Question: Last minute transition

Our PTO literally underwent a new trasition this evening. The new President was in her role for 2 weeks and resigned due to unexplainable misconduct. Within that time frame many parents have been contacted and rumors have started. I would like to introduce the new President and Vice President and have the parents be receptive to the change. We are entering a new building and the expectation is that this will be a much more amazing and parent driven year. How do I respectfully reach out to the parents and avoid questions that may be gossip driven?

Asked by Anonymous

Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Craig writes:
Situations like this tend to be fairly nuanced, and it's hard give specific advice without knowing more about the incident and how parents reacted to it. In general, you have two things to communicate. One is telling people that the president resigned. The second is that you have a new, talented president who stepped up and you're excited about the great things you've planned for the year. When you make this kind of announcement, you should focus on the future and the positive rather than the past and the former president: "As you may have heard, our president was unable to continue in that job and resigned as of xx. Fortunately, we have a talented person who has stepped up, and we're expecting a great year. Our goals this year..." If the incident is something the whole school (vs a handful of insiders) will be discussing, you might need to address it by very briefly (and without the gory details) describing the incident, explaining that the PTO doesn't condone it, all parties regret it, and such and such action has been taken to prevent it in the future. What you don't want to do is get into a public discussion dissecting exactly what happened. Instead, let people know that whatever decision you came to was made by the board after consulting with the former president (if appropriate) and the principal (if he participated). It was taken in a measured way and it is final. People are going to gossip about this; you can't stop that. What you want is for it to go away quickly rather than mushroom. You do that by showing that you took a logical and businesslike action and that there's no going back. Then get people focused on moving forward. Good luck, and if you'd like to post more details, I'd be happy to give this some more thought.