Thank you for the leads. All of it sounds good. We are in the process of doing our by-laws. This is a new board and when we took over there were no such animal. Our principle attends our meetings is often supportive of many things but more times than not it is more of a tug of war instead of a give and take? Make sense? It doesn't to us either. Thank you for your help, I will keep searching!
No question is dumb here, and we're all glad to help. You may have two different issues, what rights/power does he have legally or technically, and what does he have a practical matter.
You need to look at your school district's policies (if any) on the principal's role for school related groups and also what your by-laws say.
For us, the Principal and Vice Principal are members of the Board, each with one vote. (Additionally,we have two teacher representatives.) The Principal doesn't have the power to veto things exactly, but without his support we often wouldn't move forward. And definitely, anything involving use of school grounds, teachers' time, what happens in the classroom, etc. is under his control (unless a principal was just out of line and you go to a higher authority.)
Could the principal and the Board sit down and agree to what the PTO's role is and what initiatives they would support? If you can find out how he would view the PTO's efforts as valuable and start there, you could work on repairing the relationship and move to some other areas he might not have supported previously.
You may also want to consider adding him to your Board. I find it hard to imagine being productive without our Principal attending our meetings. Often he can express support or explain why something wouldn't work when it's just an idea being discussed and before anyone spends too much time on it. We have a lot of give and take. Good luck!
P.S. You also may want to use keywords like "principal" and search the site further to review previous threads in this area.
I am new to this site, so this may be a dumb question. We have some ... conflicts with our principle on a pretty consistent basis. He is not a board member on our board, but exactly what capacity does he hold? I know you can't answer the question where we are concerned, but what about your boards? Does he/she have voting rights? Can he/she overrule a vote? And so on in that vein?
Amen to that Bill. And those principals do not forget it when things do not go their way. But I think it just proves the point of reminding them that they are not the be all and do all, or the only HEART in the school. CO-OPERATION IS THE KEY TO EVERYTHING.
Our principal does not have the right to remove an officer. Under our by-laws, the principal should first discuss issue with the person involved. If this doesn't resolve the issue, then it needs to be brought to the general membership for discussion/voting. We always listen to the needs of our principal, but sometimes an officer/president will need to make a tough decision that is in the best interest of the PTO that may not go along with the needs of the principal.
I'd say gifford has it right. If you're going to have a PTO then you need to work with the school. You need to use school rooms, the school newsletter, teachers and everything else. So you have to cooperate together. If you want to push for rights and things, then they might just say you can't use any school facilities and things.
