[russellbeste]

Hello all, I am on Vice President of our elementary school PTO in Vermont. I am also recently divorced and one result is I was given 45% physical custody but no legal custody(thank you vermont, in this state if one parent doesn't want to share then by Vermont law only one parent can have legal custody), so I guess I am a noncustodial legal parent. Does anyone know if this affects my ability to continue to act on the PTO board? Thanks for your help! russell

[JHB]

It shouldn't. You'd need to check the PTO bylaws, but those would be some extremely rigid ones to define membership that narrowly. Usually, PTO member (and thus ability to be an officer) is one of the following:

* any parent/guardian of a student at the school or any staff member of the school
* anyone in the local community
* anyone interested

Usually it's a question of if membership is wide open (anyone who feels like it can join) or restricted more to the specific stakeholders of the school.

Under our own definitions, you are a "parent". We don't distinguish between custodial or non-custodial. It's hard to imagine making that distinction as long as the person still has some parental rights regarding the child.

[volunteermomo3]

I agree. You would be very welome at our school! We have step-parents who are members and the actual blood parent doesn't do anything.

Good luck and enjoy your child's school year and good for you for caring and wanting to take an active role.