My kids attend a small school. It is rumored that a current teacher at the school wants to and plans to run for President of the PTO in the May elections. Does this count as a conflict of interest and is this allowed??

Especially being that the current PTO president decided to give funds to each teacher assistant for Christmas gifts to use as they wished, but teachers receiving funds have to provide receipts to prove that the money was spent their classrooms.

Please advise asap!! Thanks.

You clearly have two issues. And based on the disgruntled emoticon, you're not happy about it!

First, your bylaws should define candidate eligibility. If the teacher is acting within the bylaws, then, yes, she can be president of your PTO. If the bylaws prevents it then her nomination is not accepted and she doesn't run. If she is eligible, runs, and wins the office, she's done nothing wrong and she should be embraced just as anyone else would be.

Second, when the president decided to bestow such a generous gift on the teacher's aides, was this a decision approved by the board?

CrewChief is right - this is a group by group decision and has to be addressed in your bylaws. I was in an elementary school PTO where the bylaws stipulated a teacher/staff member could not serve as one of the 5 elected officers, but could chair a committee or serve in many other different ways. This was written partially at our Principal's request as HE felt it was a conflict of interest.

I was a member of a different PTO that had no restriction. One year the school nurse was president. Another year a teacher/staff member did it. Both worked out great. But that was in middle school where the PTO was a much smaller entity having only a limited number of activities.

I'd tend to favor not having teacher/staff for president at the elementary school level, but it still goes back to your bylaws. Those are the rules of your organization.