I read this and had to send it to our new principal as soon as I got done, he is also in his first year. I know it seems hard for you, the beginning of this year I wasn't sure about our principal, I didnt get the warm, fuzzy feelings that our old principal and founder of our group had. The thing is being in a new situation, trying to make his staff like him, not knwoing the history of the kids or families your principal may just be a little overwhelm. Instead of totally writing him off why dont you try meeting with him, we meet twice a month and it has really helped! Maybe he is trying to find his niche, and maybe the promise to have parents come and go freely ran into some other resitance that you are not aware of. Give him a chance, I know it sounds like you have been through alot, but he needs to learn from you as you need to learn from him!

This is our principal's first year at our school. When he first came, I held a meeting with him and he talked about how he wanted all our parents to come and go freely and he was overall a huge fan of parental involvement. That hasn't at all been the case. He tries to run our meetings, takes our ideas to be his own, and he is all about his relationship with his teachers (which is great, unless it is at the sake of students and parents. During our board meeting last week, he stepped for a minute to speak to a parent. We overheard him yelling at the parent. His exact words were "Lady you don't know what your talking about" and then the assistant principal closed the door. This is not the first time this has happened. When he came back in everything was fine until I the president said I needed to have my vice president run the General PTO meeting this week. Things really got heated, he said quite a few hurtful things. Let me back up a minute. The reason I can't attend the meeting is because it is my daughter's birthday. Now had I had a say in when these meetings take place I wouldn't have scheduled it on this day. But I have not missed a PTO meeting or event in 3 years and these meetings tend to last quite a while (kids perform at each one). Now he says he will not ask teachers to attend these general meetings anymore and he has not spoken to me since. Now I am not sure what to do about this. I want to have a good relationship with him, but when he behaves this way it's hard. I used to walk freely around the school, I volunteer in the office every Friday and now there is so much tension that I don't feel comfortable there. Did I mention that he never joined the PTO, yet required teachers to do so and we have had 4 students transfer because of disputes with parents. Just to let you know what I am up against. Any Advice??