Our "dues" are voluntary, but $25/family/year and we're also a public school. You could try asking for a $20/family start-up donation and say, if you get enough donations at that level by Feb 1, there won't be dues, but if you don't, then only those who paid get to vote, and dues are set at $5.

I'll chime in on a couple of these.

Dues - there is no wrong/right answer on whether to charge dues (although some people feel strongly). Either system can work and there are some really good discussions if you use SEARCH. I think we all agree, if you do indeed charge dues, you need to make sure that ALL families - paid or not - are constituents who can benefit from and participate in activities.

Board - in some organizations this is no more than the 4 or 5 elected officers. My preference is that it is a much broader group, especially if they have significant power. For some groups, the board meets to discuss PTO matters, narrow down recommendations, and decide exactly what gets presented to the general membership for a vote.

For many the Board is comprised the elected officers "plus". The plus might be the just the principal (or not) or any of several other roles.

My most successful PTO had a very large Board. The general membership met only twice a year - early Fall to approve the budget and Spring to elect officers. (Our parents were not the type to embrace monthly meetings. When we tried them, it was usually just the Board anyway.)

So our Board included:
Elected officers (5)
Principal, Vice Principal, 2 Teacher Reps
Chairs of all PTO Committees, including Volunteer Coordinator
6 Parent Reps (1 person to represent each grade)

We had 20-30 members and met monthly to conduct all PTO business. The meetings were open to anyone, but we focused on business - not having a speaker or trying to recruit parents to attend.

>>>>>>

As far as your "at large" members, whichever way you go -you typically wouldn't have more than a couple of those. If you have a lot willing, maybe you want to consider parent reps and get one per age group/grade.

I would also look at other schools By-laws and bring samples in to the committee to help them get started. You are a new school, they might have been on a committee before or a PTO, but they might not have been on a by-law committee.
I agree that a committee should be formed to set-up your groups by-laws-- once they are written, they should then be given out at a PTO meeting to everyone there to look through, and if there are any questions, at that time can be asked and addressed, then the following month you can vote your by-laws in-- it is a longer process, but these by-laws will be in place for a long time to come, so you don't want to rush just to get them done... our by-laws are on our website for anyone to look at at any time, you can go Fox PTO Macomb Twp, MI and download them , maybe they will give you some ideas... it also has what the duties of each officer are that are part of the PTO board--- how long their term is and what the procedure is to vote in someone onto the board.

As far as dues go--- we don't have any, but we are a public school-- I personally don't think $5.00 per family for a year is asking too much of anyone.... and you need start-up funds-- once you've been established for a while and have built up your bank account with funds, you can form a new committee to amend some of your by-laws-- the by-laws should be looked at once a year anyway by someone on the board to see if you need to make any amendments.
As far a what a board does from the PTO as a whole.
We as a board, meet once a month to go over events that are coming up, what might need to be voted on as a board or PTO as a whole at the upcoming meeting, and discuss issues that have arisen since the last month.
Then we meet once a month, usually the following week as a PTO- we have representatives reporting on items listed on an agenda that gets handed out to everyone attending the PTO meeting...
The president runs the meeting-- starting off with role call of all board members, then going over last months minutes- the secretary prints up a shortened version of the following months meeting-- the pto approves with a 1st and 2nded what the minutes show that was discussed last month-- then we move on to our treasurers report--- the treasurer talks about how much was spent this month, money that has come in and what our balance is--- again, there is a break-down print-out handed out to all that attend so they can look over what the treasurer is reporting-- then there is a 1st and 2nded on that as well... If you have a principal, or director of your school-- they talk next-- maybe they will report on things that are happening at the school, or that are coming up--

We mention any new business-- if we have any-- this is would be where we would vote on something....

We go onto old business-- such as we voted on our main goal for the year to be a rock wall of our gym-- thank you... (this would be for anyone that didn't come last month)

Then we go through our committee reports-- whoever is the committee chair for that event reports on it....

It could be just giving out dates of the upcoming fundraiser-- or mentioning you need more volunteers for that event, we made $ of dollars from XXX event last night, thanks for coming out.

And finally we adjourn the meeting with approval from the floor and a second.

This is all spelled out in our by-laws as to how a pto meeting agenda goes.
Good luck to you...

