PTO Today

[Reposted from article comment for Wendy C.] I am the president of our PTO this year and we have an issue with the principal and teachers early on. This year our principal told PTO the teachers voted to keep the staff lounge as a "staff only" room. Several of our board members are severly offended by this. They PTO board members say they have receipts showing they purchased appliances used in the room and should have access to that room, or they will take them out. Personally, I am not offended by the policy, but I have to address this issue. Any help on the legalities. The appliances (2 refrigerators, microwave, etc...) were bought with fundraising money, so who owns them?

As far as the "legalities" go, my thought would be that the school owns them. The PTO is an entity of the school, whether or not it's an independent 501(c)3. Without the school, there would be no PTO. The fundraising dollars that the PTO earns are then given to the school in one way or another, be it purchasing appliances for the teacher's lounge, or paying an assembly speaker, etc.

I wouldn't have a problem with the policy per se, especially because the teacher's are on tight time tables with the break/lunch times. I would like the scenario to copy machines. In our school, we have access to any copy machine in the building, but if a teacher comes in and needs copies, I have to stop what I'm doing and let the teacher make his/her copies, and then continue what I'm doing. That makes perfect sense, and I would think that using the microwave would fit perfectly in place of the copy machine scenario.

What is the PTO storing in the staff refrigerator? Is there a walk in type refrigerator in the cafeteria that might work better for your PTO? Was there a reason that the staff voted to keep the lounge staff only? Perhaps people were storing large amounts in the refrigerators and there was no room for the staff to effectively utilize the space that was originally purchased for them? Or were people leaving things in there and forgetting about them, making it a less than desirable place to store their lunch?

Maybe your PTO could fundraise for it's own refrigerator and that would elimate the problem entirely. Just put a sign on it that says "PTO." That's what we have.

Sorry if this was long winded or all over the place; recovering from surgery and on some pretty lovely painkillers

This feels like a communication and ruffled feathers issue to me.

Communication because .... really, there was some sort of secret vote about PTO presence in faculty room? I can completely understand why teachers desired that rule, but wouldn't an adult discussion of it have been better than some kind of vote? That's on the principal and the teachers.

But it's done. Worse things have happened.

Ruffled feathers because now the PTO leaders are feeling offended. I hope you can help them see this as a communication mis-step rather than some grand offense. Fighting over who owns the fridge will lead to really bad things for your school. Did your fellow PTO leaders really think they owned the fridge before this whole dust-up started? Or is this a reaction to feeling offended? The school will be better for all if maturity can reign here.

Important to share from the teacher's perspective why the faculty might like the privacy. My guess is that there was a real informality to how parents started using the faculty room. One volunteer started doing it, and she was very good about it (or even well-liked by faculty). But then it likely got a bit more each year (more volunteers) and more of a burr in faculty's side (more parents, less privacy and maybe even the occasional parent who wasn't as cognizant or natural about faculty room habits).... and it snowballed to point where faculty felt it had to change.

For the full-time teacher, those 35 minute gaps in their day are important. Some eat. Some socialize. Some correct papers madly. Some discuss/vent/process tough classes or tough kids. That venting can often be done in ways that wouldn't -- with the benefit of some reflection and downtime -- make the parent-teacher conference. Even school and faculty policies are discussed.

Now, that said, I hope your principal is follwing up this new policy with lots of solutions on how parents and parent-teacher interactions can be really wel-served in your school, A differnt space? A different fridge? Etc. I'm not at all saying that parent-teacher interaction can just be ignored. Just saying that I understand about the faculty room.


Wish the change was handled differently. Hope you guys don't let the communication miss take you down a year-long (or more) bad path.

Tim

At our school, the staff lounge is exactly that - a staff lounge. Volunteers, PTA or not, don't go into the staff lounge. I don't think this is a "rule," however it is a common courtesy for us. Even I don't go into the staff lounge unless it's after hours...not only am I our PTA President, but also the husband of one of the teachers, and I see many of them outside of school hours, so I'm sure they wouldn't mind, but it's just common courtesy on my end!

