We have a very old school but they have not had a active PTO in over 15 years. We have myself and one other lady who are very passionate about helping. We have had a lot of road blocks. First off the Principle is not easy to deal with. She has to control everything that happens. While I understand this is her school. She does tend to go over board. EX. We were thinking about doing a 5th grade picnic since it is their last year here so we talked to the two 5th grade teachers in passing just to see if they thought it was a good idea. It got back to out principle and she was mad that we did not talk to her first. All we were doing was trying to form an idea and have proper information gathered so we could present it to her the right way. One other EX. the PFO money we make, she controls and uses with out asking us or even letting us know she is using it. So we have issues there lol.


Other issues are we are a below poverty area and over 85% of our children are on public assistance. Most of our parents do not hold jobs and when we have a meeting or family night or ANYTHING we are lucky to get 5 or 6 children show up with a parent. We always send fliers home and always have the food and drinks and make the event happy and uplifting. But our parents just do not make the effort to be involved.

The two of us are trying so hard to get the PTO off and running and really do not know how to go about that. Between the lack of response from the parents and the way the principle treats us we are lossing our want to help.

ANY ideas would be awesome!!!!

Thank you!

Dear New PTO, OLD School:

We are having a few similar issues with our PTO and school relations. However, our school Director is probably the opposite of yours, she is very nice and agreeable, but sometimes it detracts from real progress being made.

I think we did a good job of "winning over" the teachers and director by starting the year off with a teacher appreciation luncheon around Thanksgiving. (It was so successful, we have another one planned for teacher appreciation week in May.) It takes some organizing, but we posted sign-up sheets requesting various items from the parents: entrees, drinks, desserts, paper plates, tableclothes, favors for the teachers, and volunteers for set-up, clean-up, and some parents to make "reminder" phone calls.

You could also try to work with your principal's style. We invite our director to our meetings and present new ideas to her by stopping by the office and saying, "This parent had a great idea, it goes like this, what do you think?" She likes that we check with her. We had one instance when we spent a lot of time on a fundraiser that involved a friendly competition between classes to see who had the most participation. After painstakenly writing class numbers on hundreds of flyers, the director told us that she and the teachers did not feel comfortable with preschoolers "competing". Had we given more notice of how the fundraiser was set up and gotten feedback, we would have saved ourselves some trouble.

Hope that helps a bit. Good luck!

One other EX. the PFO money we make, she controls and uses with out asking us or even letting us know she is using it.

This behavior would be a complete deal breaker for me. In this situation, I believe I'd reserve my time and efforts for other volunteer opportunities.

maggiorepfo-
Yep, sounds like you have a controlling principal : ) But it also sounds like you are working very hard to keep up the hard work and positive attitude and hopefully that will pay off. Amy had some great advice -- try to figure ways to work with the principal. Here are some articles that will offer ideas on how to work with her style:

www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/arti...incipal-your-partner

www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/arti...s-with-the-principal

www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/arti...g-with-the-principal

Regarding the lack of parent involvement, have you tried the 2 Hour Power approach?

This article about ways to have a successful PTO when times are tight may give you some fresh ideas too:
www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/778

Hope this helps. Anyone else have some tips that can add?

Hang in there and keep us posted on your progress.

~Lisa



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We have tried some of the ideas you all gave us and well.... Sad but true it did not work. We are fighting a very hard battle and losing ground. The
principle is not the type to share or compromise. There are two of us who are here on just about a daily bases and one week she is nice to one of us and rude to the other and the next week she flips on us. We seem to never be able to meet in the middle with her. Then to top it off my daughter got hurt from another student in her class and I met with the Principle over it and it did not go well. She blamed the teacher on duty for the problem and the child that caused my daughter to have a sprained wrist only had a 5 mintue time out for it. My daughter is picked on ALOT! She is sadly one of the only white children in her class so she is an easy target. So the principle tends to get defensive when it comes to racial issues. She is also an African American. We had this same problem last year when my daughter got the nickname "Skinny White" from her classmates and the teacher thought it was "cute". That is the real reason I am here all the time. So I can keep an idea on my daughter. It is all so very fustrating to me. I am a very easy going person and I work very well with anyone. I am not one to cause issues but I am really getting to the point where I do not know just how much more I can take. I am looking into moving but that still does not address the issues the school has. Teachers along with many parents feel the same way as I do but everyone is scared of her backlash...

PLEASE any ideas or thoughts??????

I feel badly that you are going through this, and I understand your desire to volunteer to make the school a better place.

If I were in your shoes, I would get the Superintendent involved. It sounds like you have tried everything in your power to make the environment tolerable, but now you need to go to the top.

Also, I would start documenting different things that go on in the school, like conversations you have had with the principal and situations that have occurred. Show this information to the Superintendent.

If the Superintendent isn't willing to help, I would consider enrolling your child in another school. Good luck to you.