I agree with almost all of the above. I would not recommend having the principal as a Board Member. If you're not already in a power struggle, it could very well create one. Absolutely you get more bees with honey, but if your principal doesn't want to be bothered with your group, she most likely won't be happy about being on a board. If she is, you may just have yourself a lame duck board.
Consider doing all of the above as outlined and leave the door open for staff and principal to participate. We have a PTO with EXTREMELY limited staff/teacher participation. I wouldn't mind saying absolutely NONE, but I might be forgetting a little something. We wish our teachers would participate with us and even serve on our board, but we manage pretty successfully with peaceful co-existence.
Don't waste a minute in getting those by-laws done and opening your own account.
Wow! What a tough situation to be in. We just got a new principal, too. Fortunately, I had done a lot of restructuring and organizing our PTO last year, so that we were a recognized entity when he came in and he considers us a valuable resource. From observing the way our new principal is "settling in" I'd like to offer a few hypotheses and suggestions regarding your principal.
Your new principal is probably overwhelmed with the beginning of the school year at a new school. Since your group isn't "established" in the school, you're another unknown commodity, which is more than she wants to deal with right now.
Parent - staff relations are often tense because of power struggle - sometimes real, sometimes perceived. Make sure that your principal knows that you want to organize the group in such a way that you will support the staff and the needs of the school.
Having no bylaws or policies in place makes an organized parent group a scary thing for an administrator. Consider getting a group of interested parents together to draft a bylaws proposal clearly stating your group's mission and purpose and how decisions will be made. Make sure that school staff are included. (For example, our PTO's bylaws state that the principal is the vice-president and there are 2-3 teacher reps on the board.) Once you have proposed bylaws, present them to the principal to share with the staff for review and recommendations.
If the staff won't join you, you can always form a parent group that doesn't include them, but it would definitely limit what you can do at school, so try to get them on board. [Remember that you catch more flies with honey - always try to be sweet at school, and find one or two sympathetic ears outside of school to whom you can vent when you really need to!]
Regarding monetary issues, consult with your school district as to their policy regarting parent-group $ and school money. I am almost positive that the district will not want the school handling the money at all. You will need to register with your state as an official organization, and may want to look into the process of filing for 501(c)(3) [non-profit] status. Definitely make sure you get your own bank account and indicate in your bylaws who is designated to sign checks - requiring 2 signatures is best. If the school has been handling "PTO" fundraisers in the past, "your" money may be in a school account and you may be out of luck claiming that money for future use. You may have to start from scratch fundraising, once you are set up as a legal organization.
The best way to get the principal on board is to show her that you really want to HELP her, and her school. Volunteer in other ways to show her that you really just want to be helpful, and that you are trustworthy. THEN, present her with a consice, organized proposal for taking your PTO off of her plate of reponsibilities. But make sure, through the process, that you always show respect to her and her authority over the school (even when you really don't want to!) In the end, it is her job to oversee everything that goes on at her school, and until you develop a relationship of trust with her, it's unlikely she's going to loosen the reigns on the PTO.
The Parent Organization at our school is a fairly new thing. There has always been a PTO at the school but it has primarly been run by the principal. All of this changed last year when we as parents (in January), started to have regular meetings and organized ourselves.
This year we have a brand new principal. She has decided that she will be in charge of the PTO account. When I asked that last years be audited and that a parent be put on the account for this year she said she would think about it.
The principal has since been telling me what I should be doing or more in her case not doing. This is extremely furstrating.
The school has never had any bylaws for the parent group, and I have downloaded the resources on this site. I'm looking for advice on what to do if the principal refused to work with the parents.
