I think if she has the ability to separate her thoughts and ideas from those of her father in law, then it's not a conflict of interest. While we, as a PTO do not support a member of the school board as a PTO board member, we don't have an issue with a member of their family being on the board. (fortunately, our school board feels the same and actually asked a past president to step down or leave the school board because it was conflict of interest)

What makes anyone think she'd run the board like the school board ? If that's the case, they should vote for whomever is opposing her.

exactly, when you created the bylaws, did you put that stipulation in? If so, it needs to be stuck to.
If you didn't, is there any one else that wants to run? If you have more than 1 person running, who are the people that are going to be voting? You have to be sure it doesnt turn into a popularity contest.
Why does the school board dictate what the pto does? You need to be strong in the reasons for creating the group and not let them make the decisions for you.

If your organization believes that it is a conflict of interest for the President to have a relative on the school board, the by-laws need to reflect that concern. If the by-laws are silent on the matter, your solution for this election is to find an opponent to run against the candidate with a FIL on the school board. If there's not enough time for that, the board will need to be extra vigilant to vote down any motion that is contrary to the organization's stated mission.

I was wondering. We are starting a new PTO group this fall. We actually started it up last spring. A small group of us got together several times and wrote up the bylaws. Tonight is our first meeting to announce elections. We had decided last spring that it would be a conflict of interest to have a President for our group that has a family member on the school board. Well, now , all that has changed. One of the girls in the core group is now running for President and her father inlaw is on the school board and has been forever. Is that a conflict of Interest or should we just go with it? Our reasons for starting up the PTO was because there was no communication between parents and faculty on what was going on. My concern is that with her father inlaw on teh school board that now our PTO will be a mini school board being dictated by what our school board wants us to do , rather then what it is was started for, as a means of communication between parents and school and mostly for volunteering to help in areas of the school. Not so much for fundraising but to get more help for the school for events, etc. What do you think? Is it ok to have a PTO president with a Father Inlaw on the school board? Past PTO's have failed at our school due to the school board eventually dictating what the PTO does.