I would continue to collect the BI-LAWS and go to this person and volunteer to help out on the board
and start new with bi-laws. Promote the pto and what your mission statement is and what your activities would be. If he is the only PTO person rally around him and find out what he does to help the students,what he would like to see for the students God Bless this one man. Add to his PTO stand help him while helping the students.
Maybe he is retired an wants to help out. Work with him not agianst/ find out his story and build a strong PTO for your students and teachers. It is never to late and reach out to the grandparents and aunts and uncles who do not have children sometimes their your best support.

I have to agree w/some of y'all. I think it is great to have community members involved w/the school. However, if this person has no affiliation w/the school and is just inserting himself, I would be a little concerned. I don't think I would jump to conclusions, but I might try to find out his story. Have you talked to him? Find out "what he's up to" while being nice. Maybe he used to/will have kids at the school. Maybe he is just really involved and wants to improve the school. I'm not sure about your area, but our school has a screening process for volunteers-it is the same as for the teachers. It can be really hard to find people who are willing to be involved and do the work (which is much more than a lot of people think, right!?) I think your right to be a little leary, but I would be careful not to jump the gun.

As far as bylaws go-that is a bit of a bugaboo. If this is a preexisting group, and people remember bylaws, although they haven't seen them in a while, they exist. And there would most likely be protocol for changing them. I would say the best bet would be to disolve the group and start from scratch, which is sounds like you are wanting to do. You could also contact past board members. Who knows what they still have hanging around-maybe they have a copy. If you can find them, you can figure out the membership issue as well as about the nomination of officers, etc. Also, if you decide you still want to start over, these old bylaws will give you a guideline for how monies/assets should be dispersed, and also for dissolution of the group.

~Good luck~

anyone can join our pto, anyone with an interest in the shcool. some of our best volunteers are grandparents and many kids dont have the positive influence that that generation can bring, their insights and experience can be invaluable to any group, i should think. there is no need to reinvent the wheel. i say we should welcome older folks into our parent groups. you still want them to contribute their tax monies to the state/school etc, why not let them contribute their time too.

Dear Friends,
Thank you for you words of advice. I truly appreciate your attention and assisting me with a better understanding of how other PTA/PTO groups may be organized. I just desire a group that can harmoniously (sp?) work together for the best interest of the children.

Thanks again!

If there are no bylaws then there really are no guidelines in place that says you must have a child at your school to be an officer, sometimes the experience that person has is so tremendous that it only helps your school, I can think of two cases of this in our district. As far as nominating themselves we allow that, heck if they are willing to do it I have no problem with that.

I would be concerned, too. I think it's great to have community members volunteer in schools, but I do think PTO leaders should be parents or teachers. Hence the name: Parent Teacher Organization. Some groups do not allow anyone to be a board member unless they have a child at the school, even if they are a teacher.