agapemom -
I commend you on your willingness to admit your error in judgment and your efforts to resolve the issue.
Our new by-laws set up a nominations committee and also allow (pres + 2 co-VPs) or (2 co-pres + 1 VP) as options; I guess the nominations committee would have the responsibility of sorting out who was willing to run as a co-VP but not co-pres.
Does the rest of the board also think the unhappy ones have a point? If so, you could all offer your resignations and announce a special election to fill the vacation positions. Or maybe one officer (treasurer, someone with signature authority on the account?) needs to stay on.
The other thing you should work out with the unhappy parents is whether they really want to be on the board, or if they're happy doing the front-lines work and leaving the administration to the board. For myself, I find I spend a lot of time doing treasurer work at home and thus don't have extra time to spend at school interacting with the kids.
piperl;146888 wrote: The election is held by ballot
Does your ballot have just one opening for each position? We wanted to have co-positions as an option. How would you handle that on a ballot?
piperl;146888 wrote: I am curious agapemom, are the parents who are not happy usually involved in PTO? Did they already have a bone to pick, say maybe they lost an election?
It is a very long, sad story. The parents who are not happy are the ones who do all of the front-lines volunteer work and they have a valid point in asking for the current PTO to be dissolved (IMO).
We send home a letter asking for nominations with a clear explanation of what the duties of each office are, along with the date and time that the election will actually be held. Normally this is our April PTO meeting. The election is held by ballot at that meeting, and the new officers are then installed at the May meeting. I am curious agapemom, are the parents who are not happy usually involved in PTO? Did they already have a bone to pick, say maybe they lost an election?
We don't send ballots home. If you don't care enough to show up to the elections meeting, then we don't want your vote. (OK, I'm being a little hard-nosed there, but just a little.)
We do advertise when the elections are -- and at that meeting, we also vote on end-of-year surplus, so we get a decent attendance.
We are trying to form a new PTO and held elections. As a co-President I made an error in judgment and some parents are calling for the dissolution of our current executive board and a re-election process.
At this point, I don't know if this is going to happen or is not going to happen or if the PTO will just cease to exist.
The parents who want to dissolve the existing PTO believe that the way the initial elections were handled was improper. They believe that voting (not nominating) ballots should go home with parents.
Here is the way the initial election was handled (this is the direct (pertinent) text from the nomination ballot that went home with all children):
"... Please consider nominating yourself, or networking within your circle of friends to encourage Parents or Guardians of (school's name) students you think would make good leaders, to accept your nomination... ... Nominations may be turned in to the office not later than Friday, October 31st. A meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 4th at 6PM in the auditorium for elections and to discuss our next steps as a newly formed Board."
Many parents were confused about the above nomination process.
I set up that process based upon two meetings with a local (well-run) PTO to get their advice. I also perused the PTO Today Forums to get ideas on how an election for a PTO should be handled.
Elections for an existing PTO are straightforward because you use the existing By-laws but we hadn't adopted any By-laws yet.
I am seeking advice regarding the best way to start from scratch.
As I am typing this, I see that our current By-laws would have had us present the slate of nominations at one meeting, then hold elections at another.
In hind sight, I think this would have worked better - given more people more time to provide input???
But anyway, to my main question. Does anyone's school send home ballots instead of having the election take place in a meeting?
Would you recommend that we do it this way to address the concerns of the parents who did not like the previous method of election?
