Thank you for your input. We really appreciate any help we can get. We have tried to sit down with her and tallk things out, but she is very much in the mindset of "that's how they did it at blankiety blank school" or my last school did it like this." It seems that no amount of talking seems to permeate with her. Not to toot our own horns, but of all the schools in our district (at least 10) we are rated the best overall, encompassing grades, PTO, parent involment and teachers. Our PTO has won awards in the past several years for being one of the best. She, unfortunately came from a school in the same district that has a different parent base and therefore different or less involvement.
Also, to compound the issue is the fact that, initially, she was to be an interim principal until ours came back from maternity leave. Somewhere along the line that all changed. The problem that we face with her is that no matter how many informal sitdowns we have with her, she tends to say one thing but when we are in an official meeting she says something totally different. Very underhanded and sneaky the way she tries to "back door" things around us then says "she didn't know".

It's amazing how much people don't realize when they shake a snow globe it's realy not always for the better!

1) How do we make this woman understand that she is not the PTO nor does she have the control that she is trying very hard to gain?
You will probably not make herunderstand that she is not THE PTO but is there any chance to have a new meet and greet with thsi new principal to talk about what it is your PTO does and what her former PTO did? Call me crazy (I can take it) but not knowing more than what your sharing, I'm wondering if a informal sit-down would help with this. We met with our new director shortly after he started and we totally lucked out as his former school was a correctional institution! Don't get me wrong, our discussion was needed as he assumed we raised thousands and did more. It was great though to have everythignon the table right away so we knew and he knew where the PTO was helping and how we would love to do more.
2) Is there some sort of mediator we could get to help us. Doubtful that the School Board would be interested in helping if it doesn't fit into their "agenda". I don't think you need the School Board, in essence that's going to her boss and are you really wanting to do that yet? Now unless there is one person on the Board that serves your area that would be willing to talk with you and mediate that might help. Otherwise I know our district in burbia Denver offers someone to help with complaints but again you are really on your own.

You two really havea common goal here. You are both wanting this school to be the best school it can be, she's just trying so hard to be the best SHE can be at a new job. Just a different view and I think if I could be "Big Bird" here (my fav!) I think he would agree.

Please totally beat the feathers outta me if I am way off here but I don't think this is worth losing a job over.

From reading other postings it seems we are experiencing a common problem, that is, a very controlling principal.
We have found over the past several months that our new principal (new to our school, but was an asst. principal at previous school) is a huge control freak. Time and again we have tried to work with her but it seems that she is all for "changing things" because that is how they did it at "that school" or this is how other PTOs do it. She has tried to get us to completely change prevously scheduled events or change the format. She tries to tell us how to spend our money that is alloted for events (for instance our Veteran's Day Ceremony) and now is on the "maybe the by-laws need to be revisited" kick. Our by-laws have been in place for many years and have worked well. Just yesterday she wanted us to change an event to a later month to fit the needs of a committee she formed as well as change our end-year-event to also fit into the needs of that committee. She was told no less that 8 different times that we were not going to change the event. Then she had the nerve to ask the PTO to sponsor the events for the other committee. she also wants a position on the auditing committee, which according to our by-laws she is not allowed to do.
Just today we found out that she is recruiting people to run for treasurer for next year.
My questions are this: 1) How do we make this woman understand that she is not the PTO nor does she have the control that she is trying very hard to gain? 2) Is there some sort of mediator we could get to help us. Doubtful that the School Board would be interested in helping if it doesn't fit into their "agenda".
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.