Question: Can parents vote at a regular meeting? a general meeting?

We have monthly regular meetings (parents are invited) and 4 general meetings a year. Our Regular meetings are used for all board business including contracts for employees,budget planning,event planning ,etc.The 1st general meeting is for budget approval. Our bylaws do state that we need a 2/3 quorum and each executive board member gets a vote. Our bylaws do not address if parents/gueardians/teachers or principal have a vote at our regular or general meetings. If we have an executive board meeting can that be just for the board?If parents have the right to vote it may encourage more attendees,do they have the right to vote ?

Asked by Anonymous

Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Craig writes:
From your description, it sounds like you have monthly board meetings and quarterly general membership meetings. At the board meetings, only board members are allowed to vote. These function much like school board meetings -- you let people in the audience have their say, but board members make the final decisions. At general meetings, every member who attends may vote. To determine who is eligible to vote, check to see how your bylaws define membership. Can anyone who pays dues become a member? Is membership limited to people who have a child in the school? It's fairly common but not universal among PTOs to let teachers vote. The principal typically acts as an advisor and doesn't vote. One thing you want to check on is the quorum -- the 2/3s number is probably for board meetings. It's unlikely you could get two-thirds of your members to attend a general meeting.

Community Advice

villalobos writes:
Another question; Are "Board" meetings technically different from a "regular" meeting? We call our monthly "board" meetings "regular",maybe we should change that to executive board meeting? It's getting clearer for me...thankyou

Advice from PTO Today

Craig writes:
That change would probably help avoid confusion. Many PTOs hold monthly board meetings and monthly general membership meetings -- it's pretty common to refer to those as board meetings and regular meetings. In your case, the meetings you hold regularly (every month) are board meetings. But using the term "regular" to describe them might cause confusion.