OneandOnly makes some valid points. If the balance of focus leans to heavily toward teacher needs, it changes the role of your PTO.
That said, I lean more toward JHB's point of view. My last team had two teacher reps on the board along with four officers and 10-15 committee chairmen. The two teacher votes didn't control the majority but their insight and participation added greatly to our team.
PTOs are Parent Teacher Organizations so teachers should play an important role on the team. As long as your bylaws are balanced and fair teachers should feel welcome without too much power or control sitting in any one area.
For my last team, our bylaws were specific about the board member and teacher roles. As you can see, teachers could outweigh the parents if they really wanted to, but only by sending in more teacher reps and/or filling the chairmen spots. They are not eligible for officer positions unless they are also a parent of an enrolled student.
Section 1 – Membership Definition The membership shall consist of residents within the district's schools and of parents/guardians of students attending the district's schools as well as the faculty/staff of the district's schools. Section 2 – Board Member Candidacy Eligible candidates for elected or appointed positions shall be defined as those who have a child/ward attending District 999 schools or faculty employed by District 999. Section 2 – Officer Eligibility Eligible candidates shall be defined as those who have a child/ward attending the District 999 schools. Section 1 – Board Definition The Board shall be defined as the President, the Vice President, Secretary, and the Treasurer, preferably two teacher representatives, the appointed chairmen of the standing committees and the principal, or designee, of District 999 schools.
Section 2 - Teacher Representatives Teacher Representatives may include but are not limited to one faculty teacher representative for kindergarten through fourth grade and one from fifth through eighth grade.
Section 5 - Voting Privileges All members of the Board, with the exception of the principal, may cast one vote. No vote may be cast by proxy. If the chairman of a committee is not present to cast a vote, one person representing that committee may cast one vote.
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My first question would be: "How much power does your board have?" If everything goes back to general membership for vote, then everyone has a say in the final outcome. If the Board has authority to handle most of the day to day to decisions, why not increase your entire Board size to better represent your membership?
Two of the organizations to which I belonged had faculty as part of the Board - but we deliberately had large boards because most of the decision-making power rested there. Our Board included the 5 elected officers, Principal, Vice Principal, 2 teacher reps, 6 grade parent reps (K-5), plus all the committee chairs. Our Board size was 20-30 people. Yes, there were school positions, but not a disproportionate number.
We have Faculty representatives but they are not part of our executive board or board members. They would be equivilent to a PTO member that takes part in meetings, does have voting requirements to meet in order to vote, etc.
Depending on their purpose, I'm not sure if they would be an asset. They could end up being lobbyists for classroom or teacher-related needs and your focus could change. Also, adding them to the executive board would that now open the doors for them to also run for the other executive offices? Unless the bylaws state that they cannot run for those offices, an executive board position would be any of the six.
I think they should just have the designation, but not an official title.
Hi everyone, a new PTO Officer here with a question. Our organization has of course a President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer as it's executive officers. We also have a Faculty Rep and a Teacher Rep as advisors to the PTO. New bylaws are being drafted and discussion is ongoing with great interest in increasing the number of executive officers from four to six, with the the two additional being the aforementioned Faculty and Teacher Reps.
As officers, these reps would have the same voting power as the other four and would have a hand in approving/ratifying bylaws.
What are the positives and negatives to this proposed action? I want to make sure what "seems" like a good idea (bringing Faculty and Teachers more into the decision-making process does not come back and bite us on the back end.
