I thought this article would be interesting for any current or future users contemplating the switch from PTA to PTO or vice versa.
www.mysuburbanlife.com/lemont/news/educa...113A-PTA-dissolution
Sounds to me like the leaders of this group did a great, fair, confident job and did basically just what we recommend groups do. A short list:
1. They had an open discussion among members and administration, etc. and got a general consensus on how the group wanted to proceed. Had parents or leaders or admins not wanted to move -- that's the time to stop it. Sounds like these parents clearly wanted to make the switch.
(Note: once they decided to make the switch, the rest is bureaucracy. The PTA recommended process -- basically, go through a whole bunch of officious rigmarole *before* getting a feel for which way membership wants to go -- is decidely unwise. Way better to do most of the discussion and research before starting an official process. If membership not interested, then save all that officious work.)
2. They sent out the notifications as broadly as they could.
3. They had a meeting, a discussion, and a vote.
Two of the claims made by state PTA in the article are ludicrous: the first (that bylaws require 2/3rd of entire membership to vote for dissolution) is laughable, especially compared to how all local and state and national PTAs do all of their business. Most all PTAs try and get as many formall members (pay the $5) as they can, but then they do their business with whever shows up at meetings (usually less than 1/10th of the membership). National PTA makes its very largest decisions with 500 voters out of 5 million members. The concept is called "quorom" (a minimum number of members in attendance for business to be conducted), and it absolutely has to apply for PTAs to work at all.
The second claim -- that the old membership has to make the decision in the new year -- is also fairly comical in a school setting. So the parents who's kids moved on, the parents who moved out of town... they're expected to come back in October to vote on the future of their *old* school? C'mon.
The quote in the article says: "We don’t want to hold PTAs hostage...", but if that's true then shouldn't the process be more like: 1) PTA does research and show clear, clear preference for going independent; 2) state PTA helps them make a smooth change to minimize any disruption/distraction in the good work the group is going to do for the kids of that school?
The goal is to help kids and make schools great.
Sorry -- off soapbox now.
Tim
