Membership is growing for Santiago Hills PTA in Irvine (Fourth District PTA) thanks to strengthened visibility.
Membership Chair Karen Chao emphasized that communication is critical when increasing membership. The PTA started using social media this year, creating accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and also learned to be visible and have a physical presence on campus.
Chao shared that they tried several new visibility and engagement strategies this year as they asked people to “be a piece of the PTA puzzle.”
One strategy that they introduced was “Popcorn Friday,” where any child whose parent had either joined the PTA or donated to the pledge drive received free popcorn at lunch. Santiago Hills started a campaign at a couple of back-to-school night events in the days before school started and immediately got the info out to everyone once school began. They also created packages that combined
membership, pledge drive donations and yearbook purchases.
Chao noted that having a stronger PTA through increased visibility allowed them to introduce new programs and bring back ones they had not been able to have for some time, including a primary-art program, a writing program and after-school enrichment classes.
“With a strong PTA, we also helped make some major facilities improvements on campus in the last few years,” she said. “If the PTA had not worked so hard at publicizing these bigger needs, we would not be able to help the school improve or build membership.”
More about this PTA
- K-6 School
- 619 Students
- 10% Free and reduced school lunch
- 18% English Language Learners
- +100 PTA members over same time last year*
- After Class Enrichment, Meet the Masters AA Program,
- Around the World Cultural Fair, Book Fair, Tiger Trotters Running Club, Reflections Parent Speaker Series
*as of October 2016 reporting.