I am the mother of a 1st grader and was PTO President at our school this year. Because this was very new to me, I was in much contact with our previous PTO President for guidance. When it came time for Elections, we had 4 positions open. We were losing 1 to a middle school, 2 to lack of time, and 1 who was moving (so she said). After we elected a nominating committee, I found out several things that were very questionable to me. Not only did the committe take it upon themselves to color and number code the ballots and change a member of the committe without board approval, but it was also found out that they were calling people to ask them to hold one of the board positions that were already volunteered for while not worrying about the open positions. Because of all of this, we have since lost 2 more members and the one member that brought in double the money that was raised last year and a large amount of donations (never done before) but we also received word that a rumor was started that this same person was stealing money from the PTO and was hard to work with. If you look at the numbers, you can more than tell that this is not possible. Especiall since she is not the Treasure. We also found out that staff members we told that they needed to vote and should vote for change (their ballots were blue) My question to anyone would be, how can this horrible situation be fixed. I feel aweful for the parents who did put so much time and effort into making things better this year and have just had their names drug through the mud. It also sickens me to see that all of the hard work that was done this year will be ruined by a new board who have already stated that they are going to eliminate guest speakers so that the meetings last no longer that 59 minutes, will not miss events for their middle school children just to be on our board, and just took the posion because it would look good on their record since they are going into elementary education. All three of these people were brought in to replace people that stepped down after the rotten way that the elections were handled in the first place. To top it off, I have a daughter that will be starting this same school in two years and another that is only a year old so will definately be at this school for many years to come. Please Help!!!