This was the first year for all of us. I didn't come on till Feb. as the vice president and when the president stepped down all agreed I would assume the duty.We had no by-laws or guidelines of any kind to go by. And once the problems started to arise, I began to gather info and put some together. We are now working on revising them and making everything more detailed. So there are no questions as what is expected and what we will not put up with. She has broken lots of confidental information. The principal is working on a volunteer guideline that I gave him to help with this. We are having our meeting this week to go over the draft of the by-laws and set them in place. I know this meeting will get very intense. I want to make the motion of removing her from office just not sure if she will be come more of a thorn in our side off of the board. She seems to be that type of person, who thrives off of conflict and doesn't realize that she has over step bounds by gossiping and such. We don't have a lot of parent involvement in our school, we will hold elections next year so that we can get the PTO off the ground better. I don't know if we will have any parents intersted in taking on any of these postions. I think some of them may not cause of her actions.But I am excited about the possiblity of new parents coming in at the new year and hold hope that we will have more parent involvement next year.
I am so new to all of this and you all have been a great sorce of support and guidance.

dwiant - you're absolutely doing the right thing. You could focus all of your time and energy wondering why this woman doesn't like you, what you could do about it, why it matters to her at all what your husband does. None of it matters.

Instead, you are continuing with your plans, working hard to make your parent group and, therefore, your school a huge success and making other parents feel welcome. Good for you!!!

If this person is not merely irritating but is actually interfering with the work of your group, consider removing her from office. It may sound harsh, but it sends a clear signal that this type of behaviour isn't tolerated. If your group lets her stay, remember, she's just one vote. She can make a lot of noise but she can't prevent you from moving on with your plans if that's what the majority voters have decided to do.

Deb is right to consider if other's have check signing authority. If so, you can effectively remove any and all power from her without actually removing her from office.

I'm with Perusing...when do you hold elections? Our PTO had the same kind of problem the year before last when it "tried" to get started. The self-elected Pres. was the negative one and turned a lot of people off. Since nothing official (by-laws, bank account, etc.) got handled while she was in office, we started our "new" PTO the following school year. She was personally invited to come to the first meeting to get our PTO started, but needless to say she didn't show, nor was she involved at all this year. Things went much smoother.

If your Treasurer has been elected for the upcoming year, I'd suggest you check your by-laws to make sure she can't stand in the way of you proceeding with whatever you have planned for the year (does she have to be one of the signatures on checks, etc?). If she tries to stand in the way, I'd again check your by-laws to see what can be done about removing her from her position.

PS - what does how much your hubby makes have to do with anything?

Deb

Thanks, I did start a news later in the winter. I am now working on the website. I just think things boil down to her having issues with me personally. Totally not sure why but I am trying my best to keep this PTO on the right path for our kids sake! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Dwiant,

I guess the first question to ask is when do you hold elections?

Do you know of some people willing to step up and be a part of the board or attend meetings? Sometimes getting the negative person out of a control position (like treasurer who has knowledge of about everything happening) gives their "info/rumor/nastiness" less credibility. It also allows for others to be more informed and ready to step up to the plate.

We had a very small showing of parents who came to meetings, etc. But have slowly worked to get more people involved. A couple of things we've done is to start up a website and have our own PTO Newsletter. (In the past, we had one page with small bits of info in with the School Newsletter.)

By getting upbeat information to the whole school, the negative naggers were fewer and much quieter. Too many people were already seeing the positives!

We use OrgSites for our website. This is a free site and awesome to work with. Some of the formatting is very basic and you have to stay within their scope. But it's a great place to start up and get a feel for it. The editing and adding of information is pretty straightfoward. A good place to get your feet wet in the world of HTML and all that. The biggest concern I have, is making sure I get on often enough to update. Nothing worse than reading about "an upcoming event" that happened two months ago.

I think keeping folks current and updated on what you have been doing helps to keep the negatives at a minimum. You never will be able to keep from ruffling some feathers , but what fun would it be if we all thought the same thing, the same way at the same time!

This is a long story, but I really dont know what to do. And you have given me lots of ideas so far. I am hoping you can help me now.
In late January I was asked to step up as VP when our former VP stepped down. She stepped down for some the reasons I am dealing with now. Our board mainly consist of a treasure, secretary and VP. we have a membership coordinator who attends the meetings and helps me with what she can since she works. Our President has been ill and not active in her position. So I have been basicly doing the job of the president. When I joined I was totally new to doing this, never done it before. So I just kinda took things slow to get the feel for school (which we are new at as well, first year here) The three of us were getting along just fine, no problems. But come late March, I felt like I walked into another world after being out of town for afew days. I was also steppin into my postion more. The Treasurer has been just plain nasty and rude towards me. We have had several meetings over the last few months and tried to talk things out. The last time we did. The secretary and I thought it did so good, we were working together for about a week with no problems. She was being polite to us again. But come last week at our school spring fling, the crap hit the fan again. She for some reason has a problem with me. I am not sure what i have done to deserve any of her rumors, rudness, negativity and just plain nastyness. The amount of money my husband makes came up in our talks and how I spend my time at school is an issue. I do not see what either has to do with our PTO and working together. I am just really at my wits end with. I have reminder her that she is one of the ones who asked me to step in. I don't want to quite, that is not gonna solve it. She is really hurting this PTO as a whole. I am also afraid that she may be one of the reasons some our parents don't want to get involved with the PTO and volunteer their time at school. I have heard this from just a couple of parents. What do we do? The secretary is getting feed up as well. It is boiling down to her and I leaving or the Treasurer needs to go. I realize that no matter what I do, I am gonna ruffle feathers. But we are here for the kids and staff, not this petty high school drama. The principal is trying to keep peace but it isn't working, he has had talks with her in the past. She is just so negative about everything. Our school is a lower income school and hasn't had a very active PTO in afew years, at least from my understanding. I have worked hard these last few months at trying to get our PTO organize and things in place that were not in place before, giving fresh new ideas. HELP!!

[ 05-23-2006, 06:09 PM: Message edited by: dwiant ]