On April 5th we held our vote on whether or not we would switch to a PTO. 49 votes were cast out of 377 members. 45 were in favor of switching to a PTO and 4 were in favor of remaining a PTA. I'd like to thank everyone for their advice!!
Dues is such a minute issue. You also have to acknowledge that some of these members may have benefited from the leadership training that PTA offers. You can also keep in mind that PTO's are valuable in attaining things that PTA's cannot. But in either case you should have a specific goal and then figure what fund raising is needed to supply that. You could easily get parents involved in a special project outside of PTA. We have a school that the parents wanted a new playground. They began a PTO to raise $ those funds. The PTO continues to afford things for the school with a PTA supporting their efforts and PTA still doing their thing. There is room for all! plw
I don't think having another PTO at your meeting should be necessary. Make sure you have the people that support the switch come to that meeting and vote. Even if the old PTAers are able to stuff the vote and keep the PTA active, you could still start your PTO, even though that could get ugly. I'd work hard to get out the vote at the decision meeting.
Be prepared to talk about what you do or don't get for all the money you send to PTA. I bet your members (especially the active ones) will be able to see whether it's worth it or not. If those PTA supporters talk about all kinds of benefits that your group doesn't use or that are exaggerated, just remind your members about what you actually pay and what you actually use. Our members also were surprised to learn how few groups are still PTA. A lot of people thought it was radical to go PTO, but then they realized that PTO is more common.
Hopefully your general membership meetings use an agenda...all you have to do is write a letter to ask to be placed on the next months agenda. Having a member of another PTO would surely help...along with some of the posts from this message board. After explaining your views a vote would have to be taken...and your membership...not past officers will have the say as to which direction your PTO should be headed...Good Luck:)
We are a small school with under 500 children. Our current dues are $4.00. We only get $1.25 of that. The rest goes to the state and national PTA. We feel a PTO would better serve our children because 100% of all dues would remain here. We want to be able to make decisions regarding our children's school and not having to get approval from the PTA. We have let our community know that we are wanting to switch and any paid member of our PTA has the right to vote for or against the switch. Naturally we have some PTA members who oppose the switch, they are inactive, but have a voice and a vote.
How should we present our wanting to change to a PTO to the general membership? Should we have a representative from a current PTO there to answer questions? Are we forgetting anything? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
