There is a very simple solution to this person who seems to care much about the school. Just ask her to run for office next year and then she will have a vote. Problem solved.
Critter - absolutely, the board composition is the mainstay of who would likely come to montly "general meetings". But I think it's more than semantics.
Defining our board as such and doing away with most of the general meetings saves a lot of time and aggrevation.
With monthly general meetings, the board usually also meets either earlier that night or earlier that week. So that saves our board members one redundant meeting per month (except for the two months that we hold general meetings).
Additionally, for every general meeting you have to guess how many will show up. Probably the same old few. But, if you are pleasantly surprised with more, you have to be ready for them. For us, that means setting up the cafeteria instead of the just using the teacher's break room or library. It means having extra handouts available - rather than assuming everyone has their notebook and on-going documentation. We need to make more of an effort to market a general meeting, and we need to be prepared to spend more time explaining the hows and whys of what's happening.
So while the "bodies" may be end up being the same, the work (for us) is much less.
We have 6 officers and our school has 720 kids. We don't charge dues, so technically all parents are members. At our September meeting, usually attended by about 45 people, we approve our annual budget and plans for the year by vote of those in attendance.
Each month after that, we have a general meeting which draws 15-25 members. We don't have many items to vote on throughout the year, but when we do, we vote at a general meeting. Our bylaws require a quorum of 15 members to transact business (in other words, we don't have to get votes from all 900+ parents!) Our Executive Board is allowed (per bylaws) to approve non-budgeted expenditures up to $100. Otherwise, the issue comes to a general meeting.
I suspect your renegade member simply has a different perspective than does your board. Maybe she was involved at a PTO in another school where issues came to the general membership. It would be a difficult adjustment for me, too, if I found myself in that new situation. She may just want to be part of the process and feels left out.
JHB, I've always wondered if your PTO's model of a large board ends up being, in practice, basically the same as our small board...I mean, the vast majority of people who regularly come to our general meetings are the committee chairs and the most active volunteers. So it sounds to me like a difference of semantics. (Though I admit being part of "The Board" may be motivating for the chairpeople, and properly recognizes their contributions to the PTO). Hmmm, just a thought.
Thanks to all who answered my email. Our Board is rather large with 14 positions (7 of these positions actually have partners). I believe we are well represented - our school serves approx. 550 kids.
The growing trend is to eliminate or drastically redce General Meetings. Our bylaws state we must have an annual meeting, but we choose to have a total of 2 meetings per year. In between those our Board conducts the business. We have 8 members on the board. We also have 300 general members. In the past the members did not attend the meetings anyway...with the exception of a handful, who we then recruited to standing committees (board positions).