PM--welcome to the boards and the world of compromise and second winds. It's kind of good you received both of those "lessons" up front. The good news is; you have people who came to your meeting and are energized to help. Now you can start to make this stuff terrific.

I won't address everything above, however there are some highlights that I'll hit and I'm sure others will fill in.

As to bylaws: Get a committee together who's duty it is to come up with bylaws. That takes you out of the process until the review portion and it is much more difficult for one voice to banish the work of a committee. They can start with a basic set of bylaws and modify and work from there to create one that you believe best supports your organization. There are TONs of bits of information here that will help get you going and I think you can even order a packet to assist.

As to dues. There are many thoughts out there on dues. Many groups here don't charge dues. My group does. 5 short years ago we were brand new and needed some start up money. We charge 7.50 per family and that does give them voting rights. Other families receive many of the benefits of our PTO, the emails, the newsletters, access to the programs and we never tell anyone they cannot volunteer. So why the dues? We put the money into a "sun fund" that allows us to support very structural aspects of support to the program (mulch, bulbs, white board systems etc). It is basicially a donation that allows our school to function without any one year raising money for something that has to do with maintenance of the school grounds. The parents know it is basically a donation and they are good with that.

I would suggest that as you get your feet under you - you also plan something fun for folks to get their heads around. That takes all that energy your feeling from your group and gets it in gear so you don't lose it. Maybe a fun night for the kids to enjoy with their families.

Okay--I've got to run to basketball.

Best of luck and keep in the game. It's fun!
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Okay, so last night we had our very first PTO meeting. Our PTO is BRAND new, private school (daycare). I am PTO Pres and have spent weeks learning about PTOs, bylaws, voting, Robert's Rules, etc. I have never been involved in a PTO, but was extremely excited to help set up a new PTO for our school, to help our children.

So at last night's meeting I went in super excited to share what I had learned, set forth some guidelines and get this thing kicked in gear.

However - I was immediately faced with opposition on some things that I felt were necessary for the PTO to handle/adopt/etc. To say that I felt like someone had knocked the wind out of me would be an understatement. I was a bit dissapointed, but have now had a day to reflect and realize this is only going to happen and work with the entire group behind us -- and that just because I think one way is the best way, doesn't mean it really is.

So, I'm working on a followup email to send to the participants from last night to help us get on track for moving forward. Before I send this out, I wanted to get some feedback from others that have been involved in PTOs for much longer than me (which is honesly only 1 month).

I feel a little like a fish out of water since many of these parents have been involved in other non-profits before, and have alot more experience than I do, and I really want to learn and do a GREAT job for the kids.

Questions follow... any advice/suggestions/experience you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

1. What is an officer at large, or board member at large? We have already setup our 4 main officers, and have 2 directors... and at our meeting last night a parent volunteered herself to be an officer at large. I'm not really sure we need another "officer", we're a very small school and Im afraid of having too many chiefs and not enough indians.

2. What does the executive board do exactly? Is there anything we do on our own, w/out the rest of the PTO present?

3. How can you get your bylaws approved easily? We discussed last night a few of the topics in the bylaws I wrote (based on several other bylaws from PTOs), and it seems that someone had something to say about everything. We talked for 30 minutes just about dues. Everyone has a different opinion, and I'm afraid we'll never get our bylaws approved if we nit pick everything. My thoughts were to just go with the flow, go with what is standard, and then make changes as appropriate.

4. Membership dues. This seemed to be met with alot of opposition last night. I was proposing we allow anyone/everyone involved in teh school to be part of the PTO, and dues payers would have voting rights. We are a brand new school PTO, and therefore have NO money to even file our articles of incorporation with. I suggested $5 per family per school year. While this is a private montessori school, and 75% of the families are middle/upper class, I was surprised to see some having a problem with paying $5 per year. Some suggested we don't charge any dues -some suggested those that can afford to donate extra to cover those that cannot pay - some suggested in leiu of paying dues they could volunteer. well, we are a volunteer group anyway, so I don't think volunteering to avoid dues makes much sense. My feelings were that if each family that wanted to have voting rights put in a small amount of money, then they would all feel a sense of ownership. How is the best way to address this going forward?

5. Committee heads. It is my understanding the committees have their meetings, do their planning, and present to the general PTO meeting each month. If voting is needed, we do it then, etc. Is this correct? How best to organize these committee chairs to keep up their committees?

I think that is enough to get me started. Thank you so much for all your assistance.