We consider the four School staff positions and the chairs of our committees very important - certainly not minor players. There's plenty of work to go around, we would certainly never turn someone away. And aside from President, all the other positions (officers or chairs) are pretty much on equal footing in our group.

I'm not suggesting that our policy of not having school staff as officers is the only way to go. It's just what we felt was right for our group to avoid future problems. (And, by the way, this clause was equally requested by our Principal because HE thought it would be a conflict of interest for his staff.)

Again - we have a great group with very little controversy. But the few times (as President) that I had to strongly disagree with something the Principal wanted, it was usually because we had teachers telling us they didn't want it that way but didn't feel THEY could be the ones to say no.

See, the best year we have had so far was the year a teacher was the Pres. Not because she had the "inside scoop" but because she had a realistic idea of what needed to be do and we all pitched in to help her. Like a board should do, we worked together and the first few minutes of our meetings were catching up then business.

The teachers I know are more concerned with what would happen if they went against the Principal on a PTO issue and how it would effect them. Maybe the words "conflict of intrest" is were I have a serious issue. Or it's an area where one needs to know when to be the employee and when to be the parent group prez.

JHB, our group has teachers reps-2of them- as your group does and we have had a few take on quite a bit and then ask for volunteer help . The last thing I guess I would want to tell these great people working for our school is we want you, we need you, but don't even think about running for anything. Honestly most feel that way already not because of our group but because honestly they just want to go home to feed their cat! (lol)

I'm hearing, come over and play BUT DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING when I would rather hear "come, play, can you build a castle with me? remember we only have $50. [img]smile.gif[/img] "

rh4dad- our school's principal encourages the staff and teachers involvement and has reminded them several times of the "T" in PTO/A.

Since the goal is Parent Teacher Organization I'd think, as is the case with us you'd want them involved. We are lucky the Prinipal comes to every meeting and one or two teachers come on a rotating scheudle to each meeting.

We are a Parent and Faculty Association. At our school none of the teachers or the Principals have ever been on the board. We have had a one or two staff memebers serve on the board but in all those cases they also happened to have children attending the school although that wasn't ever a requirement. The only rule in our bylaws for being on the board is to be a paid member. If you are a paid memeber for the current year you may run for office, vote etc. If you are not a paid member you may attend the meetings but cannot participate in any of the above mentioned activities.

Rae [img]smile.gif[/img]

We fully want the teachers to participate. However, we need open/honest discussion for decision-making. The officers - especially the President - have to stand firm for what the PTO wants. For us this means they need to be independent of the school hierarchy.

We have a wonderful relationship with our Principal, and I worked closely with him for 2 years when I was president. But there were some rare occasions when I had to disagree with how he wanted something done or how money would be spent. And times I had to talk him around to our way of thinking. Putting that burden on someone who is an employee answerable to the Principal isn't fair - even in the best of relationships. And in a really bad situation, the officer could become a mere puppet.

Another problem is that being a PTO officer can become all-consuming (as we all know). Who hasn't spent a bit of "work time" on PTO duties? But for a teacher or staff member to do that can cause problems if it isn't included as part of their "day job". That's one of the "sensitive" areas we had with teacher/parent committee chairs. Certainly the Principal has the responsibility to manage his own staff. But we've had times that a good-hearted teacher/parent let her PTO duties overlap way too much into her teaching time. And there have been times the Principal has come to us behind the scenes and diplomatically asked our help in limiting the scope of teachers' PTO work.

We do want Teachers involved, but we also want to maintain some independence in the core leadership of elected officers as well as a balance of interests. In our case, we have Principal, Vice Principal plus 2 teacher reps as Board members. With a Board of 20+ people, there are only 6 positions school staff can't hold.

[ 06-18-2003: Message edited by: JHB ]</p>

Sorry folks but I'm confused. Why have a Parent Teacher Organization if you want nothing to do with the teachers and staff? Conflict of intrest? What they know more about what is happening behind the sences at school that you, they can talk to key admin people by calling them during a lunch hour and have their full attention?

We all have an idea in our head and our by-laws how our group should be, mine is open to ANYONE that has ANYTHING to do with our school, parents, grandparents, staff, teachers, janitors, kitchen staff.......

Isn't it ironic some posts dieing for ideas how to get teachers involved and you want them to just go away....

I agree. At this time three of our four officers are teacher/staff members. It is a real conflict of interest when you add in that the Treasurer is the school secretary and the second signer on the account is the Principal of the school.

Currently, myself and several parents would like to change the by-laws to include something like the one above. I'm sure there will be a few awkward moments but it will be in the best interest of the PTO.