for the PTO Council.  All participants should be available via email
as well.

There are now two items in the HVCN Education Forum and we'll be adding
pointers to PTO resources in the Education InfoCenter soon.

Please, visit the forum and comment in the PTO item(s), even enter an item
of your own.  Also, spread the word among all your aquaintances who have kids
in AA Schools and get them to visit the forum as well.  This will only work
if people participate.  The possibilities are exciting!

I hope the inertial effect can be overcome before the end of this school year,
and then we can 'tweek' the project over the summer and all PTOs will get a
technological jump start on the fall activities.  At least one librarian says
she will telnet in from Manistee over her summer break.

See you in the education forum at hvcn (http://www.hvcn.org/).

        "It is the pleasurable task of those of us responsible for
         the education, not so much to teach, but to inspire the
         desire to learn."

response 2 of 9:

May 26 16:56 UTC 1996

I just found a site I'll pass along to srw to link to the education
infocenter.  The South Central Network Consortium of Michigan (SCNC) is a
group of universities, colleges, intermediate school districts and school
districts working together to provide Internet access to all of the school
districts in southeastern Michigan _before December 1996_!  The SCNC effort
is partially funded by a grant from the Michigan Public Service Commission.

Find them at http://www.scns.k12.mi.us/

I was directed to the new url for Thurston school at:

  http://aaps.k12/mi.us/~thurston/

and that aaps "server" is apparently hosted by SCNC.

response 4 of 9:

May 27 16:32 UTC 1996

Thanks for finding that, Richard. Of course, srw is right - hard to beat the
srw/danr combo, especially when they have all those librarians looking over
their shoulders! :-) We _too_ can be chauvinistic!

response 6 of 9:

May 28 01:36 UTC 1996

Hope? You will. You will. You will want to, and you will.

response 8 of 9:

Jun 4 20:28 UTC 1996

I reached the PTSO forum on HVCN, but I gave up trying to enter it because
I got caught by the "World Wide Wait."
        Rickyb, please place me on the mailing list.  Hope this note will
be the equivalent of e-mail.   8-)