Hi, I am a parent who has been voted in as president of PTA (supposedly). Upon taking office, we immediately decided we would rather be a PTO. So we began looking through the PTA bylaws to start disbanding proceedings.

However, before we could do anything, the school received a letter/survey from the state PTA stating that they were sorry to learn the our school no longer had a PTA and wanted the survey filled out and returned. So I did just that. (the survey did not have my name nor the last president's name, but the president three terms ago)

So, we have started procedures for our PTO, but I was informed just the other day that we still have a bank account with the PTA name and the account was active. So, again I became concerned about the procedures of disbanding the PTA and at the same time was confused if a PTA even existed for our school. With this confusion, I got on the state PTA website and sent an email asking if our school was part of the PTA since I could not get any straight answers (and no previous members of the PTA wanted to disband and become PTO).

I received an email today from our state PTA which stated that our school has had a PTA over the past few years but our school was removed from their active list because dues were not sent in to the state PTA. The email went on to "encourage" me to talk to our principal about starting a PTA. (which is just the opposite of what we want).

So here are my questions:
1. Does our school have to follow the PTA bylaws and go through the disbanding procedure or is the PTA completely done away with already?

2. How can we get the money that is in the PTA bank account and use it for our kids if there is no active PTA at our school? (Can we just switch the money over to the PTO account when we start one?)

3. Can the officers elected for the "non-existent" PTA this year be the officers for the PTO or do we need to hold a special election for this?

4. Do we need to hold a special "PTA" meeting just to state in minutes that the PTA is no longer active?

I would really appreciate any and all answers to these questions. I have not had any dealings with starting an organization of any kind and it is really scaring me and I DO NOT want to get in any kind of trouble with PTA or any other organization.