Re: soliciting companies--I suspect, since this person hadn't been on the board before or otherwise active, that she really thought she was doing a great thing and wasn't given much guidance. One way to prevent something like this would be to give each committee chair (or whatever you call anyone who runs anything) a detailed job description. In that, you could lay out the rules like:
-prepare donation letter for companies for approval by PTO/PTA Board;
-work with Vice President to finalize list of companies to be solicited;
-obtain license from state gaming division;
etc.
By going over such a list with someone, you can make it clear what their parameters are, and ensure that you aren't duplicating any effort.
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think you have a legal leg to stand on with this issue, or ones similar to it, because the PTO still got the money. So it's hard to point at what harm was done from a legal standpoint.
We have a standing rule that all notices sent home must have the approval of the principal. We live in an economically diverse area and there are no financial requests allowed. At the beginning of the year each parent is asked if they are willing to donate items for class parties and those are the only parents we can call, but again, only for items, not money. This isn't to say that it is not done, especially for end of the year or holiday gifts for the teachers, but it is not sanctioned by our club and is kept informal by the room mom.
The parent wasn't soliciting donations from other parents - it was a much larger scale - $1,000 from one of our generous business donors - and there went the money we'd counted on getting from them for this school year!
Re the ISF- the person has refused to sign any sort of payback agreement, but we're hoping with enough persuasion she'll make good on it. Some rough personal times, I gather, but still..she could commit to a plan to pay!
At our school, we are only allowed to collect $1.00 per student per school year to go toward any classroom parties, gifts, etc. This is expressly stated at the beginning of the year, at our initial room parents meeting. This doesn't necessarily preclude parents from making donations, but is is pretty well understood that if you collect the dollar in the classroom for the winter party, you cannot collect it for teacher appreciation, for example.
Also, as for the ISF check, have you spoken with this person? We had a restaurant whose check for the school came back ISF, and it just turned out that they had written the check from the wrong account.
Hello all - I'm new here and was absolutely delighted to find this site. I'm a new PTO president and there are a few questions I have:
Last year we had a parent (PTO member but not on the board and not involved in any activities) soliciting donations (cash &tc), which she then used to throw a party for the 5th grade commencement. No one knew of this until it was a done deal, and she did it in the PTO's name - even wrote herself up a letter to give to donors! Question is - what can we do? This specific incident is in the past, and the prinicipal got involved enough to speak to the woman, but in the more general sense, what are some ways to stop this from happening? I'm trying to bring some much-needed organization into our PTO, and keeping better records is just one part. We seem to have a few other mavericks who are prone to this sort of behavior. Does any PTO have a legal leg to stand on?
--Additionally, how does a PTO deal with a large NSF check ($600+ and from a former board member)? Only thing I can think of is to take the woman to small claims court, but not sure I want to open that can of worms.
