It sure sounds like your school must have plently of funds to run all their discretionary programs and dont want or need the parent group help at all!! I have never heard of admin so difficult to work with, you would think they would fall allover themselves to make it a workable atmosphere between school and parent group. good luuuuuuck.

Thank you all for your input. Our group appreciates any advise we can get.

We do infact have our own EIN number so we do not need theirs. With the way things have been going we have to ask ourselves "would it be such a bad thing to have to hold our meetings elsewhere?" Fortunately, we have a very supportive community.

We have tried mediation, however slanted it was. It was with the Asst. Superintendent, Business Manager, Principal, her chosen Teacher Rep and the 5 of us from the board. We obviously didn't get very far since we are now at this point! Sad for the kids mostly, they will be the ones who suffer in the end, as our PTO pays for all those educational assemblies. We could definitely use some "outside eyes" looking in, however we are stonewalled at every turn.

Our principal already makes it very hard to communicate with families by holding onto flyers until its too late to send them or refusing to send them until "things are discussed", then tries to cancel those very meetings that we intend to discuss things at. For an adult/administrator she really does pull some childish schemes!

We are a very frustrated and frazzled group, however unwilling to give up the fight. We know if we throw in the towel she "wins" so to speak and gets the money in the end, which is all she really wants anyway.

The superintendent will be attending our meeting tomorrow. He hasn't been in a room with all of us at once. Lets see how it goes! Wish us luck!

Since you are a private organization, I don't think they have the authority to "dissolve you"...however they can make it that you cannot use any of their facilities, any of their time, any of their children's backpacks and basically not operate on school grounds. I would suspect you can still have meetings off school grounds and have events off school grounds but may need to exclude the schools name from yours. That really does defeat the purpose though doesn't it. d

If you use your schools tax id number they can stop you from doing that, they also can stop you from using the building or anything associated with the district. They may be trying to save the reputation of the district and it can get very tough for your group. I really don't know what can be said, have you tried mediation?? Which includes someone form the outside looking at all views...

Read the school board policy manual (you have the right to see it, its a public document), access to building or volunteers or building use or similar...at the very least they probably have the right to disallow your group from holding meetings or activities on school grounds, since they most likely have to approve any extracurricular uses of the public bldg in the first place.

Hi all, I am in serious need of input. My PTO has been dealing with ongoing issues with our principal (for details refer to my other post - "problems with principal"). Anyway, long story short, we had a big pow-wow with the Asst. Superintendent of school district, principal, teacher rep, business manager from district and us, the board members.

We, as the board, left feeling that things were essentially unresolved, however, we agreed to try to work together for the best interests of the children. That is why we're here isn't it!

Anyway, our principal is continuing to undermine our efforts and canceling our meetings because she isn't getting her way. Now the Asst. Sup. tells us that if we can't come to a resolution that the district "can dissolve your PTO."

So here is my question? Does the school district have the authority/right to dissolve the PTO, a volunteer organization designed for the betterment of the children? It has been a big struggle for us to stay on board through out the year, except for the fact that we collectively have 8 children in the school and aren't willing to give up control to the principal.

We have all read the articles about the facts that principals don't have control over the PTO or their money (which for our principal is a big issue!)
but now it seems things have gotten beyond our control.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated once again!