PTO Today

We are a smaller school of about 200 and have many parents that volunteer their time and care about the school, but they are not actively involved in PTO. We only have around 50 parents that become members and only about 10 that show up to meetings. Most of the parents are just tired of the same thing or come to one meeting and dont feel welcome so they dont come back. Our current president has worked hard, but is truly too busy to try and make things better for our school and she has a way of making people feel uncomfortable. These parents that support the PTO and just havent filled out the right "membership form" or been to meetings are now wanting to vote for the upcomming election of officers, specifically to change our president. Can other parents and teachers vote, even though they havent been members?

Your bylaws should answer that question. The stand point we use is that if they haven't become "members" then they can not vote in elections, etc. This applies even if they have volunteered at an event or something as well. We do keep an "open enrollment" policy, as per our bylaws as well though, so anyone can join at any time. Even at the 11th hour to participate in a vote.

Who qualifies as a member and who qualifies to vote in your group's elections should be defined in your group's bylaws. Do you have bylaws? If not, policy with the vast majority of groups is that you must be a member to vote. Even though these parents volunteer at activities and seem to care about the school, they did not take the time to become "official" members of your group and probably shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Now, you could find a way around this by having these people fill out the appropriate paperwork, pay their dues, and become members, but that would seem a bit devious to me. How would you feel if you were an officer up for re-election and suddenly a bunch of new members joined just to make sure that didn't happen?

I'd say, you may get stuck with your current President again unless the "official" members vote her out. If that's the case, then next year all of those concerned parents need to join the group, show up at meetings and voice their opinions. To heck with leaving because you don't feel welcome, this is your child's school and if you're an official member of the group, then you have every right to be heard and be involved. If enough members with a view different than your President's show up and vote next year, then things can change and at the next election, they can vote in a new President.

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Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

We do have bylaws, but I have never seen them (and Ive been VP for 2 yrs), we just have never had an issue with voting before. Usually we only have one person that is running for an office, but this year is different. I was told by our Pres that I would need to talk with the nominating committee to be considered to even run for Pres, I didnt even know we had a nominating committee... never have before. I feel like Im up against a battle that I just cant win and I truly dont think we could work together again (for the sake of my sanity). She likes to run the show, doesnt like criticism, talks about me and tells me Im the one with the problem. I didnt join PTO for this drama and I feel like Im about to be one on those parents that just quit because its not worth it. I had never thought of it as devious to ask parents to fill out membership forms so they could vote.....most of them never realized there was actually a form (even though it did go out at the beginning of school). These are parents that volunteer and are involved, but just never filled out our membership form.....do you all really think it's devious? I wouldnt care, it should be what the school wants, right?

I would consider YOU rallying parents to sign up so YOU could get elected as a bit devious(not necessarily an awful thing if it's what you feel you need to do to get your group back on track), but if the parents decide on their own(without your help) to become members so they can vote, then good for them. It means that they want change and are willing to take the steps needed to see it through.

Do you think the nominating committee will let you run? What about another parent?

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Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.