Bowman Monthly Newsletter

Here is an overview of the various vehicles you should leverage to get the word out about your event, fundraiser or activity.

Published every month, the Monthly Newsletter includes brief blurbs about all upcoming Bowman academic and school community events*. It is the primary communication vehicle for all purposes including: advertising (pre-event), communicating about your event once it has happened, and recruiting and thanking volunteers.

*Lexington community announcements which are outside of Bowman should be sent to the Bowman PTO Google Group.

Bowman News – PTO News (Principal Announcements)

The Bowman News is sent out every Friday afternoon by the principal. Please email [email protected] with any news you would like in the PTO News section of the announcements by Thursday, noon. This must be a simple plain text announcement with minimal formatting (bold, italics, underline) and links.

Bowman PTO Social Media – Facebook & Twitter

www.facebook.com/BowmanLexPTO and https://twitter.com/BowmanLexPTO can be used for advertising events, recruiting volunteers, and reporting news for Bowman and the Bowman community. (Please post your own event info or send info to [email protected])

Bowman PTO Google Group

A secondary vehicle to be used if your message missed the Bulletin on Monday, and for any Lexington community announcements that are outside of Bowman, the group can be used for items such as final notices about events, changes in time/date due to weather, etc. To submit an announcement to the Bowman PTO Google Group, send your message as an email to [email protected]. You must be a group member to send email to the group, so please see instructions for how to sign up.

Bowman PTO website

Bowmanpto.org is the best forum to exhibit general information about your committee and the additional details of your upcoming events. Your committee’s web page and the PTA home page with upcoming events are available to Bowman community at all times. Request updates to your committee’s web page by sending details of your request to [email protected].

Bowman Room Helpers

Bowman Room Helpers are volunteers in our children’s classrooms who signed on to help organize and participate in “classroom activities” (versus PTO events). Therefore, we ask Board members to limit their use of Room Helpers as a communication vehicle to class or grade-level specific events as much as possible. PTO activities that would most likely need Room Helpers to help get the word out to their classrooms are programs such as Big Backyard. General, school-wide fundraisers and other community-wide events should focus on the other, above-mentioned communication vehicles as much as possible. In all cases, please limit requests to Room Helpers to one communication per event as much as possible. All requests to forward information to Room Helpers should be sent to the Room Helper Chair at [email protected].

Morning Announcements

You might want to drum up excitement with students for an upcoming event through the morning announcements.  These are read each morning at school by students.  The announcement should be short and simple, something catchy for students.  Must be approved by principal via PTO co-presidents (plan 1+ week in advance).

Bowman PTO Letterhead

Please use the Bowman PTO Letterhead for general communications.  

Backpack Flyers**

While we try to do as much as possible online, you may want to send out flyers 3-4 weeks prior to the event/registration date. Please try to keep these to a minimum and flyers require co-president approval. Also, consider only printing a half page flyer to cut the paper use in 1/2! Please contact [email protected] regarding a flyer.

We use the LPS Print Shop for all jobs, please fill out a Printing Request Form.

Please use the Black and White Flyer Template for paper flyers and Color Flyer Template for electronic flyers.

Posters, Banners and Sandwich Board**

Once your poster is approved by the principal (via the PTO co-presidents), these may be placed around the school to advertise your event. See “PTO Event Planning Guide” for more info.

Poster info:** Please contact the VP Communications to inquire about listing your event on the front kiosk sign. Other good spots for posters/flyers: Front entry windows, Kidsborough Day pickup entry door from rear parking lot, “walkers” side door window, gym/cafeteria windows.

Banners:** Banners can be hung in the lobby if your event is next on the calendar.

Sandwich Board:** Our sandwich board stand is kept in the Bowman Lobby. This can display signs up to 24×36″ on each side.

Please contact the PTO Co-Presidents ([email protected]) if you have any questions in planning the date and location of your event.

**IMPORTANT REMINDER:  All flyers, posters, and signs must be approved before printing or going home with students. Please coordinate approval of your materials through the co-presidents.**

Printing

  • Please use LPS Print Center to print flyers, posters, and sandwich board posters (we have an account with them). Specifically, you will need to:
  • Use black and white ink for flyers. Only the Bowman Auction flyers may be printed in color ink.
  • Quantity = 550 in bundles of 25 each for easy distribution to the classrooms
  • Before printing anything please make sure to get approval for your flyers and signs from the PTO Presidents ([email protected]). Thanks!

Questions?
Contact VP Communications, at [email protected].