The part of your post that leapt out at me was this: "All of our budgets and expenses were approved by her at the beginning of the year." Why is the principal the final word on this? If you are a separate organization, then you have bylaws for approving the budget -- with a vote by the organization's members.
I think you need to find out what the Principal's concerns are and why she is considering "going internal," but remember that this means fundamentally is that your organization will be disbanded.
I think it's too important for the parent organization to be independent, and if the Principal made it impossible for us to operate, I'd walk away. And maybe take my kids with me.
AES,
I would check with your School District/Board and what their policy is regarding
PTO and the role of the principle in your PTO. I would ask does the PTO report to the principle or are you a separate organization? I would ask does the principle have the authority to force your PTO to go internal and what exactly does going internal mean. You could also contact someone at your state education department and see if they can provide you some information. School district have different policies when it come to PTOs. Some districts treat them as a separate organizations and some treat them as part of the school.
Generally the School principle is a member of the board and works with the board to make things happen in their school. What are your bylaws and policy with regard to the principle and their role.
As far as the bank statement that again depends on your bylaws. If she is a member of the board and there is not a policy on who handles the statements not sure there is lot you can do about that. You could of course set a policy stating who get and opens PTO correspondence. As far as questioning expenditures any board member can question expenses but if the principle is coming to your board meetings she should be getting all that information from the treasurer's report.
I am coming in as the PTO president this year. We have our own account, insurance, by-laws and are currently working on getting our 501c3. Our Principal has recently started conversation about her wanting to "turn our PTO internal". Let me start by saying that as of now there is NO reason for for us to go internal based on a meeting we had with her except she says she "wants" it internal. She mentioned that she was getting heat from the district to move us internal however after a phone call we found out that this is no longer an issue and not on the table.
••She too has called district and they said they are not concerned with PTO being internal at this time. However she's still "deciding" if she wants us to be internal or not.
We had a meeting with her to discuss her concerns and let her know we voted as a board that at this time we will NOT to dissolve our PTO and move internal and gave her the reasons why. She told us we have no choice and that if SHE decides we are to move internal we have to? Is this the case?
Also, she recently opened our bank statement (that comes to the school-she's never done so before) and reviewed it and asked us to review it line per line. She is not an owner, signer or member of our account. Does she have the right to ask us to explain our purchases and expenses? All of our budgets and expenses were approved by her at the beginning of the year. Of course we have all the proof of purchases and documentation to back our statement up.
We are trying to work with her and we don't want to burn our bridge with her however, recently we feel she is being sneaky about things and disrespectful. We have been nothing but honest, open and we are doing our best as a board to help the school be it's very best.
Can anyone tell me what are our rights as a PTO regarding our funds as an organization.
