We are K-5 with 210 students, 14 teachers, 2 specials teachers (art and music), librarian and special ed teachers. We have 4 board members, pres, VP, secretary and treasurer, the principal usually comes, and sometimes 1-2 of the teachers manage to make it. According to our by-laws I, being the pres cannot chair a committee, but with the lack of parent involvment(which I have been working very hard on this year)I am currently chairing 6 committees. We have 1 meeting a month for the PTO which lasts about an hour and a half, mostly because of the socializing going on, and anybody can come.
Our board is the officers and committee chairs. We have about 7 of us on the board. We use these meetings to hammer out the nitty gritty of things before presenting them at the general meeting for approval. We take care of the budget and requests for money from teachers and others. Before this year, they didn't have board meetings and the general meetings lasted 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Now our meetings last 30-45 minutes.
When the bylaws were written, we had about 600-650 kids. Since then, there's been a new school open and some restructuring of the district. So we have 450.
We don't have general meetings, except at the beginning of the year to approve the budget and at the end to formalize officer elections.
The monthly business/board meetings are open to anyone and that is where all business is conducted. We have 15-25 people show up for each meeting - primarily the board members. Because all business decisions are made by this group, we want it to be large and representative.
JHB-how big is your school? Just trying to compare. If I had 30 people on our board, that would be about the amount that we have at our monthly regular meetings!
Our bylaws are set up so that we can have a Pres, 1st and 2nd VP, Sec, Treas, Admin rep (principal or asst. principal). We have staff signup at the beginning of the year which is no more than 4 classroom teachers and 4 other staff. Currently we have a Pres, VP, Sec, Tres, Principal, 2 classroom teachers, a music teacher and the speech pathologist. We also have so few parents interested that we haven't held elections in 4 years. I believe we could have 3 parent at large positions but haven't had anyone on those since the bylaws were last updated 4 or 5 years ago.
The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating-in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life. --Anne Morris
