I would like to thank all of those who have posted about this whole mess. I am glad to see that I am not the only person who thinks that parent groups shouldn't be doing lunch with money raised by the students. However, it seems that in this state I am the only one with this view. Both our district and state PTAs say over and over and over that buying lunch etc. with PTA funds is 100% OK! Their stance is that it shouldn't cost anyone anything to be a volunteer and by picking up the tab the PTA encourages parents who couldn't afford to go out to lunch to volunteer. My position has always been "I would eat wheather I was working at school or at home and nobody buys me lunch for making the bed so everyone should buy their own lunch!" As for questions about where this comes in on the budget it generally comes out of the hospitality section of our budget. The hospitality section of our PTA budget is about $3000.00 at year. That covers cookies and drinks for 2 parent/teacher conference days, open house, holiday program and the awards night. All total these events get less than $1000.00 while the other $2000.00 goes to lunches, a holiday dinner for the board that runs at least $500 every year. I could go on but I don't want to give anyone a stroke.

Anyway, the point of my orginial post was that I wanted to start a school focused group apart from the PTA. I have spoken to the principal who has given me his blessing. Parents who are aware of the whole mess are ready to sign on and help and even several teachers have told me they would like to get involved in a student centered group. So now we just have to figure out a name to call our group and get to work making it happen.

Hmm. I can not imagine using the PTO funds for lunch. When I've meet with my officers, we may go to chilis and have a drink with lunch, but we don't use ANY PTO funds. They are for the kids, not us. That is the whole point of what we are doing!

Check your by-laws on how the budgets work. Ours have to be pre-approved at the beginning of the year. Where are they pulling these funds from? Do they have something that is set up and was approved by the membership for this? If they do, and it's buried somewhere, bring it up at the general meeting when budget is approved. Push to have that area adjusted so they can't abuse it.

Also - get your self more involved. It only takes one person to make a differnce and get things rolling. Remember - your a volunteer and they can not fire you or remove your without a valid reason (should be according to the by-laws). It might be a battle at first, but I am guessing they'll give up first if you push the issue long enough (and build a group of supporters around you).

This is not about them and you - it's about the students and their funds. The current group is abusing the system - someone needs to make sure the group get's back on track (that may mean they need to go also).

Good luck.

"Lunch Bunch"... reminds me of a group of kids I knew in middle school that we called the "Proud Crowd". I thought they had grown up but perhaps not. They apparently ended up at your school and still doing the same old childish games.
If you need any help, any info on contacting council or state or just need a little support, let me know. I'll do my best!

A few years ago at our school there was so much conflict and questions going on, the Principal and other school officals put together a special focus group to handle the issues. It went to well unfortunatly the group has been dissloved due to the original members leaving but I would like to see it back.

Take your idea to the ones that support you, the Principal, teachers, parents...I would find a fun event to hold that can help you raise funds with out selling. Bowling, skating, certain resturants, offer cash back programs.

"Lunch Bunch" that's funny. I'm wondering, can the membership ask to see the books and were is $XXX going every week? Now that is fire with fire and there is were you need to decide if you let it be or not.

Take the summer to meet with the school about your ideas, go dutch on lunch or bring a homemade picnic in , you have great ideas that could help someone....it's hard to fly like an eagle when working with turkeys, get outta the barn yard a fly!!!!!!!

Sad--I fell so badly for you! BELIEVE ME--I know where you're coming from! It's a difficult situtation, esepcially whe there ARE rules, but not being enforced, and people are too afraid of the "Alpha Pack" to put a stop to their nonsense. What exactly were the others' reasons for asking you to resign?

It would be stressful, so depending on your other committments I'd hesitate to say, "Go for it!" but if I were you, I'd go for it! Especially if you could get the president's seat back. If you could cement in people to back you up at meetings, you could really do some work with your position. MichelleB has the right idea; just keep plugging away, find ways around situations rather than trying to plow through them. The best way to beat people like that is to do it by using them. They're their own worst enemy--what goes around comes sround, and payback can be a bitch!

Try to hang tough, but if going back is just too hard, don't feel like you failed. You can't do something like that by yourself, and unless you know you have the backing the process will kill you. It seems like you got things accomplished while you were there, and that says a lot

Sad--Is it safe to assume that you have an annual budget that your membership approves? What line item includes all this money that is being used for Board food? If nothing else, maybe you could work on getting some support to get that voted down when you do your budget vote.

But as for doing family fun nights with a separate organization, I don't know that you necessarily need a separate group to do that. If you're not fundraising, and you seem to have the support of the principal, can't it just be a school event somehow? Or maybe could you do it in conjunction with the student council/government? At my school, the student council holds monthly skate nights at the local rink, for example. Maybe you could be an "advisor" to the student council, work with the kids to come up with activities they would find interesting, and bill them as student council activities. If you do something like a movie night, the older kids could help sell concessions, the younger ones could make posters, etc. Getting the kids involved and excited would help boost attendance, too.

Or you could work with the teachers to have a math carnival--it can be built into the curriculum so the 5th and 6th graders come up with math games the whole family can enjoy. Same idea for a science fair. Or maybe the art teacher would like to have an art show, combined with a family arts and crafts night. The art teacher could get a selection of artwork hung around the gym or cafeteria by parent volunteers, and you could have tables set up around the place to do arts and crafts--people could maybe pre-order craft kits for a few different crafts at cost, so you wouldn't have to lay out any funds for it. Just a few ideas.