I had the same problem when my eldest daughter started K. The first PTO meeting was on a High Holiday and so I couldn't go. I sent a polite e-mail to the PTO Co-Pres and they were sooooo apologetic. They were clearly mortified they overlooked the scheduling conflict. It was clearly too late to change the date for that year (and I didn;t ask them to), but every year since I sent a note to the Co-Pres in the Spring telling them what the major holidays will be (and some of the more important minor ones) and requesting the info be passed to the Committee Chairs to try and avoid scheduling things on those dates. My daughter is in 5th grade now (and I have been on the Exec Bd for the last few years) and it hasn't been a problem since.
If the calendar is set for the year it may be unreasonable to change the date of the meeting at this point. You should apologize for the oversight and explain what steps will be taken to avoid the scheduling conflicts in the future and be sure to follow through (even if it is 6 months from now!).
If you do this and the parent still insists the meeting be changed, then the parent is the one being unreasonable. All you can do then is apologize and tell the parent you hope s/he can participate at a future meeting/event.
I respectfully disagree with ScottMom#1 - PTOs should be trying to get as much participation as possible. If the meeting is usually scheduled for the 2nd Tuesday each month (as our is) and it has to change to another day once or twice during the year to accomodate religious or secular holidays, and those dates are built in to the schedule published at the begining of the year - that seems like a "reasonable accomodation" to me and well worth doing. (I agree that the line is drawn at birthdays).
I think since it is a religious holiday for some of your families at your school that you should observe it and change your meeting day for that month. Say for example a parent who doesn't celebrate Halloween set a meeting for that night, how would you feel? Now throw in the religion part of it. Just my two cents!
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
Tell them that your first priority is what you have scheduled with the school and that this can be mentioned as a possibility for next year. We do our meetings the same day of the week, week of the month, time of day every year. We only change if the school is closed and that is usually to cancel it. It makes it much easier to remember a meeting if it isn't changed all the time. And yes, you would never get anything done if you were constantly arranging around holidays, birthdays, events, etc, but that isn't a very nice thing to tell a person who is trying to participate in your group and their religion. I don't know anyone that would sacrifice their religion for a parent group!
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
We have scheduled all our PTO meetings for the same day each month. One member (not a board member) is asking we change one date for a religious holiday. This is not a school holiday. I do not want to be insensitive, but how accommodating should the board be? If we work around all religious and state holidays, we may never get to meet.
