I am the President of the parent group for a very small school- 100 students in k-8th. The district is made up of two schools, one in our community and another school in a town about 20 miles away. The district superintendent serves as principle for both schools. There is obvious favoritism between the schools. She is supposed to spend two days a week at our school and the other three at the other school, yet more often then not she schedules all of her all day district meetings during the times when she should be at our school. In addition , if she does show up, she is usually on campus for only 3 or 4 hours before returnong to the other school. Both schools have a head teacher i place to fill in for her when she is not there, but needless to say, the head teacher in our school spends much more time out of her classroom which leaves are students without a qualified teacher most of the time. Our school board is made up of 5 people. The school board president is very close with the superintendent and does not want to hear about any wrongdoing on her part. Two of the remaining members come out of the other community, so they don't seem to get the parental frustration because they don't have to deal with it as much. One school board member has not attended a school board meeting since December and even though it states in the rules that not fulfilling the duties for three consecutive months is cause for removal, the board won't remove her because she doesn't rock the boat and they are too afraid of who might be appointed in her place. The final member of our board is also secretary of our pto and although she is trying to make changes she is only one voice.
Now, as to how this pertains to out PTO. Our school has a PTO and the other one does not due to lack of parental involvement. That being said, our PTO is only 4 or 5 people......but we work really hard for the betterment of the school and our kids. This year....when we started voicing our dissatisfaction with the superintendent and the running of the school, the board started throwing major obstacles in our face. I attended every school board meeting because I feel it is important. We asked for a spot on the agenda to address the board with what we were doing just to keep them in the loop......mostly as a courtesy and we were told no. Anything we need to do we should do in call to the public. So every month I give them an update, again, just as a courtesy, what we've done, what we've raised, what we are planning. We were told back in November we needed to obtain a million dollar insurance policy in order to hold events in the school. After some digging we found that this wasn't the case. The insurance company said we should as far as they were concerned we were a school club and we should be covered. The next thing they came at us with was a request on a monthly basis for a financial statement. I asked for that in a written request so that I could take it to our parent club board and have a copy for our records, and the request I got was a nasty letter that said if we don't comply they will tell the insurance company not to cover us. Last month they brought in the firm they work with that deals with the insurance issues and we were told that they need access not only to all our financials in case of theft, but any event we want to do must be approved by them and if they decide for what ever reason they can call the insurance company and tell them not to cover us. Again, we are a small community. On a good fundraiser we make $800. We probably bring in about $5000 a year so there is no way we could afford $20,000 for insurance. Also, the last thing they've done is decided we can't even donate to the school without it getting board approval. We wanted to donate $500 worth of library books that were selected by the librarian and the head teacher, but even that had to be approved. I know full well that if the other school had a PTO, they would not come up against all the issues we do, and I know a lot of it is because I rock the boat. Not only to my children and my nieces and nephews attend this school, but I know 75% of the students by name. I am close to these children and I want what's best for them, and if that makes me a boat-rocker so be it. I know there is a lot of small town politics at play here, but I feel like the more we try to do good, the more they want us out. Has anyone else had issues with school boards or can you maybe direct me as to where to turn for help.
Thanks,
Nikka
