cleeta, despite how it all started, I am glad to hear that you have found resolution, and it sounds like you have helped implement positive change. good luck in your future endeavors!

Just wanted to send one final post. We had our P.T.O. election meeting Monday night and the meeting was quite heated to say the least. The end result was that the election was postponed, a committee will be put in place to review the original by-laws and their recommendations will be brought to the general membership.

As for the election, a form went home yesterday stating all parents have the right to vote. The election will be fair.

Most importantly, I called the president last evening and we talked for an hour about all of this. No one wanted this to become personal. We've healed, it's over, we're moving on.

and.. the part i forgot to mention... is that your President WANTS you to succeed and be happy.. it's a good reflection on the Pres when her team is successful and happy:) ... so therefore " interviewing" people for potential spots makes for a good management strategy!

cleeta02;131077 wrote: Initially, the Pres and V.P. wanted to meet with myself and another mom so "we can decide who will run for what position." My friend and I refused to meet as this seemed very shady to us.!

I have just read this entire thread.. and there is a lot of good advice from the well respected " seasoned" posters to this site. I do want to comment on cleeta's comment above, in her initial post.

I have been a PTO Pres for 5 years.. I have had discussions with every exec candidate PRIOR to election night. It is crucial and fair for both your PTO and the candidates for a President to discuss the job with potential candidates.

It is fair to the potential nominees to talk to them about what their strengths and weaknesses are, and to see if they truly understand the scope of the job that they are " going for". After a candid conversation with a seasoned exec member, many people find that the job they thought they wanted, they really don't want after all.. and that they would be better suited for X or Y or Z job. There is nothing shady about " interviewing" and trying your best to match people to jobs. I actually think that President was doing a GOOD thing by trying to put together a team with a variety of talents, skills, interests and strengths.

Your resistance to that process alone makes you a combative prospect, and an unwilling team player. The further fact that you all went to the Superintendent shows your inexperience and naivete.

My best advice to new parents who want to get involved, is to start volunteering, get to know the people and the system, and discover where you shine. There is a place for you all, and I am sure your Board is thrilled to have enthusiastic new parents.. just channel that energy in a positive direction, and don't get mired down by the details, and who has crossed what T or who hasn't dotted their i's.

I have a few things to add:

1) Cleeta, you should have met with them in the beginning so you could really know what is up,

2) Even though it is difficult at times, election procedures ahould be as littl about personal relationships as possible. Even the members who are not your friends should be entitled to run

3) The current regime is threatened by your desire to run. The rules change, if it was indeed a change is unacceptable. If those were the rules, they should have been frequently publicized all year -- probably with any meeting reminders.

Wow...I am concerned that this may be a personal conversation going on here between cletta and others, could they be from the same school? If not I don't think it is fair to attack, either way I don't think it is fair to attack. When any one is asked to come to a meeting to figure out who should run for what office that is a setup. I don't care what anyone says, where is the great american way? It sounds way to cliche for me.

As for a couple of other posts on here I feel like I need to respond. Concern mom I see you are new here I would like to address your comment about there not being a single person on earth who would be out to destroy a PTO's work. I beg to differ, I am sure that every experienced leader on this forum can tell you about parents who have tried to undermind the decisions that have been made by thier general membership, talk behind their back, wait for things to fall apart. I have had my name on a public trash web site for weeks at one point because this parent thought out group was doing too much, he trashed me and my group.

This went on for almost three weeks, if that isn't trying to destroy a group I don't know what is. This was devastating and almost ended out group, it was our principal and site team who stood behind us, they boosted our morale to keep us going. All because someone thought we were doing to much for the kids.

I have had two parents turn me into the superintendent because they didn't like what our rules were on a special luncheon, geesh you need to rsvp to get lunch when we have 600 people coming. So please realize that there are people who may be out to ruin a pto's work. It is very common in the old PTA versus PTO arguement, who is better, who does more work.

When people come on this forum to ask advice they can only say so much, as ptoers or ptaers we need to help each other on the info they give. There is so much that goes on and we need each other, attacking someone and not knowing what the whole story is wrong. You can disagree but please consider doing it in a more positive way, give examples, give history, we don't know the whole story and of you should be from the same school and you do know the story then you need to do this in public and not on this site.