The participation of families and students is essential to create an engaged and committed school community. Therefore, organizing a family and student association is a good way to achieve this participation. However, creating and organizing a Parents’ Association can be complicated. That’s why in this post we bring tips for successfully organizing a family and student association.

From defining goals to evaluating results, including the action plan, this article will show you all the elements that cannot be missing in the organization of the family and student association. Check it out!

Step 1: Define the objectives of the AFA and establish an organizational structure

Has it been decided to organize a Family and Students Association at the school? Then the first step to follow will be to define the objectives of the association. It will be important to establish 3 or 4 general and specific objectives that you pursue and the mission of the association. Some objectives may include, for example:

• Foster the involvement and participation of families in their children’s learning.
• Organize valuable extracurricular activities for students.
• Be a support for students with special needs.
• Provide resources and materials to teachers and students.
• And many more!

Once the objectives are established, it will be crucial to determine the Parents’ Association leadership team. This team will be responsible for leading the association and coordinating all daily activities. To choose the leadership team, it is common to establish a call aimed at families and/or responsible persons, indicating the deadline and requirements for applications. Then the final candidates are selected through interviews or voting. The whole process must be transparent.

Another aspect to consider is to establish working committees, each oriented to a specific topic, such as event organization, fundraising, materials, etc. Thanks to this, the workload is distributed and all activities and resources carried out by the AFA can be better managed.

Step 2: Communication and participation

If you already know who leads the Parents’ Association, who participates, and what the objectives of the association are, it’s time to define how communication and participation will be.

Firstly, it is essential to ensure effective communication between the members and the rest of the families, students, and school staff. This may include instant messaging services, email, social networks, face-to-face meetings, etc. A good way to achieve this is with Edvoice, Additio’s communication platform. With Edvoice, you will have access to unidirectional and bidirectional communications, and you can share all kinds of resources, which will facilitate the association communication.

Secondly, it is essential to prepare an action plan that helps achieve the objectives and mission. To develop the action plan, it will be important to maintain accurate records of all actions carried out, maintaining complete honesty and transparency.

Finally, in this step, it will be important to determine how to involve families and the entire educational community, taking into account their opinions and points of view. It will be essential to have direct and constant communication (with Edvoice, for example), invite to meetings, encourage collaboration, etc.

Step 3: Assessment of the results

To determine if a Parents’ Association has been successfully organized, the achievement of the association’s objectives and mission should be evaluated periodically. By doing so, areas for improvement can be identified and necessary changes can be made.

Some of the elements that allow for the evaluation of the success are:

• Degree of involvement and participation of members.
• Degree of involvement and participation of other families and staff.
• Analysis of finances and determination of whether fundraising goals have been met.
• Quality and effectiveness of communication channels.

By evaluating these aspects, you will have a clear view of the functioning of the Parents’ Association and whether changes need to be made to improve its management.

Have you been or are you currently a member of a parents’ association? How was your experience?

Organizing a parents’ association is quite a challenge, and if you’ve had the opportunity to do so, we’d love to hear about your experience. Will you share it with us? Remember that you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.

And don’t forget to register for Additio Starter to try the platform completely for free 😉

Good luck!