Writermom makes some terrific points. At all the schools I've worked, the principal has final say about everything that goes home. That's usually a procedural item and not a bylaw so you wouldn't see it in the bylaws.

She also suggests a meeting with the principal which is an excellent idea, especially if he doesn't regularly attend the meetings.

It sounds like you followed all of the right procedures and still he's holding things up. This is pretty common, I'm afraid. Due to the large volume of items they must review every week they just forget what they have and haven't seen. My last principal was in the habit of writing OK and his initials and date on each form so we had a record of what was approved and when.

You didn't specifically ask for advice on this issue but I'd like to address it. You say:

There is another teacher who keeps coming and requesting large amounts of money and the parents present, approve it.

Sounds like someone has learned to work the system! May I suggest that you change the policy for requesting large amounts - say, over $100. I'd probably ask that any allocation requests over $100 need to be submitted in writing one week prior to the meeting. Then I'd let parents know about it so they can make it in to vote. If it becomes apparent to everyone that the same teacher is asking for money over and over they may cut her off. If you want to, maybe even go so far as to say the requests require submission one week early AND prior approval by the principal. If one of his staff members is so neglected that she has to constantly turn to the PTO, he should know about it. I suspect, though, that she won't want him to see her with her hand out all the time so she'll back off a lot. Finally, consider setting a maximum total amount that any one teacher or classroom can recieve during a school year. Of course, just because you set the amount, it doesn't mean that you will give that much to each teacher, just that even if funds are available, they wouldn't get any more than that.

[ 01-04-2007, 12:00 PM: Message edited by: CrewChief ]

If I am reading this right, the principal approved the home ballot and then later said he knew nothing about it? If that's the case, it's time for a sit down. You need to explain you want what's best for the school and find out why he's stonewalling you. He may not be trying to be difficult, he might just be unsure in his job and not want to get in trouble. Our principal was new last year and put the breaks on every new idea--frustrating. This year she is more confident and is behind us all the way on a bunch of new events.

Or maybe he's just a controlling jerk. In that case it's up to you to find a way to work with him. There are some good articles on this site that give great advice on dealing with principals and difficult people. And I bet if you search this topic on the message boards you'll find lots of similar situations and even more advice.

It doesn't matter what kind of group you have, nonprofit or not, if you're talking about sending stuff home. The principal usually has ultimate authority over that, as he should since he's the one who gets the nasty phone calls when parents get mad.

Principal problems can be the most frustrating, but I would start with a meeting with him, you and the board and see if you can clear the air. Good luck!

Are you a service arm of the school,and use taxID of the school, or a totally independent organiztion, like a registered non profit with your own taxID number? Your status might make a difference in how much say the principal has, in theory.

How much say does a Principal have with the PTO?
It seems everytime he doesn't like something he stonewalls us with, I don't think you can do that, I need to check with the School Attorney.

The lastes is, the attendance by the parents at our monthly meetings is very low. So when we are voting on money being spent, it is done by just a few parents. They have voted yes to some very expensive requests form teachers that only benifit 2 grades or less. It has been very frustrating to us. We do not vote.There is another teacher who keeps coming and requesting large amounts of money and the parents present, approve it. So to make better decisions about our money, we came up with an idea of a home ballot.It would be for any requests for $400.00 or more. We would then send out the ballots to the parents, either by e-mail or paper. We did have this approved at a monthly meeting, the parents there thought it was a great idea. We then drew up a flyer, that had to be approved by the Principal. He did approve it, and even spoke with my co-chair telling her what a great idea to get the parents more involved. We sent the flyer home and are still receiving positive responses. So we were going to go ahead with this new policy.
We were at our School Committee last night and we were updating them on this new policy. The principal spoke up and said this was news to him, he didin't think this was something we could do and that he had to check with the School Attorney.
So my question is, we followed all the steps listed in our by-laws to impliment this new policy. The members voted on it and approved it. Does the Principal have the authority to stop it?