Way to go Chrystal!! I bet she was really stunned. Maybe this year I can get the guts to do the same thing. I find that even though I am treasurer - I am left out in the cold. Things that I have asked the school secretary for she acts like she does not know what I am asking for. Then I see her willingly give the information to other officers--no questions asked. Anyway, good for you Chrystal and Angela - how are things with your group?

I can totally sympathize with what you are going through...What our all newly elected board of officers did at our first meeting to neautralize the former president was priceless. We have been struggling to attain our positions for months now...we did not have accsess to our pto funds until 3 days before our first meeting...did not know about binding fundrasing contracts until two days before our "scheduled" kick off and so on...only a handful of people knew of the problems because we did not want to appear to be catty and thought it unprofessional to jump into the middle of the nasty mudslinging party...so as we called our first meeting to order I made a public display to thank our former president for all of her dedicated service to our pto and for making the transition so very smooth and for her helpfulness in getting us started out on the right foot then proudly with a smile handed her a smiley face flower arrangement and asked for a round of applause. She was so stunned that she did not even do what she had talked of doing which was to nit pick every item on our agenda and budget. To the new parents who came to the meeting it had seemed that there were no problems at all...but to the ones who knew they figured "killing them with kindness" was much more effective and classy than the terrible nonsense that has taken place in the past.

I totally agree with Patti. It is sometimes very discouraging to find out that certain people are actually working against you and the good things that you are trying to do at your school. You just have to keep on doing the very best that you can, be as civil and as professional as possible, and it will only reflect positively on you and your organization. Troublemakers often end up hurting themselves more than anyone else, even if it may not seem like it at the time.

We also had a similar situation. This is my third year and have not been able to get hold of the ledger from the very first year. We didn't have the going home notes but did have a bad reputation. One suggestion is to type up a letter from the new slate of officers about this problem; have it approved by your principal and make sure all of your names are on it (typed and signatures). This way you and the other new officers will know that the information came directly from you. If someone asks about something from this "paper" that you and the others are unaware then you can say to them that this "info" did not come from you. What we did was start from scratch and work our way up. We used what we had and acted as if the first year never happened. Since that time, we have earned the respect we deserve as PTO and $20,000 for our school in the past two years. Maybe if you ignore them-they will go away. Make everything you do be the very best it can be and that will hit them hard and then these people will not be able to say anything. I hope that I have made sense.

We had a situation with things being sent home that should not have been at one time. The basic answer for us was "bottum line" the principal is in char ge of the school, period. Anything and everything that was sent home with any parent had to be approved by the principal, end of the line. I hope this makes sence to you.

MY sister has recently been elected President of our PTO. It is apparent that there has been some misappropriation of funds and the former PTO board has brought forth bad press for our school. It has become ugly since the election and the former board has been passing out papers at school and not allowing the Majority to see what they are passing. I fear this activity will continue and would like to know if anyone has any suggestion or advice for us regarding keeping this civil. I would also like to know if anyone else has had this to deal with and how you have overcome this.