Our school merged with a portion of a different school this year. I wish the PTO article on merging schools had come out 6 months earlier, as it would have given me some insight into our situation. The other school was very open to lots of parental help/involvement in the classroom. Ours is not especially keen on a lot of parents in the classroom and this has caused an uproar among a group of the new parents. They see our school as "exclusive" to the parents. I'm not sure exactly what the difference is...possibly our school has more "seasoned" teachers who may or may not have had bad experiences in the past w/ parents not showing up, not being confidential, or plain just causing commotion. But, now the new parents have even threatened lawsuits over not being allowed in the classroom. The school council has gone to the trouble to write a policy on the parties, limiting the parents involved in each party to 4, the older classes don't want any parents "helping" w/ the parties. However, this has caused even more discord. The new parents keep citing that schools w/ involved parents do better, but I think they see "involvement" as being in the classroom, which, quite frankly I see as disruptive. I see involvement as more support for the teachers, programs, and actually reading w/ the kids, memorizing time tables, etc. Any ideas out there how to fix the situation? We really do have a great school, with some really great teachers, and if I say so myself, a very active PTO. However, I get the feeling that the new parents don't necessarily want to be involved in PTO sponsored events, for which we ask monthly for participation, but want to be with their children.