perusing is right "It hurts, especially when you have the best of intentions, want to understand and help. Stay focused! Remember we're here for the betterment of our kiddos. Don't let them make you hide away."

Most people get immediately defensive when you ask anything at all. It is unbelievable sometimes that they think its my way or no way, and if a question comes, they take it as, we think your way is bad, as opposed to just the simple 'hey i just have a question'. Sometimes people cannont understand that a question is justa question, with no hidden agenda, just asking for clarifications, wanting to understand something.

Ultimately you have to feel sorry for the folks who exclude, or try to exclude other parents, and have to wonder, do you really want to belong to an exclusionary group as that? It fills a need they have. So let em have it, their needs filled. If it helps them along. Doesnt make it right (doesnt make them look good either!), but might make your life easier if you look at it from their perspective.

And as to attributing your ideas to their name, hey, who said that 'copying' (or in this case, 'using your idea') is the greatest compliment of all? Someone in the bible said, never seek recognition, never let the right hand know what the left one is doing, or something similar. Just feel good the kids are ultimately getting the benefit of your good ideas. Keep on contributing your ideas, sounds like they can use them!!!

Thanks for your kind words. This group, however, doesn't let anyone in. It's a VERY small school, about 100 kids K-8. Their kids are always the ones to sing solos, get their pics on year books, etc. Now I'm sure they will take my ideas and claim them as their own, which may not be so bad cause there still good ideas (I think!)I'm trying to look on the bright side...at least we made them follow the rules. And I could always run for a spot on the Board of Education...which the ptl has to report to.

Hang in there Punky!

Stay involved and active as a part of the group. I had issues and asked questions a few years ago. I ran for Treasurer, because it was obvious there was some fishy stuff going on with the checkbook. The then officers got someone else to run against the me (without letting me know they were putting another name on the ballot) and kept me out.

After a couple of years of them realizing my questions were not meant to simply put them down or demean them, they eased up and realized I was an asset to have on board. I finally was able to run for a position where they weren't campaigning -just to get anyone but me!

It hurts, especially when you have the best of intentions, want to understand and help. Stay focused! Remember we're here for the betterment of our kiddos. Don't let them make you hide away.

Well, tonight was the election. I was running for pres and my sil was running for secretary. Funny, how our ptl told me that "those bylaws are so outdated (1992) that we dont use them"...until they need to for their advantage. The other people won for pres and secretary. The bylaws state that a person can run for two consecutive terms and then they can't run anymore, but the secretary has been in office for about 5 years but no one can find a record of it. I talked with someone tonight who saved the school's newsletters from 5 years ago and she's sure it says that this person was in office way back then. The principal and pastor suddenly "dont have any records" of how long this person's been in office. I guess I must not have donated enough money to the church/school. At least not as much as this person has. Anyway, it's a moot point now.

Oh, my sil and I decided to get the word out on what kinds of changes we'd like to see, so we typed up a paper and distributed it as people were going in to the meeting. We did this because we knew we would not have the opportunity to make any kind of speach on our views during the meeting. My thought on this was, why vote blindly? At least they would know where we stood and could make an informed decision. Well, one of the teachers got hold of the paper and started to spread around that we are NOT supposed to do that, so that made a bad impression from the get-go.
Thanks for listening...