Our district here in AZ uses what is called site-based management (site council). The council takes power away from the district school board and gives it to the individual school. The site council makes all of the rules I.e.: dress codes, food served, class times, and now they decided to disbanded our PTO without letting any parents know. See our principal says she wants parents to get involved, but only when she needs them. Last year we tried to get the by-laws changed every teacher in the school voted against us. They said they do not want parents telling them how or what to teach. This is a travesty. We want to know what everyone thinks.

Did your bylaws give any direction to what they teach or how? It just irritates me when schools respond this way.

See when the new principal took over 3 years ago the school went down hill, and the PTO went with it. Last year it was felt by the PTO Board that the by-laws needed to be changed, revised, ammended something. They were 12 years old and did not fit the needs of the present day PTO. We found out that the Board that was involved in writing the by-laws was made up of only teachers that in the early days that's all that made up the boards. The PTO was soley used to make parents fundraise to by supplies for the teachers, and that is all. The Principal gave herself an honorary position on the board though the by-law state clearly that all she is needed for is approval for certain things. Yes it would be nice to have a good relationship with the principal, but it was not happening. When the agenda contained the by law situation she brought out all the teachers(who never came to meetings all year) and voted down the discussed decesion to form a committee to review the by laws. Parents stopped coming to the meetings because they were tired of not having a forum to discuss issues related to education which is horrible in the school, and district. The principal would sit in meetings and yell at parents,and so did some of her teachers, as well as a few patsies she helped place on the PTO Board. The PTO was a mess. She fought against every idea to increase parent involvement, and doesn't like to communicate with parents. Many Parents don't even know what the site council is, and that they make all these decisions without parent approval, yet their decisions affect there children. It is a bad situation. We are thinking of forming a PO. It is sad to see a school with teachers that actually fight against parent involvement when so many schools cry out for that support. Parents wanted the PTO to support more school spirit events for the students, and try to help the science department because science for the middle school aged kids is barely taught. The teachers fought all our ideas. They soley wanted funds to be used for the lower grades.

Even though our PTO had problems, we do not think the principal and her secret site council had the right to disband it without notifying parents, and allowing us to be part of that decision. They had quite a bit of funds left over from last year and I am curious to know how they will use it.

What a bad position to be in! Just a thought but... The Ohio Board of Education mandated that every school district must come up with a parent involvement plan. (It is proven that how much parent involvement in a students education is) Many school district have adopted or adopted a comparable Parent Involvement Standard put forth by National PTA. It may be worth your while to see if Arizona Board of Education has any such thing in place. http://www.ade.az.gov/ is a link to the Arizona Department of Education. If they do not have this in place, it should be. Maybe something parents can find worth fighting for. sorry for your perdicament!