In Detroit I think PTA membership dues is $3.75 which is higher than any I've seen on this thread. Maybe it does depend on what state you're in.

Yes, I am a co-founder of Three for Me. I was trying to answer the question about changing from PTA to PTO; not trying to bash PTA in general. I am not saying that PTA is better than PTO or vice-versa, but giving firsthand information on the subject of the question.
National PTA adopted our program and have promoted it well. However, we have recently gone on our own again, because of concerns with "exclusivity." We want to help "all schools," PTA, PTO, everyone.
Our program is about parent involvement, not whether a school is a PTO or PTA, but we have a lot of experience with both groups. As two past local PTA Presidents, and having served in many capacities in both PTA and PTO, we have gained a lot of knowledge about both parent groups and how to run them effectively.
Didn't mean to sound like I was bashing anyone, but what happened, happened...and a PTA unit was lost because they felt underserved by a State unit. Some State units are great, but in this school, in our district, that was not the case.

I'm just a little confused DKpass. Aren't you a founder of the Three 4 Me program and isn't it an adopted PTA program? You have National PTA all over your website and we get regular pieces about it from our State PTA.
They seem to be doing a great amount of advertising for you but you aren't being very PTA friendly...

I was a bit in the loop on a school in our district that just disbanded their PTA last month and are now a PTO. Boy, the PTA State leaders came in fighting to keep them on board, too. This local PTA unit felt that the State PTA leaders, in our state, were not serving them in ANY WAY. They felt the dues, which they sent more than $1,000 each year, would be better spent at their own school.
Their PTA bylaws required them to notify the State PTA that they wanted to end being a PTA; they had to allow State and/or National PTA representatives a chance to talk their membership out of disbanding their PTA, in a formal meeting. Which, got heated...and in the end made the PTA State/National people look ridiculous.
Once that was done and membership voted to disband their PTA and become a PTO, they had to pick a date that would work to move from the PTA nonprofit status to the PTO nonprofit status. You have to allow time to get the new nonprofit status set up, so that you can transfer all of your funds into your PTO account. Don't let anyone tell you that you have to donate the money away, or spend it down to a penny, or turn it in to the State PTA; you don't. But, you can donate it to your new PTO, as long as your new nonprofit status and bank account is open, make the transfer. Talk to an Accountant to make sure that you do this the correct way. That way you are covered. Also, you have to get a new Fed Tax ID number, which you can do on-line at no cost in about one minute. I highly recommend that you spend 5 minutes on the phone with an Accountant, they can tell you exactly what to do.
Disbanding can't be done overnight, because you really need to set up your PTO non-profit status and new bank account prior to totally disbanding. You might even run them both in tangent for a couple of weeks while all of the paperwork is being finalized by your state. The best advice is to talk with an accountant and an attorney over the phone for a little free advice. Maybe your school corporation is willing to help you work through the process. Our school corporation saw the need to help schools that were trying to go from PTA to PTO and had a local attorney, on our school board, step up and set up a nonprofit umbrella for all of our schools to sit under and operate as PTO's. Good Luck!

Virginia is only $.75 per member

Sorry Tim your right...in MA we charge 1.75 per member and National charges 1.75 per member....Nothing else for counties etc. Though...maybe the bigger states do. Unfortunately for us none are big enough to pend about $1,000 in dues.
The local units might add some our unit charges 6.00 for one year 20 for 4 years. The balance goes towards our budget. We are also a low income community and we as a PTA decided if someone could not afford the dues we would pay it.