we are a pto and stay away from politics as far as you can. I guess how do you truly know that the whole group is actually for someone. I would be afraid of offending someone who is very valuable to our group, also as a 501c I believe we can't anyways. Heck even when my husband was running for school board all I mentioned was to get out and vote...not how to vote. Seems messy to me...

Well it would depend on the bylaws you create.
We are a PTO and we do not endorse political candidates. We can and will support school budgets and school referendums, but we cannot support a candidate or any specific political party. I do not know of any PTO's that support political candidates and many of them do not even support school budgets and referendums.

Just my 2 cents here, but politics as we all know are a very messy arena. I think it is a slippery slope if you create an organization that is in the business of endorsing political candidates. It opens the door to all kinds of disasters.
What happens when you agree to endorse a candidate and you have members of your general membership and parents who do not agree with your choice of candidate? It will happen and you will find that you can lose support from people who do not agree with you and no longer want to support your organization. Your all still individuals who have the right to individually, vocally support whomever you want. But when you publicly stand up as an organization to support someone it is a whole different ball game.

The National PTA as a whole in this country has lost and continues to lose support and membership every year because it donates money to various political organizations. It has been the topic of conversation on these boards many times. Just last year there was some big heated discussions about the PTA in California supporting Gay marriages. Not everyone agreed with this and it was a big issue for some.

Again, this is my personal opinion, but I would be against forming any kind of Parent/Teacher group that got into politics and supported candidates and political parties. I can tell you that my board would never even agree on the same candidate. While we are all friends we have vastly different political views. Most of the time we can't even discuss politics without someone getting mad.

We are trying to decide between starting a PTO or a PTA. The reason some give for wanting a PTO instead of PTA is so that they can endorse or run candidates in local elections. Is this done or acceptable? Thanks for your help. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.