Check your by-laws. Ours state that we are to promote fellowship along with communication between parents and teachers. So, this is what we did for our very first meeting of the year (myself acting as President for the first time ever). Our first meeting was very informal and I felt it was necessary for parents to come together and voice their questions and concerns since so many were calling me at home and stopping by my house. Several changes were happening at our school and parents were either concerned, clueless or just plain angry. Teachers that were there, did not have all the answers and our Principal hadn't arrived back from a previous engagement. Our Superintendant just happened to show up and we all thought it was a great time to ask him our questions.I was very pleased with the outcome, parents received answers and even I learned a few things. The happiness ended a few days later when the Superintendant called me at home and requested that PTO never handle parents concerns again. Basically, our job is just for fundraising to put back into the school. I should refer all questions to him or our prinicpal and compared us to a lynch mob. There have been rough waters since, I am sorry to say. Parents continue to call me at home or stop me when they see me to ask me questions concerning their children. So now I have been labeled as the "spoon that stirs the pot" so to speak. My feelings are these.... this is a lesson I refuse to learn. As long as I am a parent, whether involved in PTO or not, I will always give any parent with any concerns my best and honest answer. I will also always believe that PTO is more than just fundraising. It is about parents and teachers who come together because of the children. Sometimes there are questions and sometimes PTO can help mend the fences between school administrations and parents. Isn't that the most important thing?
Again, I think this interpretation of IRS regs is a bit off.
501c3s are allowed to advocate for or against legislation. Lobbying on issues, especially issues of import to your mission, is allowed. There is language requiring that such lobbying (for 501c3s) not account for too substantial a portion of a group's activities or budget, but it's not verboten at all. Favoring a candidate for election (as opposed to a piece of legislation or an issue) is not allowed for 501c3s.
That said, there are a lot of groups like yours that -- for good reason -- choose to stay completely out of choosing sides on issues. But that's a choice, not an IRS requirement.
Agree that the PTO should formally stay out of it, especially if the PTO is or considering Non Profit status under 501c3.
The IRS requires that 501c3 organizations (like PTOs) stay away from politics. They have pretty specific wording about not endorsing or working against political issues. If you want to do that it is a different section of the IRS code.
The PTO is allowed to discuss issues relevent to the school, and do some get-out-the-vote stuff, but is not allowed to formally take a position on for or against legislation.
From our Charter (most of the wording is direct from the IRS sample)....
"The MacArthur School PTO shall not participate in nor fund propaganda, nor otherwise attempt to influence legislation. The MacArthur School PTO shall not participate in, nor intervene in (including the publishing or distribution of statements) any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office. At PTO meetings, issues directly related to the educational experience of the children of the Douglas MacArthur Elementary School and/or the Waltham Massachusetts School District may be discussed, however, the MacArthur School PTO shall not take any official position nor encourage any specific action on the part of its members."
We had the same issue on our hands last year. The School District offices had recieved so many complaints from staff and parents that they launched an investgation. Not only did the PTO become invovled but we ran the election for the new all parent school board for our school and invited a rep from the school district to a Q&A session with our parents (HUGE success by the way!- there were just so many questions we didn't know answers to)
We have a happy resolution and I am so proud of what the PTO did. We are also a charter school and our parents are the back bone of our school. There was no way the PTO could just stand by and watch!
OMG! I know what you are going thru. Our elem. ptos kept out of it. Our superintedent shanghied everyone including the school board. He told everyone this is what we are doing & at the board meetings if you aren't on the agenda, you can't speak. We had 4 elem. in our district. West was going to have all day kindegarden only. East was 1-2. Inverness & Black River both would have 3-5.He was very sneaky & underhanded about it all. Only when the parents rose such a fuss, did he hold meetings at each elem. school. It was Q&A. He couldn't give anyone straight answers & contradicted himself constantly. He couldn't tell us how this restructure would save the school district $$$. The end of last school yr. he needed to make more cuts. This time held a parent meeting @ the high school since this budget cut involved the whole district. He still couldn't answer anything. He said we'd have to cut all sports except football, basketball & girls volleyball. The only sport he could tell us what the cost was...hockey. Then he said my school, Black River, was closing that would save $140,000.(we just installed $10,000. worth of playground equip.) We needed to shave $1 million dollars off the budget.He also talked about no bussing & didn't want to hear about the hardships for the parents.He said alot about "No, we are going to discuss it." Needless to say all the sports stayed but school still closed. Another restructure happened. West became k-1. East became 2-3. Inverness became 4-5. The school board won't stand up to him. They just go along with whatever he says. He was still very evasive, couldn't tell you what everything costed to run/support. I wrote the paper & called it a dog & pony show. I had alot of people tell me I was right on the money with what I said. Don't let your super & board keep you in the dark. AS parents,not pto, you all need to take a stand & voice your opinion & concerns. Hopefully you have a good super. & board who will be straight with you & explain the needs for the restrucutre. We were just told that alot of schools are going this way & it saves $$. (not really because of the bussing route changes) Good luck & I hope you don't have to go thru what we did.
