Hi- our town has a tiered system, though different from yours. All K-2 children are at one school, all 3-5 kids next door. Our PTO encompasses these two schools. The middle school has their own group. We have a PTO president, and each elementary school has a VP. Also on the board are the treasurer, secretary, corresponding secretary.

I wish I could tell you if the switch to one PTO was smooth or not, but unfortunately it was before my time. However, this is the 4th year, and things run very nicely. It's very important to set up good bylaws to outline everything you want to do.

In the beginning, the funds from each schools PTO were combined. I know one school had more money then the others, I don't know if that presented a problem. We are very fortunate in this community that the schools work very well together. The principals are united in helping all the kids. We don't have any problems about who gets more money, it goes were it's needed.

There have been several posts about multiple PTOs combining into one. However, we have a slightly different situation in our district. We are planning a reorganization of our elementary schools from a "neighborhood" system to a "tiered" system. This involves getting all grade levels from the district together in the same building. The aim of the change is to addresss equity issues and work on building the relationships of all the kids prior to Middle School. The buildings will be split up as follows: preschool and K; 1st and 2nd; and 3rd and 4th. 5th grade is housed in the Middle School (don't get me started on that). We are having a meeeting on Thurs (1/24) to discuss options and were looking for input on the nuts and bolts of a combined organization. How are the meetings run, are there individual school sub-committees, how long do the meetings run, and is it easy to satisfy the needs of such a wide ranging age group with one pot of money? Sorry this post is so long, but we are setting the direction and we wnat to be sure that we are moving in the right direction. Thanks in advance for any input, it is greatly appreciated.