Sue Zeidler, Los Angeles: Even schoolyard bake sales have gone high-tech. In an increasingly wired world, parent-teacher associations(PTAs) -- the traditional purveyors of cookie and lemonade stands -- have morphed into sophisticated, technology-oriented organisations.

They still sell baked goods, but do it far more efficiently by using online tools to coordinate and promote those and other efforts.

"Parents are absolutely more tech-savvy in everything, from making announcements to online fund-raising to connecting more with communities, school administrations, managing calendars and scheduling all kinds of events online," said Jenni GasterSopko, a spokeswoman for the National PTA, which counts 26,000 chartered PTAs around the country among its members.

With PTAs and similar parent-teacher organisations (PTOs) finding more professionals and gadget-friendly parents among their ranks, they have evolved into lean, mean business machines. Their accomplishments include raising tens of thousands of dollars annually, lobbying Congress, championing changes like playground upgrades and new after-school programs and even taking on some budget-squeezed schools' administrative functions.

And as this transformation has occurred, various Web-oriented companies have stepped up to meet PTAs' and other parent groups' technological and organisational needs.

"What we're finding is there's usually one techie parent who assists with a Web site, but as soon as they move on, the PTA isn't able to manage the site," said Scott Garland, chief financial officer of Mediablend, which offers a product called Go WebBuilder for use by PTAs at www.connectingparents.us/.

Makes Promoting Bake Sales Easy

"Basically, you can purchase our product and it will run your PTA Web site forever through the changing of the guard fora $1,500 one-time fee," he said.

Garland said the software saves parents valuable time by enabling them to reuse features like fund-raising sites that promote bake sales and such year after year.

"For your annual fund-raisers, you can simply disable the site after the event and update and enable it again for the following years," said Garland, who is vice president of his child's school PTA.

Similarly targeted products can be found at www.PTAhosting.com, while some PTAs have used www.myschoolonline.com by Pearson Plc's Family Education Network, although the website said it will stop offering these products as of June now that more service providers and schools are offering website building tools.

As with all technological transitions, the corporatisation of PTAs faces some hurdles. For instance, some experts cite agrowing gap between the PTAs of more affluent suburbs and those of lower-income areas, where parents' may not have the same technological skills or access to computers.

Also, the barrage of e-mails and demands from this generation of more involved parents -- many of whom have powerful jobs and are used to wielding influence -- can sometimes be more a hindrance than a help to principals and administrators.

"The traditional notion of school fund-raising has morphed into much greater activity and involvement by parents and by-and-large that has been a good thing," said Vincent Ferrandino, executive director of the National Association of Elementary School Principals.

But sometimes, he noted, principals can feel "inundated."

"Whenever you are asking for more involvement and participation, you run the risk of being overwhelmed by the volume of communication," he said, noting that various principals and school administrators have felt the need to establish some parameters or guidelines.

"In some cases, it is good to have a (parent-teacher) coordinator to sort through e-mails, or issues," he said.

Another concern is the growing tendency among parents to air complaints and concerns involving their schools and children electronically rather than in person.

"E-mails are not a substitute for face-to-face meetings that ought to take place from time to time. Some things are lost in electronic communications, especially when it comes to matters of children, which can be complicated," Ferrandino said.