I am a teacher and PTO president of our school. I do not have any children of my own, but I feel a close tie with the community in which I work. This is my first year as president, and I have watched the previous PTO presidents not fulfill their duties. I am dedicated to making a strong community of parents and teachers at our campus. I was a little offended by the previous comments and the idea that a teacher could not make an adequate president.
See, I wondered about the makeup of the voters. That's too bad.
Maybe a parent could offer to serve as kind of a "recruiter" and try to encourage and motivate parents to get active in the group. If you can get them excited, then maybe you can get them to take a more active role(serve as officers)in the future.
I guess I most agree with dlf- while the "T" is for teachers, I believe the point of the PTO is parent involvement.
There is a SMALL group of parent "regulars", but otherwise, not a lot of parents come to the meetings. I think that things could be done to improve turn-out, but no one else wants to take the time.
As far as the teacher being "elected", I think the win had more to do with the number and make-up of people there (alot were school staff).
No problems, so far, per say, but she definately hasn't followed the previous years agenda's in setting up things for this year.
While I have the greatest respect for our teachers, I think the focus of a PTO should be Parents coming together to make a community out of their school. That means holding events that other parents and their children come to. While I'm sure this is an amazing teacher...isn't there a parent that would step up. I think the T in PTO is a wonderful inclusion meant to denote our desire to link with teachers in support of educational goals, but the whole point of a PTO is to have the parents involved and satelliting the school in support.
If we had a group run by a teacher, I'd be wondering where the parents are. Is that weird? d
There is a school in our town that a few years ago was headed by a teacher and supported mostly by staff. They were in an area of town where parent involvement was pretty much nonexistent. We haven't had a teacher as President, but we have had teachers in other board positions and it worked out just fine.
If this person was elected, then she obviously was the candidate the voters felt would do the best job. Remember the "T" in PTO stands for teacher and most groups want their teachers to be truly involved in their group. As long as the bylaws don't say that teachers can't serve as President, then she's the President.
Are you afraid she has her own agenda or have there been problems?
Our school has a teacher as its PTO president, and while the by-laws don't have anything against this, I was wondering if this was normal?
She was voted in at the April or May meeting, attended by maybe 11 people.
There was an opponent, so she wasn't running out of necessity, but happened to win.
She doesn't have any children of her own, but has been teaching for many years.
I would just like others opinions and suggestions on whether this was a common situation.
