PTO Today

I am a newly elected president who has served in other positions on the board for 3 years. We have a principal who has been with the school for two years. Previously, we had a principal who let our PTO make our decisions as long as they met guidelines and fulfilled the needs of our students and teachers. Everything of course had to be formally cleared through him before implementing any of the decisions. The former president of our organization included the new prinicipal in every move we made which made the rest of the board uncomfortable as to our ability to work things out before getting the principal's final input and approval. We had begun over the past two years to get together during the summer months to have meetings to tweak our organizations needs. The former pres. included the new principal in these meetings which tended to put a lid on any in depth discussions. Right now the current feeling is that we are unable to function as a group of parents who are trying to enhance their children's elementary years because we are "under the thumb" of the new principal. Our bylaws do not list the principal as a executive or voting member of the board. My question is- are we required to include the principal in every meeting we hold outside of the monthly PTO meeting held during the school year? We definitely need time to hash some things out before under our own steam. How can I get the principal to realize we need to work some things out on our own before presenting to him for final clearance.

Is your group independent of the school(do you have your own tax id and 501c3 recognition)? If so, then unless your bylaws state that the principal has control of the group, then you would be totally free to have your meetings without the principal and make decisions without the principal's input.

That being said, the principal is responsible for all that goes on in his/her school. If you leave him out of the discussions and decisions, he may be uncooperative in allowing you to do anything within the school. Perhaps the best way to approach this situation is to #1 determine if you are an independent organization and #2 approach the principal with your concerns about people not feeling free to voice ideas and opinions in his presence. If you go at this with a reasonable, friendly, professional attitude and let the principal know that you want what is best for the students and want to truly work with him to provide services, programs, and events that everyone will find valuable he will most likely let your group run on it's own with just some guidelines. You may find that your principal will be relieved to have one less thing on his plate!!

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

Why would you want to. I would think it would be waste of time to include the principal on every meeting. I can see after you've had several meetings to sort out ideas, get ideas of budgets and plans to present it to the principal for the OK. Then your planning committee goes into action and actually puts it all in place. You could provide updates via emails to the principal on how the event planning is coming along, but I'm sure the principal has so much to do in regard to student enrollment, schedules, curriculum and security to be included in every meeting and every step along the way.

If we came up with a different idea; after we had some sense of how the event would run, possible vendors, and if it was feasible with our budget, we'd ask for an OK from the principal. But we did not include her on every PTO meeting that went on outside the monthly meeting.

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Doing it for my one and only ~~ my son!

Hi J--welcome to the boards. I too have had formal summer meetings and if they are a formal meeting then I do always invite the principal. At first, she was interested in attending, but as her confidence grew in our ability to keep her informed, she felt confident that we would be coming to her with a plan. I'm concerned by your sense that you are "under the thumb" of the principal as opposed to co workers on the projects you are inspired to pursue. I would think that before you got too far in the process of planning an event you would at least want the principals nod at the concept of what you are looking to do. For instance, a general idea that you are interested in a "Trunk or Treat" and then see if he is open to a fall event like that (with general terms) and then get to a more significant plan that you present to him. Most folks I've run into are willing to allow the planning to take place as long as they are in the final processes to (in our case usually enhance) the program.
As a new pres...it is so important in my mind to establish a working relationship with the principal and ensure that he understands you're a part of the team...

Anyway--just my idea on things...
d

While it is vital to maintain a working relationship with the principal, in my opinion it is not necessary to include the principal in every single meeting about every single thing. I understand your feeling of being "under the thumb" of the principal and it can be very damaging to the group if many people feel the same. We worked last year to change our bylaws and remove the principal from the list of executive board members. It was seen by some as a personal attack on the principal but that certainly was not the intent. By changing the structure of the executive board it allowed members to freely express opinions, brainstorm, vent, and plan and it has worked out just fine. If you are a seperate organization from the school, ultimately the principal does not have control over the procedures of the organization. He or she does have final say in what is or is not allowed in the school so special care should be taken to maintain balance. We have even had a few meetings (posted properly of course) at the local coffee shop and this works well for getting folks to relax and be creative

While it is vital to maintain a working relationship with the principal, in my opinion it is not necessary to include the principal in every single meeting about every single thing. I understand your feeling of being "under the thumb" of the principal and it can be very damaging to the group if many people feel the same. We worked last year to change our bylaws and remove the principal from the list of executive board members. It was seen by some as a personal attack on the principal but that certainly was not the intent. By changing the structure of the executive board it allowed members to freely express opinions, brainstorm, vent, and plan and it has worked out just fine. If you are a seperate organization from the school, ultimately the principal does not have control over the procedures of the organization. He or she does have final say in what is or is not allowed in the school so special care should be taken to maintain balance. We have even had a few meetings (posted properly of course) at the local coffee shop and this works well for getting folks to relax and be creative

We in no way want to alienate the principal from the organization. The board as a whole is suffering from a level of frustration from the last two years. Most of us have served during that time at different positions. The previous president even went so far as to disclose correspondence to the principal that was passed between officers during "hashing outs" before we were able to come together collectively on a decision. We all felt that we should have been able to find a final decision to present to the principal as a unit. As far as I am aware we due not have a 501c status due to the concern of costs for CPA auditing that we were told would have to occur yearly. We pay sales tax on items we purchase. We do have I believe what is called and EIN that is for our bank accounts. I spoke with one of our officers today. She thought that maybe we could appease the principal by inviting him to attend the meeting about an hour after starting with the explanation that we needed to discuss items before we would be able to present it to him.

I understand needing to 'hash' things out before meeting with the principal but I am afraid that asking her to come a hour after the meeting starts totally sends the message "we don't want to involve you".
I know from experience that sometimes it gets hard with a new principal but basically it comes down to the fact that whether you are a 501 or not you are opperating under the school's policies and rules, you are also using the students to help advertise your group. I found with my new principal he was laid back and it drove me nuts...I felt he didnt care with what we were doing, however he came to every meeting and event so I knew different. Now after watching us closely he seems to understand us and gets more involved, making suggestions, giving input and it is really nice.
If you need to hash things out find a way to do it before your meetings, if you cant then you need to realize that your principal has that right of seeing how your group functions. She should be involved and if I found that a principal didnt care then I would be worried...believe it or not there are principals who think parent groups are a bad thing. It will all work out but for now you need to accept that she wants to be a part and even needs to be a part...good luck.

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"When you stop learning you stop growing."

Also--there is no requirement for a CPA audit for a 501c3 program (or if there is someone correct me so I can start getting a CPA). We do an audit but it is by an experienced member of the school (who does audits for his church) and not a CPA.
I agree with pals (as you probably suspect) and although you don't need to turn over every piece of correspondence or have the prinicpal at every get together...if there isn't a feeling of team work and membership than it will continue in my opinioin to be difficult (especially if you already know that he/she wants to be a part of things).

Good luck...
d

JFKLine:
As far as I am aware we due not have a 501c status due to the concern of costs for CPA auditing that we were told would have to occur yearly. We pay sales tax on items we purchase. We do have I believe what is called and EIN that is for our bank accounts.

I think you may be a bit confused about this. Having 501c3 status does not require any more filing that you should already be doing for your PTO. If you have an EIN, you MUST file the federal 990 every year. Otherwise, they have no way of knowing that your organization is still active. Our PTO did not file and they deactiviated our EIN. I had to work with them to reactivate it and we just applied for 501c3 status. I would suggest that you check and make sure that your EIN is still activated and that your Treasurer is filing the 990 every year.

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Doing it for my one and only ~~ my son!