Bless your heart. Hang in there.

I am just curious, do you thing the parent would act different if her mom was not around. I am seeing alot of this here lately around my community. Women my age are being dominated by their mothers. I love my mother, she is a good one, but I am a grown up now. I often need her advice and don't know what I'd do without her. These grandparents that think they need to tell their kids family every step to make is not healthy for anyone, brining it to school makes it worse.

It sounds like those ladies and their "bandwagon" have concerns that are not decided by the PTO so if she speaks up the President can say, "The PTO has no concern in this matter perhaps after the meeting you would like to meet with the prinicipal. If you don't have any PTO business shut up and sit down." Ok you get my gist. We have had this to happen a couple of times. The parents were usually innocent in not understanding the role of PTO.

Let your postiveness overcome their negativeness. I know it's hard. Remember to take deep breaths and smile.

We've got 1 parent and her mom who have been stirring the pot up at our school all last week, the first week of school?????

First of all, our principal has changed the dismissal policy for the safety of our children. We used to be allowed to go into the cafeteria and there have been two incidents where the police have been called because of parents fighting (one was a personality conflict and these two parents were mouthing off to eachother and the police came to escort the other out, the other was a divorced couple, thefather walked into school to get his son, walked straight to the classroom and the mom (they are divorced) saw him, chased after him and they got into a fist fight in the classroom hallway while all the children were standing at the doors for dismissal witnessing this??? the mom was arrested).

Anyway, these changes are for the safety of the students. Winds up, the first two days of school and the new procedure, it poured down rain so the process was caotic and just a few parents went bizerk. Two went to the principal directly (and their concerns were resolved) but a handful completely bypassed the principal went straight to the superintendant of our district??? Ever since the first day, these particular parents (actually, it's a parent, her mother, her neighbor and her friend), one which is our PTO secretary, have been stirring the pot.

They have been calling parents, both new ones to our school and ones who expressed that they'd like to get more involved this year, with their complaints and putting a sour taste in their mouth about the school and the PTO. I've had new parents make snide comments in front of me about things they should have no idea about because this is their first year up there, and former parents that have told me that they don't want to get involved in all the pettyness????

I only say to them, please don't let anyone influence you about the school and PTO, let your own experience determine how you feel!

We've got our first PTO meeting Monday night and a half hour before that, we're having a New Parents Ice Cream Social. I know the "pot stirring" parents have already planned their "attack" on the principal (who speaks first at our meetings) and I'm so afraid this is goign to turn off parents from attending meetings.

I just hope there are more parents there who will realize that these are the parents that are just angry about everything and that the majority of us just want what's best for our kids and their school. The principal has invited the safety trainer from the class ALL principals in our district attended over the summer, to come and speak.

Sad party, we really WANT to keep the meetings down to an hour and i'm afraid with all this disruption, it's going to go longer and that will turn parents off as well.

How do we keep these negative comments from turning away parents???

We had our meet the teacher night and had two PTO tables set up at the entrance and got such positive feedback from parents both old and new who expressed that they'd like to get involved. This first meeting may turn them off????

Any advice?