Thanks for the input,tiner 68. We have ended up switching back to avoid the mess. When we found out two of our school board members have a political background in PTA. We knew it wouldn't benefit the school to fight it, no matter how wrong they were. The last thing we wanted was to harm the school and when the fact of the matter is most parents want to support the school no matter what you call your parent group it wasn't worth the fight. We are having someone look into trying to do a PTA and PTO for next year. We hope if they know all the facts they might be willing to work with us. Our principal has been great through this and this is her last year so I know this wasn't the way she wanted to spend her last year.
Hi
I'm from a small town called Pinetta(10 miles this side of the fl/ga line) and we have never had any problems. In fact, I not sure of the details but we changed from a pta to a pto a few years back. We have alot more participation now than we did as a pta. It's very sad that some people refuse to relize what a benefit this is to our children. I hope you can get them to change their mind. Lots of Luck!
tina
Practically-speaking, kespto is correct that school principal or super could make it very difficult for PTO to hold a non-approved event. They could deny use of school facilities and restrict use of backpack express, etc.
Technically, though, if any group of parents (especially in public school) wants to form a group concerned with school goings-on, those parents have every right to do so. Any group could be "Concerned Parents of XYZ School" or "XYZ School PTO" and principal or district could do nothing about it. (Again, they could deny that group use of school facilities/school tools, but that's it.)
It's a bit of a semantic argument, but it's important to realize that -- like you said with exercising the voting rights -- parent groups are not powerless, nor are parent groups beholden to principal or district. It's a partnership -- and parents are on either equal footing or higher footing. They're our kids.
I just like to remind everyone that the school board and the principal do have the right to refuse a PTO or PTA. Or any functions a PTO or PTA would like to do. The up side to this is that as community members we vote for the school board members. If your school district is being unjust as a community member VOTE them out.
We did get insurance and we actually got it through the same group we had gotten the insurance through for PTA. :confused: Hopefully once we get it all explained they will be okay with it.
It seems to me a district would support any group of parents that only want to do things to benefit a school no matter what acronym they choose. One thing that does occur to me is perhaps they are worried about insurance issues. Something easily remedied by purchasing your own. Good luck!
