For a PTA
A calendar link a PTA can publish for families
A PTA can save families a semester of retyping by publishing one calendar link. Parents subscribe once. Holidays, programs and meeting nights show up on the calendar they already check. A PDF and a newsletter still help, but they are not a calendar. This page is a short brief you can send to a PTA president or a front office.
Publish a link, not only a flyer
Families lose campus dates when the only copy is a PDF attached to a Thursday email. A subscribe link (an ICS or iCal address, or a calendar the school already shares) lets a parent add the year in one step. Google's steps for adding a link are in Add a friend's calendar from a link. Apple's are in Subscribe to calendars on Mac. Outlook's are in Import or subscribe to a calendar in Outlook.com.
Put the link in the same place every time: the campus newsletter footer, the PTA homepage, and the first-week packet. Tell people the name of the calendar so they recognize it after they subscribe. Texas PTA is the state association if the board wants a broader starting point than this page.
What belongs on the shared calendar
Keep the shared calendar to facts the whole campus can see. A parent can subscribe without wondering whether a child's name was published by mistake.
Add the dates everyone needs
No-school days, early release, programs, picture day, book fair, and PTA meetings. Use a clear title and a start time when you know it.
Update the same calendar when a date moves
Subscribers follow the feed. A new PDF does not move a date they already subscribed to. Edit the event on the calendar you published.
Leave private details off
No student names, no parent phone numbers, no home addresses, no classroom lists. Those belong in a message to the people who need them, not on a link anyone can open.
Say how to subscribe, in one line
"Add this link to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook, or your family organizer." Link this page or the district's own help if you have it.
How a family adds the link
A parent pastes the link into the calendar app they already use, or into HouseChief as a read-only feed. HouseChief does not write events back to the PTA calendar. Rides, carpools and "we are skipping this one" stay on the family's own calendar.
Newsletters still matter for the paragraph that never becomes an event. Parents who use HouseChief forward that email and approve the dates. The PTA does not get a login, and it cannot email HouseChief on the family's behalf. Dallas-Fort Worth households following several campuses can use the same habit for each link: DFW school calendars.
This page is general information for volunteers, not legal advice. If a district has its own rule for what may be published, follow the district.
Sources
Questions
What should a PTA publish instead of a PDF?
A subscribe link to one campus calendar, plus a one-line note on how to add it. Keep the PDF if you like, but the link is what lands on a family's calendar. Update that same calendar when a date moves.
What should stay off the public calendar?
Student names, parent phone numbers, home addresses and class lists. Publish dates the whole campus is meant to know. Send anything private only to the people who need it.
Can families use the link in HouseChief?
Yes. They add it as a read-only calendar feed. HouseChief does not change the PTA calendar. Parents still forward newsletters when a date is only in the email, and a parent approves those before they are added. See the FAQ.