Teachers go into the lounge to relax and to take short breaks and lunches. There are conversations that are of a personal nature that go on in there, not to mention discussions about students that should not be shared with or overheard by parents.

I think you should respect the teachers' privacy and find another area to do your own lounging...or whatever it is that is taking you into the lounge.

As far as the equipment, I agree that you everything you do is for the school, whether or not you feel PTA/PTO owns the equipment. When your group purchased the equipment, I'm sure it wasn't with the caveat that you would be able to use it...it was for the benefit of the school.

I'm sure your volunteers spend a lot of time at the school, however is it really necessary for you to use the equipment? Can it wait until you got home to eat lunch? Most teachers don't have that luxury.

With all this being said, however, have you tried working with the school administration to try to use the lounge during times when the staff isn't in there? There have got to be plenty of times when there aren't teachers in there.

I'm sorry I'm coming across a little hard, but these are exactly the things that ended up ruining a relationship between PTA/PTO and teachers, and without their support, you have almost nothing. A lot of people forget what the "T" stands for in our organizations! At our school, we are lucky that we have a lot of teachers volunteering to do things for us, like running family nights. Over the last 5 years that my wife and I have been involved, we've had several teachers on our board (including my wife who is a teacher/parent at the same school).

P.S. - When I say "you," I'm referring to the people on your board that are having a problem...it's just faster to type!

Thanks for your response to my post. I appreciate all the feedback I have received concerning this issue. This was difficult for me because I do not agree with the two members of our board who had issues with this new policy. Rather than letting the issue simmer and turn into a ridiculous drama, I spoke with the principal and asked if he could clarify the policy and address the arguments the two others were voicing. He was very positive and wanted to schedule a meeting as soon as possible to address the issue. Well, I tried two times to get a meeting together which worked with the two exec. members personal schedule. Finally we had a 30 minute meeting with the principal, but one of the two didn't show up. No body else on our board had an issue but those two, yet everybody but only one of the two complainers showed up.

These two ladies (one is our treasurer and the other is our secretary) are continuing to have a negative effect on the activities of our exec. board and the limited amount of attendees at our meetings. Others on our board are asking me to address their negativity at our next executive board meeting.

During this first year as president, I am encouraging and leading our board towards a cooperative, positive and supporting relationship with the school admin. and teaching staff. These last three weeks have shown me that these two are not on board with this agenda. They seem to be letting past disagreements, power struggles, and gossip keep them from being positive and forward thinking members of our group.

My strategy so far has been to listen to their complaints and corrections but always add positivity to the conversation. When they are rude I cover it with light humor and move on. Any other suggestions?

Wendy

Sometimes it's okay to have one of those frank discussions that go something like:

I'm really excited about what we're going to be doing for the kids this year. I want to make sure that stays the focus of our board and I'm looking for positive energy from everyone in order to do that. I get the sense sometimes that we're spending too much time on the negatives and that just draws our energies in a way that is counterproductive to making great things happen. I really would love to have your buy in and support and of course I'm always here to discuss whatever we need to talk about, but just want us all to keep looking forward vice standing still or, worse yet, looking backwards. I'm hoping this will be the best year yet for our PTO so I'm asking for your help in staying positive for our programs and ultimately for our children.

It is good to be up front about what you're thinking in a professional way. I teach classes on communicating and providing feedback in a constructive way as managers and something like this doesn't go away because you ignore it or worse yet placate the difficult person or complainer. Sometimes there is value in what their comments bring to the table - but they own what their energies are and how it's affecting your team.

Good luck and have a plan--folks like the ones you speak of don't often just stop complaining or stirring the pot. It's their nature and unfortunately you and your team have to figure out how to maximize what they bring to the table and minimize what the negatives in their personality are.

d