Well, I have a little update. I was putting together the intro letter to go with our school kit order form and called the Educational Support chair to have her ok to add her phone number.
After a bit of chit chat, she informed me that she had resigned last week...as has our fundraiser chair. Both are willing to help where needed, they just don't want to deal with the politics of their position. The reasons were a mix of not liking the direction we are headed, the politics, and others along the same line. However, if things get better, she would be more than happy to jump back in.
To top it off, the president is not returning my phone calls. My basic message is that we need to meet and get some things under control.
Do you have bylaws? That might be the place to start - most bylaws require a budget and audits of the books - and you pretty much have to account for each fundraiser individually if you want to audit the books. Can you volunteer to take these things on and make an "end run" around the uncooperative president? Can you just go ahead and do it and not ask for permission (I'm known for that!)?
The one thing we found most helpful this year in getting people who don't attend the meetings involved was to send out emails. We have a school directory and typed in all the email addresses we could get into a mailing list. We send out a message every week or so with updates or requests for help. We don't send so many it's spam and most people love it because it's the only real news they get from school. Although we send home flyers and newsletters every week with the kids I think most people just throw them out, but they love the email.
Just a reminder that just because folks don't attend meetings doesn't necessarily mean they don't care or aren't interested. Sometimes it isn't so much as 'won't' as 'can't'. Our current board changed the meeting night to a night that I couldn't attend. And then moved it again. And again...lol... It isn't that I was wouldn't so much as couldn't. Yet I am at the school everyday for almost the whole day. I was not approached to help with anything until just recently. I am extremely interested in what goes on in our school, our district and of course, our parent group. I simply couldn't rearrange an entire family and our various committments to go to an hour meeting that kept changing.
Part of what you will need to do is find a way to utilize those parents who cannot make meetings, to make them feel like part of the group even when they can't attend meetings. You may find that some of your best volunteers are not able (or dare I say, not willing) to attend meetings. PTO's (and all the various acronyms) are known for being cliquish and some folks just don't want to go. That doesn't mean they don't want to help.
What about structure? I don't want to be PTO Pres forever, and I want to know that when I leave the next Pres has someone to hold them accountable. I used this website last summer and found some bylaws, but it was hard to enforce them. The meeting days and times were always changing, we didn't have enough active members to do a nominating committee, and jobs like Pres., VP, Secretary, and Treasurer were all scrambled (actually I ended up as VP, Treasurer, and Secretary). I want to get more parents involved next year and do more for encouraging volunteers but our money right now is deposited into the school's activity fund and all volunteer appreciation is not allowed. It takes me about 2 weeks to get a check from the administration office for our activities, it's a real pain!! But as long as we are PTO our school district is refusing to give us our check book back. I can't say I blame them either!! I mean the "bad apple" PTO from 4 years ago has sure hurt our school!! I was hoping if we changed to PTA or PIE, that there would be some kind of state government body to hold us accountable. I need to know that when I go to work in a few years that the PTO (or whatever it is called then) will operate honestly and if they don't there is someone to hold the responsible parties accountable.
Yeah, I agree with Kathie. Last week we had a similar post where someone was suggesting disbanding their PTA and starting a PTO for similar reasons.
Problems like this are not acronym-related. Changing the acronym won't solve the problem, if the same people with the same thinking/actions are still central.
This is kind of a political question. You (and zoomom, too) need to find "friends", people who share your vision of what the parent group should be, and you and your friends (which hopefully can include the principal) then need to work slowly and deliberately to gaining more friends (folks who think the same way) and making incremental changes. As you see success with smaller changes (maybe a new event that you make great), then you gain more friends and move on to larger changes.
NM mom,
Disbanding and re-starting another group isn't going to change your problems. As much as I'm in favor of PTA's, they're not always the answer. I'm guessing here but it sounds like you need a budget and by-laws. Or perhaps they need to be overhauled. Get those committee's activated.
I would suggest that you round up those disgruntled parents and ask them to serve on those committees. My motto is, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."
