our pta decided to become a pto this year and i am 1st year prez. i do not
know what legal things we must take care of so that we wont be in
"trouble" with state, local, federal authorities. i have seen lots of stuff on
bylaws, tax exempt stuff, etc, but i need someone to talk to me like i am a
2 yr old, all that legal stuff makes me dizzy!! help!! thanks, angela

Our district went from PTA to PTO about 3 years ago. Most of the so called "legal" stuff isn't necessarily "law" BUT with that said, any organization worth it's weight is better off to have a basic structure to it. Bylaws give everyone guidelines and are great to fall back on in times of upheaval. Robert's Rules is the basic foundation of all bylaws. There are links on this site with various styles....most are welcoming to copy. The main guidelines we used was to KISS.... keep it simple stupid.....we basically followed the PTA bylaws, just eliminated most of the weightly large organization jargon and brought a 15 page document down to about 6 pages. You can always amend the bylaws annually as things grow or change. As a district we did go through the process and get "official" tax exempt status. Again, this isn't necessary, but while we were doing it we just got it done. The biggest thing you want to do is get a core group of "follow-through" people involved and delegate and grow your organization for the good of the school!! Good Luck!

Last year was our first year to go from PTA to PTO. We didn't do too much different but this year I'm going to be the PTO Pres. I'm redoing our bylaws to change everything from PTA to PTO and hopefully we'll decrease the page size volume! Our biggest change was to see how much money we were able to keep and spend on the school. PTA is great for getting started but then after several years you realize you are giving them a lot of your dues money. We now get to keep our dues money and it really shows! Good Luck!

The have-tos in my opinion are incorporating and taking care of your taxes. By incorporating you'll get a federal id# for things like bank accounts and stuff and there are some legal benefits too. Then the nice-to-haves would be the nonprofit status. But you don't have to do that.

Doesn't she need to "dissolve" the PTA first? Do something with the money in the accounts, etc. I don't think its as easy as saying, "Last year we were PTA, now we're PTO". After dissolving PTA, then do proper paperwork to start PTO........

Lisa @ Tx

Thanks for the replys, I recently asked another PTO Pres. in our area, and
she says that they do all their PTO business thru the school, they use the
tax id# of the school's. They do have bylaws, which I agree with all of you,
that is very important, it seems there is always at least one in every crowd
that will make trouble if they think they can, but, anyways, they are not
incorporated, filed no paperwork with anyone, and they usually raise between
$2000 up to maybe $10,000 in a year. they recently had a huge fund raising
effort for playground equip. and raised like $17,000, but that is not some
thing they do regularly. she says they have never had a problem with doing
things that way. we have other groups in our school that fund raise on a
regular basis, such as 8th grade, Beta Club, and they just use the school's
tax id#, is PTO that much different? to respond to the last post before this,
we did find out that we had to spend all of our funds we raised as a PTA and
alert PTA of our decision to disband. The former Pres. and I have been doing
that with our summer program and preparing early for our annual fall festival,
we also have started putting together our own bylaws. they are almost done.
we are a very small town(village) and we have no $$$$$ and i was told that
it was expensive to get incorporated and all that. Of course, we want to be
legal, that is our main concern, is not to do something against some law we
dont even know about!! anyone else have anything else for us?? thank you
so much!! angela