Believe me , I've got some opinions about all this!
I'm not going to get my panties in a twist, yet; I'm hoping if I reason with them it'll just boil down to changing the proposed flyer around. Part of our hypersensitivity stems from the fact that my friends and I started a nonprofit in order to raise money for the playground, and the PTA board FREAKED when they heard about it, even though we assured them that we had no intentions of throwing a coup, we're members of the PTA, why would we want to undermine it? In fact we wanted to keep the PTA in the school, which is why we started our own nonprofit; that way we could fundraise for the school in all sorts of ways without having to abide by the PTA guidelines.They've been yapping at our heels, and yapping at the superintendent and our principal about about us (hence we aren't exactly popular with her, even though we, unlike our PTA board, will actually be doing something for our school) and making a lot of things very difficult for us.
When I bring this up with our district administrator though, I think I'll be asking if this means the "Scholastic" Bookfair is out, since not only is "Scholastic" sponsoring the event and is on all the flyers and posters, but they only allow "Scholastic" products there. Isn't that pushing a given product on a captive audience? Does this also mean that the
PTA won't be able to have their fundraiser at a local restaurant? We were planning on having a flyer announcing that a certain restaurant was going to be donating 20% of their take that night to the PTA, so please be sure to come by. Does this mean the PTA's Cherrydale fundraiser in the fall will be just a "wrapping paper" fundraiser, and we'll cross out all references to Cherrydale? Is the Hershey candy bar sale supporting the sixth grade camping trip out? Does this mean the eighth grade dance committee was breaking some sort of unwritten rule when they had their Yankee Candle fundraiser? I also would like to know his opinion about the fact that a local ice cream store approached our PTA president and wanted to give a coupon for a free ice cream cone to very kid in our school (K-8) through the PTA, and she had no problem with it, even though our PTA wouldn't be getting anything out of it at all. Isn't that BLATANT advertising?
I've a suspicion that perhaps someone on the BOE or who works for the BOE either owns or supports a competing salon. Just a guess. If they had come right out and said that I'd have had less of a problem. At first they were very warm to us, because we'd be giving to the school without taxes having to go up. But I think the PTA board has been at them claiming all our fundraising is going to make the BOE look bad because we're having to hit the parents up "all the time."
My real problem is that the PTA seems to have been flying under the radar and doing whatever they want, and doesn't seem to have to even show them their flyers or proposed events, and we do (though
technically since we're a completely separate entity, and not even a sanctioned PTO, we can legally do what we want, they can just restrict our access to the kids and property). It's just so frustrating!
