Petcar,

I can understand, and on the surface what you have presented us it seems unfair. But again you need to ask yourself is the fight going to be worth it? Only you can answer that.

I hate to seem to dump it on you but you are the one who has to make the decissions. The best the rest of us can do is offer suggestions of how to proceed and commentary on what we see.

I will address the who runs the PTO question though. The person or persons who run the PTO is the person or persons the PTO allows to run it. The principal has an enoromous amount of power, it is their school and they can ask the PTO to leave the campus, can restrict access to the kids and the means to communicate with all the parents and so forth. But beyond that there is little more that they can do. Most Principals find common ground with their PTO/PTAs because they see them providing badly needed services to their schools, the rest fall somewhere else from not caring at all to thinking they own them and can dictate to them. But, again, those latter ones are few, but get away with it because the PTOs let them, the fear of what could happen out wieghts their desire to rock the boat. I am not passing judgement on any of them, I am not sure how I would react in their situations. I am only stating the reality.

There are legal seperations, recent PTO Today article went into those rather well, but again most people dont want to rock the boat when faced with having to say "Hey stop a minute, that isnt for you to say to us."

So we are left with what is it you want to do? What value will be added if you do indeed press forward? Does the good you may accomplish out wieght the negative impact at least the intial negative impact? Do you really want to put yourself through this headache?

Now a purely personal observation. Before reading this read all the above though. If I had a principal tell me I was no longer the President of my PTO she would have one hell of a fight on her hands. As I posted before we have a mechanizism for removal of officers and that is not one of them. But in any case no one person can be allowed to overturn the effects of an election regardless of the level it is at! That is my purely person view.

Can you ask for a meeting with the PTO Board and Principal before the general meeting as there maybe issues that they don't want to air out infront of the rest of the membership (and you might not want either.)
The more I think about this I hope it's not a crazy rumor that is causing this. :confused:
I agree that it's not right if the Principal says "I don't like you, you are releaved." and all you have done is wear purple! There is something more here and a cool, calm, I need to talk to you meeting is needed. If possible, off school site. Why? It would be easier to talk, just talk. Two, keep things neutral. I don't know about you, but I'm 34 and still feel like a little girl when I walk into her office!

The crazy part is, someone always thinks they know more than the other person and that might be the case. Did you read my post about President banned from school...I should introduce you two! This sounds so similar to what happened to her. Well, kinda but anyway it came down to a letter a parent had written that was full of more bologna than a meat case!

Call 'em. Wave a white flag, I have one you can borrow, and let them know you want to talk....

To the OP yes you are entitled to an explanation. If you do not get one from the executive board, then I would make the inquiry at the next meeting. They have to prove that you either violated the bylaws or did something terribly detrimental to the group. The way that it all happened it wrong on so many levels, most of which being that why bother to have an election, when if the group does not like the person they can just vote them off. The membership has a right to know the truth as well as your own right to defend aganist any accusation.

Hillview Elementary: You need an established set of bylaws ASAP, I can send you ours to take a peek at. That should be your main priority to cover all areas of your group. If you want them email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Yes the principal can control these things. He can make things easy or hard on a parent group because ultimately the decisions made involve his school.

I think you have every right to know why you were voted off. Will the other officers not give you even a hint. I would go to the next meeting and bring it before the whole group. I am sure the other members would like to know too.

The law suit that I had was with the district not with the principal. I have two children in the school. I was voted onto the board as vice president. The executive board met the other night to vote me out (without my knowledge). I still have not been given a justified reason as to why I was voted out. Am I entitled to a reason? We don't have anything in the by laws as to voting out an executive member. The principal had total control over what happend in the past few days leading up to this. I am very upset and hurt and want to know why? I asked the president if I did anything wrong or anything to shame the PTO and she told me no. Is the PTO run by the principal or is he supposed to just be there to advise? That is not mentioned in my by laws either.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

To bad you don't have by-laws right now. I think it would be best to form a committee and form some. There are some great examples on here.

In our by-laws the duties of the VP is to "AIDE" the president. Maybe could make a list of what you feel everyone's duties are and send them to each officer. That way the others can tell her that is not her job. Her job is to only do _______.

petcar, have you got anything straightened out?