I am a parent who attended my school's P.T.O. meeting last week, as I do every month. After what happened at the meeting I'm not sure if I ever want to attend another meeting. To make this as short as possible I will give a minute detail of what took place at last week's meeting. A parent , who is also an officer of the P.T.O., acted out in a very angry, disrespectful and unprofessional manner during the meeting. This officer's actions were directed at our P.T.O. President and also interfered with the meeting, by placing us off our agenda. The President tried her best, in a most respectful way, to try and put the meeting back on track, to no avail. I believe that most, if not all, the parents present at the meeting were so put out by the officer's actions toward the President; that none of us knew what to do to stop what was taking place. Finally one parent spoke up to put a stop to what the officer was doing to the President, and others joined in. We were able to stop such but not until after quite some time. Apparently this officer, who is new to the P.T.O. this year, was not happy with some articles of business which had been voted in at prior meetings. The officer was also complaining about the fact that it seemed the President seems to do an awfully lot for this P.T.O. without other parent involvement most of the time, which is sooo true. Our P.T.O. is lacking in the parental involvement area. I think the thing that got us most was that the officer who was complaining has just this year alone, not done things she's said she would, and then our President will complete the task within the alloted time frame, but only after trying to get other parents to help out first.
A lot of us parents were talking after the meeting was finally over. We [parents] value our time and did not appreciate the fact that this officer's actions kept us from attending to our agenda, making our meeting go an extended time over what we had planned for [our meetings are 1 1/2 hours long, this one took 2 1/2 hours ], made us feel embarrassed for our President [especially for all that has been accomplished in our school as a result of her perseverance, even when a lot of us parents are not available to help out] and has made a lot of us feel very uncomfortable in attending future meetings. We [parents] thought that we are involved in our school's P.T.O. to help support our children's education, provide fun things for our students to do, while working together NOT against each other to accomplish these goals.
If we [parents] decide to attend more meetings, as well as stay involved with our P.T.O., what can we do to help insure that something like this does not take place again? What can we do to help out if something does take place again, short of walking out. What should the other officers and the President do,if anything, as a result of what this officer did at this meeting? And last; do we the parents have any say ,at this time , as to whether the disruptive officer is allowed to remain an officer for the remainder of this school year? Or do we have to wait until the next vote for officerships to just not vote this officer into a position again? Thank you.
Wondering Mom
