The principal can keep you out of the classrooms by saying it is disruptive. So that is a battle you are likely to lose and end up with a bad relationship with her to boot...
Count the students in the lunch room if they sit as a class. We do that during Red Ribbon Week...
By the way, PTO's come under all kinds of names: PTO, PTSO, PTVO, etc. Are you sure your group isn't already a PTO? If you have your own tax number, there had to be a set of bylaws somewhere along the way. I'd keep checking for them. I don't know if the IRS would actually have kept a copy (God only knows what they do with the stuff like bylaws and such), but you might check.
I would tell her that the teachers do all follow the rules and since your group is suppling the prizes, then you should be allowed to count and decide. We had a Box Tops contest and one class swore they had a certain amount of Box Tops but they were counting other labels and expired one and they were upset when we told them another class got more and told us we needed to come in and explain to their class why they didn't get a party. You can see the problem. Some classes are very competitive and I don't put it past some of our teachers to pad the results and since it seems your rules could be misunderstood that you could have the same problem. If your principal doesn't like it, then I would discuss at the meeting that your group should consider not supporting this anymore since you aren't allowed to control it. Good luck.
The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating-in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life. --Anne Morris
Hi there!
I don't even know where to start there have been so many issues with our principal but the most recent thing that happened involves our Spirit Day. Every Friday is spirit day at our school and our spirit commitee (two ladies)come in and count the kids who are wearing either school t-shirt or school colors, blue and white. The class that has the most gets a choice of pizza, ice cream or cup cake party from PTAC. We do this once a month. Last week, however, one of the teachers took it upon herself to count the kids and yell at PTAC committe since she claimed there were 10 not 9 kids in school colors. Some teachers will count socks as spirit wear!!!! It is not fair to the kids who really do try. So I don't trust teachers to do the count. But my principal informed yesterday that from now on teachers will do the count, we have to take their word for it, and we will provide the party. So basically we have no saying in what goes on. I was pissed! Oh, as he put it, it is going to be that way or there will be no spirit day! Is it just me or we have a problem here? We have raised more money this year (brand new committee) then they have in the past few years combined and yet no thank you from just about anyone. We tried switching to PTA or PTO but that one time at our meeting all the teachers showed up (we gave them an option to vote) and decided to stay with with PTAC. No bylaws, nothing! We do have our own account though with our tax ID. Please tell me does he the right to do this? I am lost.
Thank you so much,
Sanja
