Question: Unfilled Board Positions After Election

What happens if some of the board positions are not filled after an election? Can the PTO exist without all the positions filled?

Asked by Anonymous

Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Craig writes:
If you're worried about the legalities of having the right board members, don't stress about that. As long as you have someone or a few people who are willing to put in the effort to keep the PTO going, you should just move ahead in the best way you can. Is your problem overall involvement or simply that no one is interested in taking on an officer position? If it's the latter, here's an article that may help a bit. It talks about ways to get people to feel more comfortable about taking on that challenge. It's called Officer Transition: Planning Ahead.

Community Advice

Joyce Lande writes:
Thanks, I have printed the article and plan to read. My concern was that a few of the key positions (treasurer) may not be filled. Since my post this am, a very capable person has stepped forward.

Community Advice

alli68 writes:
We, unfortunately, have had two years in a row that we had unfilled board positions. The first year we didn't have a 2nd co-president for 6 months, and the next year I moved up from secretary to co-president, and we didn't have a secretary for 8 months. Both times, the other three board members just picked up the slack. It's not ideal, but it was better than having the PTO end. Hopefully your by-laws aren't written to exclude that possibility. If they are, maybe you can do whatever your by-laws say you need to do to change them. In the mean time, just keep your eyes & ears open & keep sending those notes home. I had sent three letters home with increasing urgency, and finally someone stepped up & said, "hey, I didn't know you were looking for a secretary - I can do that." If there's one thing I've learned from being on the PTO, it's that most parents only read a small portion of what comes home in the kids' backpacks! Good luck!