To clarify: The accused is in the room for the entire trial including the closing arguments. RONR pg. 638 - 639. As far as the voting, you are correct. This is one time when a member is denied his/her voting rights. However, if the trial is conducted per RONR guidelines, it appears tha the defense counsel for the accused may vote his conscience (if a member).

Jewel3 misspoke when she said that the accused votes at his own trial. The accused is not allowed to stay in the room while the deliberations and vote of the trial are ongoing. RONR pg. 640.

Eh, you're probably right dlf. My thought was this person would be dissuaded from trying if she knew such a letter had been sent. The letter signed by principal approach still allows her to try to solicit, and either the business owner forgets to check or if he does, the problem parent says, oops I forgot the letter and tries a different business -- not quite the same embarrassment as, "we've been told not to give you to."

Perhaps you can threaten that if you hear the problem parent doing it again, you'll send the letter.

In rnbowmon's case, if that person is soliciting for your school but has no affiliation with it, that's fraud, and the police probably ought to be involved. Beammeup's situation isn't really all that different, if you've actually told that person not to solicit on your behalf.

we are having a similar issue, with someone collecting donations on our part. The differnce, we don't know who it is. We have a discription, but have no idea who it is. So our resoluntion is just as dlf has stated, we will have letters signed by an appropriate person and the local businesses will be informed that legit requests are only in paper form, nothing verbal.

Phew--I'd be careful about sending letters around. You might face slander issues...which would be a whole other thing.

What you could do is inform businesses that folks that are collecting on your behalf will have a letter signed by the prinicipal to show they are representing the school with their requests.

No letter; no authorization to collect donations. That's puts it in the who can vice the who can't box.
d

After the ethics committee issues its report, I wonder if it would make sense to send a letter to all the businesses in town, letting them know that Mrs. X was found guilty of ethics violations, she is no longer affiliated with the PTO, please do not work with her, etc. I'm not sure she'll stop even if she does resign or get voted out.

I'm disappointed in the people who say they won't ever be on a board again -- if all the good people leave, it's only the nutcases who are left! You should really collect those 6 people and get them to think about what you, realistically, can do: it's not like you can tie her up in the boiler room or send her to Siberia.