If you choose to use Jewels suggestion, it must be an amendment to your bylaws- not an addition to your standing rules.
You will have created 2 classes of members- those with voting rights and those without them. While you want your members to be informed voters, think hard about creating different classes of members. Remember to define the time parameters needed for acquiring or losing voting rights.
This amendment should be created in an article of your bylaws that defines membership- not quorum. (RONR defines members as being able to vote.)
rdnh -- You could also consider that only members in good standing who have attended at least one board meeting in the school year AND have provided no less than 2 volunteer hours during the school year are allowed to vote.
It'll be some work prior to the election to validate who may vote, but it sounds like it will be well worth it.
PTA has a stranglehold in our school system. Voting is always a joke. No one checks to see if the people at the PTA meeting are actually PTA members. PTA business is gotten through as quickly as possible during these meetings which are actually school events.
Actually, in my years, I've come to see that many things about PTA are a joke...hope it's different in the PTOs!
We're a PTA so we're subject to their rules. In order to vote you must be a member in good standing for at least one month before you can vote, not that it's ever been a problem because anyone who agrees to serve on the board has always run unopposed since I've been there.
We do not require any dues. We have specified that any parent/guardian of a student and staff are members of PTO. I think we will add that you must have attending one meeting in the current year to be considered an active member and be able to vote during the election in May. This way we do not have people asking friends to come and vote for them when the voters have never been involved in PTO and do not have a clue what it entails.
Completely depends on your bylaws. Some PTOs consider every parent a member without dues being paid. Somewhere in your bylaws it should state what is considered a quorum for voting (for example: a majority will be consider at any official meeting that has 3 or more registered PTO members present for a vote). Or whatever limit you wish to make. Jewel is the very smart parlimentarian here so of course I defer to her but I know we had to add that to ensure we were able to conduct business when we didn't have 100 percent of our registered membership show up!
