Running a PTA or booster club year that the next board can pick up

A PTA has a working core and a wide circle. The core is the board and the committee chairs, usually between six and twenty people. They need to see each other, plan together, and keep records. The wide circle is every family at the school. They need to know what is happening and sign up for things, and most of them will never install anything to do it.

So the structure has two parts. The board shares one shared space on Chickadee Bandit. Each board member joins it from their own household, and nobody in the space can see into anyone's home. A space holds 8 people on the Family plan, 12 on Group and 20 on Organization, which is enough for a board and its chairs. It is not enough for every family at the school, and it is not meant to be.

Everyone else is reached through links. Volunteer sheets, potluck sign-ups, event RSVPs and announcements can each be shared as a page that a parent opens from the school newsletter or a QR code on a flyer. They type their name, pick a slot, and they are done. They do not need an account or an app.

Volunteers are most of what a PTA does, and a sign-up sheet in a group chat breaks fast. Three people take the same shift and nobody covers cleanup.

Volunteer Sign-Up holds sheets with slots, and each slot has its own capacity: four parents for the book fair on Tuesday morning, two for setup, one for the cash box. Board members in the space claim, swap and release slots, and the server enforces the capacity, so a slot is never overbooked even if two people tap at the same moment.

Share the sheet and parents outside the space sign up through the link with their name, the slot they can cover, and a note for the organizer. Link sign-ups count against a separate allowance on each slot. You can keep the cash box for board members by setting its link allowance to zero, and leave the hallway shifts open to everyone. The sheet's page shows who has signed up through the link, so the coordinator can see the gaps without counting.

1. Make one sheet per event, not one per season. A sheet with sixty slots across four events is hard to read on a phone.
2. Write the slot title as the job and the time: "Cash box, 3:00 to 4:30". Parents choose from that label alone.
3. Put the link in the newsletter and on a QR code at pickup. A link in one place reaches the parents who read that one place.
4. Archive the sheet when the event is over. It leaves the shared page, and the record stays behind for next year's coordinator.

The carnival, the family dance and the teacher appreciation lunch all need a number before the food is ordered.

Event RSVPs creates an event and collects answers. People in the space answer in the app. Families answer through the shared page with their name, how many are coming, and whether they are going or might come. RSVPs through the link close at a time you set. The live headcount includes the link answers, you can remind only the members who have not responded, and the attendee list exports for the caterer or the front office.

Potluck is for the events where families bring the food. The host sets out dish slots with a cap per category, three mains, four salads, six desserts, and families claim them through the link with their name and what they are bringing. Sign-ups close on the day of the event. The shared page shows what is already coming, which is how you avoid nine trays of brownies.

Most PTA news is something every family should see once: the fundraiser deadline, picture day, the general meeting. A group chat buries it under a hundred replies.

Announcements posts news with admin approval before it goes out, an expiry date, notifications to the people you choose, and group targeting for news meant only for the board or one committee. An announcement can also be shared as a read-only page. Paste that link into the school newsletter and the details live in one place, so a correction to the location only has to be made once.

Expiry matters more than it looks. A board of stale notices is how parents learn to ignore the board, and expired announcements clear themselves.

PTA meetings tend to run long because the same items come back. Usually nobody wrote down who agreed to do what.

Agenda collects items from board members before the meeting, captures notes on each item during it, and tracks action items afterwards. An action item has an owner, so "someone will call the DJ" becomes a name with a task next to it.

Board Minutes holds the formal record. A meeting has its attendees, its motions with who moved and seconded them and the outcome, and a roll-call vote in which each board member records their own yea, nay or abstain. It needs a Board group set up first. Drafts are visible only to that group. Once the minutes are adopted, they are frozen and every member of the space can read them.

The split is useful. Agenda is the working document and anyone on the board can add to it. Board Minutes is the record a bylaw, an auditor, or next year's treasurer will ask for, so it should not be editable after the fact.

PTA money questions are usually simple and rarely answered: how much did the fun run raise, how much is left for the playground, and did the teacher grants come out of this year's budget or last year's.

Reserve Fund Dashboard holds named funds with balances and goals, such as the playground fund, teacher grants or the eighth-grade trip. Each has a ledger of deposits and withdrawals, capital project planning and a balance chart over time. The board manages it and everyone in the space can see it. When the fundraiser closes, the treasurer records the deposit against the fund it was raised for, and the chart shows where the goal stands.

Dues & Contributions tracks dues by billing period, with each member's payment status and allocation rules that post each payment to the right fund as it is recorded. It tracks the people in the space. That fits a booster club whose paying members are a team's parents, or a small PTO. A school-wide PTA whose membership runs into the hundreds usually collects through its state PTA's membership system. That PTA would use Reserve Fund to show where the money stands and skip per-member dues tracking here.

Neither app moves money. Cash, checks and card payments still go through the bank and whatever payment service your PTA already uses. The apps are the record of what came in and where it went.

Spring is election season, and a PTA election works best when people trust the process.

Officer Elections runs nominations, then a secret ballot, then a formal certification of the result. You can choose majority or ranked-choice voting. Ballots are secret on the server, not only on the screen, which matters when the treasurer is also running for president. The people who vote are the people in the space. That fits a booster club or a board electing its own chairs. If your bylaws say the general membership votes at a meeting, follow the bylaws, and record the certified result in the minutes.

The handover is the part most boards skip, and it is why every new board starts from scratch. With the year in one space, the incoming board inherits the archived sign-up sheets with their slot lists, the events and headcounts, the funds and their ledgers, and the adopted minutes. What is missing is the judgment. Ask each outgoing chair to write a short note: what the role involved month by month, which vendor did the carnival, and what they would change. Keep those notes with the space, not in someone's email.

The board plans in one place, and every family signs up from a link without making an account. Slots are never double-booked, headcounts are real numbers, fund balances are visible to the board, and the minutes are permanent.

The test comes in August. Can the new president find out how many volunteers the book fair needed last year, what the fun run raised, and what the board voted on the playground? If those answers are in the space, the new board starts with last year's records instead of an empty spreadsheet.

• Volunteer Sign-Up
• Event RSVPs
• Potluck
• Announcements
• Agenda
• Board Minutes
• Officer Elections
• Dues & Contributions
• Reserve Fund Dashboard

Every app in the library is included with the household plan. Install the ones this guide uses and skip the rest.

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