Question: Optional members of executive committee?

We have an executive board consisting of a president, vp, secretary and treasurer. We also have people called "classroom liaisons"; there are usually two of these, currently three, and in some years none at all. Our current president would like the classroom liaisons to have voting rights on the executive board, but we do not want to require that the positions be filled. Two questions: Is this a good idea? And if so, can anyone suggest bylaws language to codify it?

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Advice from PTO Today

Craig writes:
How are the classroom liaisons chosen? Your entire membership elects (or at least has the right to elect) your four officers. Adding three appointed members to the board significantly dilutes the power of the vote. The next question is who makes the appointments? If it's the president, then you could end up in a situation where you can never outvote the president -- she always has herself plus three liaisons vs. the three other officers. If you decide to go ahead with this, one way to write it into the bylaws would be to make the classroom liaisons ex officio members of the board. In other words, by the nature of their jobs, they are also board members. (Ex officio members have full voting rights, unless otherwise specified in the bylaws.) That way anyone holding the title of classroom liaison becomes a board member, but if the positions aren't filled, there are no extra board members. Does that help?