Hi,
I am just finishing my first year as president of our new organization (and a new school). Our school was formed from 3 schools plus new students. We are in a new subdivision that is still being built, so we have new families coming every week.
We formed the initial board of directors (there are 13 of us) from parents who showed an interest. Our first meeting had 4 attendees and grew from there. We are now set up with the 4 officers, a teacher's liaison, the school's Principal, a community liaison, and 3 parent members.
Our bylaws were written based on the bylaws of other schools. Because we were formed out of 3 schools, we each brought the bylaws from the school that we originated from. We then took from those what we felt would work the best for us.
I also suggest you start out small on the fundraising efforts. We tried not to take on anything too overwhelming the first year. Now we have a good base of information to create better fundraisers for next year.
I think that we did pretty good for our first year, and we learned a lot too. It is a steep learning curve initally, but it gets better as the year goes by.
I was in the same situation last year. The PTO at the "old" school ran two elections. Since all the students going to the "new" school were coming from the "old" school everyone was represented. And voted in the election for the school they would be going to.
We have a new K-5 school opening this Fall. They will be moving about 40% of our current school population (based on boundaries) to the new school. Our current school has 960 (yes, 960)kids.
Another parent and I have met with the "new" principal this week to discuss getting started. This meeting was not only about starting a parents group, but what kinds of things do we want to do at the beginning of the school year to welcome everyone and get families involved. The meeting went well.
Would love any ideas that you have...things to think about...etc. I'm still finding core group memebers. Have idea of by-laws, non-profit info. One question I have is how do we define ourselves now before school starts...as the board? Do we just serve the 1st year and then do a vote? Vote in September?
P.S. My only son is in 5th grade next year, so will only be there 1 year but want it to be good.
