A few of my thoughts! I will have to assume a few things from your post though!
First the conduct is deplorable and can not be tolerated! I did not say should not I said can not! This person should not be the President of a PTO/PTA.
Do your by laws cover removal or impeachment of an officer? If so start the process as painful as that may be. In the mean time ask for the resignation of the President. Perhaps this will correct the problem without having to impeach.
If your by laws do not cover removal, and the Preisdent refuses to resign, your principal needs to act or the board itself and remove them by vote or decree! (See the principal's power is not always a bad thing [img]smile.gif[/img] )
As I am seeing your problem none of this is an option, it is a must happen, before you all have a bigger problem.
Sorry if this all seems very direct, but I dont see you having any other options here!
We had an auditor who acted the same way or worse. In fact I had several of my board members quit on me and one even had a nervous breakdown behind this mean, cruel person!
I demanded that this person step down and quit our organization. I also contacted the school board superintendent and had him also explain to this person why his services were no longer need.
Since this is your President, your vice president needs to step in and and with an explanation, have your organization do an emergency vote.
She needs to go. She should know better than to make racal or sexual slurs to anyone at any time.
Wow, what a scary situation! It sounds like this person has some real problems that none of you can fix. Your organization is better off without this kind of a person in a leadership role. As President, she represents your organization at any function she attends. Therefore, her behavior reflects on the organization. I'm sure you don't want to be known as a bigoted, racist, obscene organization, so I say good riddance to this person. If the V.P. feels the need to talk to her that's her own business, but I hope she is prepared for the language that may come hurling at her. Good luck in moving forward. Take a deep breath now and relax.
Just an update for anyone who is wondering...after receiving a few calls from people about why I shouldn't quit (one from the treasurer, another from the secretary) I agreed to stay on until the Board could hold a face-to-face meeting to iron out some of the problems (with the pres.) Today that meeting took place and when she was confronted, mainly about other behavioral issues, she called all of us a profanity and stormed out of the conference room. Needless to say, we were quite shocked. The Principal came in to talk to us about it and said he has never dealt with this situation or anything like it. The Vice Pres. is willing to step up, but wants a 1 on 1 talk with the pres. first (we're not really sure that will help). Anyway, it's been a crazy, surreal day and I need to put it all out of my mind for awhile. But thanks for the responses!
I had a similar experience a couple years ago. Since my e-mail is linked to the school website I have always asked that anything with jokes or subjects not pertaining to PTO to please be sent to my personal e-mail. When they abuse it, I block them from sending anything to us. There is a time and a place for everything and though some may think it's just another e-mail address, there should be rules that EVERYBODY uses for them. One thing we also do is blind carbon copy (BCC) all e-mail addresses and send the e-mail to the school pto e-mail address as the primary e-mail send. No one can get the other's e-mail addresses and it's not public knowledge if it (God forbid) gets to the wrong person.
As for the racial jokes, we don't get a lot of that in our school. We have several mixed marriages / kids in our school, whether it be Black / White, Black / Hispanic, etc. There is no excuse for that. Sex, age, religion and race problems can be constituted as unlawful as it is discrimination. Just my two cents.
In today's workplace her behavior would get her fired in a heartbeat! Unfortunately, things aren't as cut and dried in volunteer organizations. (of course, that doesn't mean someone couldn't sue her or the organization for harassment.) I agree with C.Brooks in that you should tell her how offended you are. She really may not realize how awful her jokes are, you should get a real feel for her by her reaction to your confrontation. If she acts rudely, doesn'tl think there is a problem, etc. then just walk away and involve yourself in the school in other ways. If she seems genuinely apologetic, then tell her you would like to resume your position, and would like to find a way to help her eliminate the offensive behavior. Recommend speaking with the counselor together. Counselors very often have some wonderful ideas for working through conflict. You may find that a simple "sign" from you when she is pushing the limits will be all it takes to get things corrected. Ignoring her comments is as much as saying they are acceptable. What if she makes these jokes in front of children? Stopping discrimination takes every one of us saying "STOP" when we hear or see something we know will cause another pain. It's your turn to say "STOP".
