I am new to our school's PTA, and am dealing with a President who wants to make all of the decisions without entertaining any outside suggestions. None of the teachers like her, and there is little-to-no parent participation. There doesn't seem to be any structure to the PTA meetings; there is just a President and Treasurer; there was NO election last May for new officers; and there was no election at the first PTA meeting last month for the present school year. How can this be????

Tonight was our second meeting. There were no minutes presented from the last meeting, no updates on "old business", no reports on "new business", no request for suggestions or new ideas, no solicitation for input on any upcoming fundraisers (if there are any!)--NOTHING!

Well what the heck was the meeting about, you ask? ADD/ADHD!!! The president announced the topic, then launched into a diatribe about her son being diagnosed with ADHD, and how she and her family are dealing with it. HELLO??????? Am I missing something? Now, I'm not saying that such a discussion wouldn't be useful. . .but to make it the sole discussion of a PTA meeting???? HELLO????

I suppose I should mention that at last month's meeting, I raised a couple of questions regarding the leadership structure, and how fundraisers are decided upon. I offered a number of new ideas which prompted motions for my becoming Fundraising Chair. This did not sit well with the President, and she made my life miserable.

She INSISTED that we sit down (face-to-face) so that "she could bring me up to speed" on our school's PTA. I had no problem with receiving the information, and suggested that we meet after an upcoming meeting at the school. She refused. She wanted to meet on a night when nothing else was going on. I suggested that we have a conference call. She refused. She said that the Board of Directors' PTA liaison wanted to meet with her and me, and that he wanted "to meet face-to-face." I explained that I had a lot of other responsibilities (I'm heavily involved with my church, a full-time working mom, I sit on the Board of Directors for our Community Maintenance Corporation--the list goes on and on), and that adding a meeting to my already busy week was just not possible. I again suggested that we have a conference call. Again she refused. I asked her to at least run the idea by the BOD liaison to get his input, and she insisted that she had already done that. I then asked her for the BOD liaison's phone number, or to have him call me--she hung up on me. Later, the BOD liaison called me to ask--now get this--why I wanted a meeting. HELLO???? I politely told him that I was not the person insisting on the meeting--he was! Well, imagine my surprise when he said he had no idea what I was talking about!!! Lo, and behold, the president blatantly LIED in order to have things done HER WAY!!!

There is MUCH I'm leaving out (for the sake of brevity--too late!), but the long-and-short of it is that I CANNOT work with someone I can't trust. I would constantly question whether she was lying to me, and would always think she was doing something to undermine me.

She's GOT to go.