The teachers can go out and create any organizationt hey want to. They have to get the cooperation of the Principal same as you do to do anything. I would go about amending the by laws to reduce the teachers reps to 1 BTW (whatever that process is for you) unless there is a real need for 2 reps because of the number of teachers you have! I do not know the size of your board, but if it typical it sounds like you have a voting block already established! Os this extra teachers rep off set by an extra parent rep? Sounds like you have a couple of teachers that dont want to let go of the control. Someone may need to remind them that the principal has the control despite what they may think, that someone should not be you BTW [img]smile.gif[/img]
Now legally you are right there is only one PTO board the one incorporated. The other one needs to change it's name! I hope they did not send info to your memebrs and ask them for dues! If they did they owe you money. With what I am reading here you seriously need to get the principal involved in this.
There is ONE PTO therefore there should be ONE board, and it should be made up as your bylaws say it should. If you have vacancies then everyone else pitches in. As for no thanksgiving lunch - sounds like that's a teacher thing, right? Why not send a questionnaire to all the teachers that includes the activities you had last year, any different ones you are considering this year, and a space for "suggestions" = something like a comment card at a restaurant - on a scale of 1-10 how important do you think this activity is for the benefit of the school and those supported by PTO? Or "Strongly Agree" "Agree" "Neutral" "Disagree" and "Strongly Disagree". Doesn't have to be anything fancy - but that way you can get a good handle on the pulse and people are sometimes more inclined to give their opinion when they think it will remain anonymous. Just a thought.
Keep up the great work, always for the kids, Cathie!
Yes this does help, except for one more question.
our by-laws have 2 teacher reps as voting exc.board members, these teachers want their own whole board, they already said no thanksgiving lunch this year and oh well the other teachers will get over it. I disagree we have done this every year since we went from pta to a pto. and there were no plans for red ribbon week(to focused on this fall festival) pto always gave out treats, pencils, ribbons,ect..to every student at the school. I have no problem with teachers want to be on the pto board but not a seperate board, we always included the 2 reps we had every year in our board meetings, now with 2 boards, like I said earlier our by-laws only reconize one board, the one with the 2 teacher reps. I feel I should be able to blend the 2 and keep everyone happy, no-co positions our by-laws don't reconize this...I hope this is making sence,
Teachers on the board GREAT they have never been denied the opportuniy to be part of pto. Please read my previouse post under this same heading and you will see where this started and how I came to need help....any suggestions are greatly appericiated
Why was there a temporary board? O.K. - stupid question, because what's done is done and you need to move forward from here. Let's see if we can take this one thing at a time:
Teacher spending money on planning the carnival - are the expenses reasonable and truly related to the carnival? If so - then I would explain to the teacher that while this is not normally the S.O.P. of the group and does not follow by-laws, when income is received related to this event that is sufficient to reimburse her, that you will ask the board to make an exception and reimburse her. (You're looking like you're doing everything you can, but still stating it's a board decision.)
T-Shirts - borrowing money, I would say absolutely not. Ask for the invoice from the vendor and explain that whoever authorized this did not have the authority to speak on behalf of the board. You will certainly pay the invoice, but must process it through appropriate channels and if that means you have to wait until you've sold enough t-shirts to cover the bill then so be it. I HAVE heard of parent groups borrowing money (lending - NO, borrowing - yes) but only when it was written into the bylaws of the group as to for what purposes a loan could be taken, at whose authority, etc.
Teachers on board positions - unless your bylaws state differently, I have absolutely positively no problem with teachers holding voting board positions. There may be times when they may be uncomfortable voting (teacher stipends, teacher appreciation events) or you may feel uncomfortable with them doing so - but I think blanketly saying that because you are teacher/staff/administration you aren't able to hold a board position is being exclusive and not inclusive. But two separate boards????? Why? I don't see much purpose there - unless there are two separate and distinct groups - the TO and the PO?????
As far as blanketly vetoing what the temporary board did - I think that will cause more harm than good. I might ask to have minutes, and if there are none, ask that they be recreated from memory with a specific notation that they were prepared on blank date after the fact from memory regarding meeting held on such and such date.
Hope this is at least somewhat helpful and wishing you much success in the coming year!
I have a few questions I'm hoping someone can answer for me.
I understand that the temporary pres. and co- pres need to still conduct some of the business of pto, like paying bills, membership,elections.
Can they conduct other busniss like, arange fundraisers with out voting on them and host a fall festival with out planing and voting on it.
our temp pres who is all so a teacher, planed a fall festival and used the pto name to back it and finance it, I was elected president this week and I had my first meeting, at the meeting there are no minutes reflecting any votes for a fall festival or fundraisers, estemated cost ect.. What worries me is that the ball is rolling for this festival and no plan as to where the funds for this is going or cost limts to put it on. This same teacher has informed me that she has put a tremendouse amount of money out of her pocket for this and expects to be reimbersed her funds. Our by-laws state all monies, functions ect, need to be writen up and presented to the board for a vote, this was not done, also...
I was informed that this same teacher asked to borrow 707.00 dollars from the school to purchase t-shirts to sell at school, when pto has 1100.00 in the bank from membership dues, bookfairs, and pizza sales at back to school night and from the pencil machiene pto owns.I wrote the princepal an e-mail stateing to him that PTO has never borrowed any funds from anywhere and will not do so, we always raised funds to buy the shirts or sold shirts on a pre-pay basis, also there were no metion of the borrowing of funds in any meeting minutes, so do I have the right as president elect to veto all temp. board action relating to fall festivals, borrowing monies ect. ?Also our elections voted in 2 boards a parent board which is the ones our by-laws are for and a teacher/staff board which cosist of the teachers who were the temp pto board with no by-laws in place for them. our by-laws have no co-positions ecept for chaipersons. I have had parents(one being a district trustees wife) ask me about it and why are teachers doing it, she thought the board had 2 teacher reps not a board. What do you suggest I do? I would like our board to be blended with the teachers if they want to stay fill vacant posistion on the parent board(there is one) and keep 2 of them for teacher reps. I am very uncomfortable with this 2 board thing and our by-laws do not reconize it HELP
