I am so glad to hear others are having the same problems!! I am president this year and have a VP who is a huge problem!!! I have tried to talk to her and it only helps for a day or two. The latest thing is she tells people that she is president. I have recieved calls about her form other schools and even the Principal avoids her. It is going to be a long year. We had a record breaking first meeting attendance this year. I was very excited, till I learned why. A little over half the crowd, was there because they dislike the VP. She is known for being pushy and making things up. I never knew this and thought at frist things where going well. I have now caught her in the act and usually end up taking the blame. I sent a letter home, saying I was aware of problems and would work to fix them. Everyone who has responded says its not me, it's her. How do I stop this? I am reaaly getting stressed out!!!!
Steve,
It's sounds like you have some of the same problems we did a few years back, everyone wants to have something to do all the time and they want to feel important and when those two options aren't available, they want to complain. We had to have a talk about handling the money as little as possible and totally revamped our procedures, it cut out a lot of the "so and so needs to do this this way" type stuff. We also had a discussion about staff picking up certain board members negative attitudes and that the staff was getting to the point they didn't want some of our board members helping because they were either not helping or gossiping. Since most of us don't want to be asked to not help in our child's room, it made them settle down a bit. I did what you did, I asked the teachers what was really going on and then did it in the form of a survey later on to back up certain points. Honestly, if you want to know what is going on, just go have lunch in the staff lounge. They are usually pretty good at telling you what's working and what's not. If you think some procedure for collecting soemthing from classrooms if far fetched, just ask some teachers what would be easier for them. That's the point for us anyway. Good luck.
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
Steve, I am curious to know how you went about talking to your board members? Did you call them up and say, "Hey - do you have a problem with me?" or how did you handle it? I am so tired of all the nonsense and the flip-flopping on policies from the school that I am ready to hand it all over. I have real issues with looking like a quitter though and I don't want my children to suffer from their mother's decision to stop this role. CALGON - take me away! [img]smile.gif[/img]
Well thanks Logthosehours, I appreciate the sympathy and your support, we battered prezs' hve to stick together. Well let me update you, The first phase of my plan went into effect today. I had a chance to talk to all my non-teaching staff and they saw no reason for complaint and said they thought I was doing a fine job. Same for Kinder, Second, and every other grade. What does this say? That my VP is full of herself!!!! If she wanted to be Prez, she should have run against me. Our Kinder Teachers did advise me that our communication is lacking and we need to let them know when our meetings are and when they can attend board meetings. I agreed with them 100% and will get this in the works. I have gotten more input from my teaching staff than my board. Sad, ain't it?
I also spent half the day revising the PTO Job Descriptions so they have no excuse to say they didn't know who had what responsibility.I'll let you know how this plan is working. Good luck to all and I will be back with an update.
I am so sorry but as I sit and read your post I am snickering to myself because I am so happy to know that I am not the only out there ready to put the board members into a time out for not playing nicely with others. I am not laughing at your pain, I am laughing to comfort mine own. Are you staying up until 2 in the morning wondering what on earth you are going to do with these crybabies that are NOT willing to take responsibility to do the job a president does but will sure be the first to gripe about it? I am so tired that I've almost packed up my stuff and handed it back to the group and told them to find a new babysitter. This has been a ROUGH start this year - heck it was rough last year too. I'm not sure I'm going to make it through this school year. I'm starting to lose focus.
GOOD LUCK TO YOU STEVE! I sure feel your pain and hope things get better for you soon.
I've told my group to watch the commerical from a bank that has the table of people sitting around talking and one person starts to choke. They all seemed concerned for the wellbeing of this individual and start to talk about they heimlich (didn't spell that right) manuver (didn't spell that right either - where's spell check on this thing! ) They sit and talk about how it should be done and watch this guy choking and then a person from the table behind him stands up - goes over to the choking victim, performs the heimlich (gee - spell check would be nice) and sits back down. Sound like your PTO? Willing to sit around and whine about things and how they should be done but not willing to just do it? ohhhhhhhhhhhh the lovely soap opera of our lives - P.T.O. [img]smile.gif[/img]
CALGON - take me away! [img]smile.gif[/img] 
) They sit and talk about how it should be done and watch this guy choking and then a person from the table behind him stands up - goes over to the choking victim, performs the heimlich (gee - spell check would be nice) and sits back down. Sound like your PTO? Willing to sit around and whine about things and how they should be done but not willing to just do it? ohhhhhhhhhhhh the lovely soap opera of our lives - P.T.O. [img]smile.gif[/img]
