Final note on this thread.
We had our general meeting 2 nights ago and we were loaded for bear. We expected the teachers to be out in force.

Surprise to us, the principal, at the 11th our, decided that she woiuld pick up the tab for shipping. Why she waited till the very last minute to act is anyones guess.

Our Charter also precludes eligibility of Teachers unless they are a parent or guardian of a child in the school (occasionally possible, but not often).

This was done to prevent conflict of interest, since the teachers and school are beneficiaries of the monies spent by the PTO.

Our charter tends to have a lot of checks and balances, so hopefully, we will never see embezelling or other inappropriate usages of funds and supplies.

To view our charter go to Charter.pdf

The important section says
4. Eligibility
a. Eligibility for serving as an Officer of the Executive Board shall be limited to residents of [the city] and those Regular Members who are parents or legal guardians of students attending [the school name].
b. A member must serve on a committee prior to being eligible for nomination to a position on the Executive Board.
c. Special consideration for prior service to the [School name] PTO may be considered on a case-by-case basis to a parent who will have one or more children attending school in the Fall, but do not have any children attending the [school name] at the time of the election. With the approval of the Principal, such a parent
may be considered for nomination to the Executive Board.

This last part basically is for a former PTO volunteer that kids had graduated, but now has younger kids entering the school.

Regards,

Ira

SHC-
Funny you should mention by-laws excluding teachers from holding an executive position. Last year the former president and I spent countless hours putting together and revising new by-laws and financial documents in order to apply for 501 C 3 status. Had we known this would occur, we surely would have put a caveat in the by-laws excluding school staff. Truthfully we were totally blindsided by the teachers coup d'etat. We had no idea that they even cared about our inner workings, as most of them only showed up for the last meeting of the year with their hands out, looking for donations to their pet projects.

We will see how it all plays out next week at our general meeting.

ademom74
Just one comment--our bylaws do not allow teachers to become president of our group. Maybe something you might want to consider some day..

We had a similar issue. Our student council raised money for some classroom televisions but then expected us to fund the installation which was thousands. Our principal said "no" , you can't donate a gift, with strings attached. They sat in a closet for a year. Funding was eventually found.

Anyway, good luck
SHC

You see, I knew I could count you guys for some well thought out responses...!

Personally this is not a hot button issue for me. I just as soon put the vote to the general membership and see what flies. We have a good amount in our 'miscellaneous' line item that we could move to a new line item and vote accordingly. Our general meeting is December 20 so we will see how it all plays out.

I know what is bugging our VP, it's the assumption that the PTO would bail out the teachers. They did not enough foresight to plan this project better or to have the where-with-all to problem solve for themselves. They just come to us and expect the PTO to pony up the funds.

Another underlying issue is that the presidents of our PTO are teachers at the school. The culture of our PTO has been completely changed by this...and not for the better.

So all of you who want more teacher participation, beware of what your wish for.

I guess I really would have aproblem with this. Why didn't they approach the pto before now. As I see it, they are asking you to take money from the kids. The teachers could of held bake sales/popcorn sales to cover shipping. Hold an exec. meeting & discuss this issue before you bring it to the general meeting. Discuss if there is enough $$ to cover it without going over budget. At the general meeting, tell everyone yes/no we do/don't have the $$ to cover expenses & explain how the board feels about this also, give them as much info so they can vote what they feel is right. Remind teachers before they ask the pto to pay for something like this, it needed to be brought up way before this. If the teachers did this on their own then they should recover their own expenses...not the pto. Good luck!!