Personally, I love the idea of everyone storming a board meeting, but then I'm that type of person.

That being said, you need to make your storm as effective as possible to garner the largest amount of support. I don't know that you will get as much support if you ask them to go back to the old policy that would also allow religious groups to send stuff home. The fact is that the district has very valid legal concerns regarding that policy. As a parent who is not a part of a Christian based religion I know that I would be furious if my son's backpack express were being used to prosthelytize, and would likely take it up with the school board. Personally, I would make my focus the fact that by locking out the organizations who exist solely to support their schools they are shooting themselves in the foot, and keep my argument very specific. You will lose public support from people who believe that religion should never be a part of the public school system if you advocate for returning to the old policy.

My suggestion would be to get a copy of the current policy, draft a possible revision to it, have it reviewed by an attorney, and present it to the board as a formal motion. Personally, I like the wording suggested by luvmykids above.

I would also have all of the parent groups bring copies of their budgets with them to your planning meeting. Figure up how much all of your groups spend in total on each line item ($x for assemblies and $x for playground equipment, etc.). Have your spokesperson present these numbers (have enough copies for everyone who is present at the meeting) and point out that by taking away your access, your schools stand to lose this money. Ask if they are prepared to pay for any or all of these things when the district's new policies impede your groups' abilities to raise adequate funds to cover them.

The last, but probably most important thing, that I would do would be to contact a reporter or two the morning of the board meaning and put a bug in his/her ear that it might be a good idea to be at the board meeting that night. Depending on how trustworthy the reporter is, you might not want to give specific information if you don't want the school board to get any advance warning. And don't limit your contact to the reporter that normally covers school board meetings. If there's a reporter at your local paper who has reported on the state supreme court ruling and the new policy that resulted, or an editor who has written a column critical of the new policy, contact that person as well.

HTH!

We never had this exact problem but knew it was a possibility as rules tightened.

So we always presented PTO events as JOINT activities being offered by the PTO and the school. The school was not merely a conduit or a recipient, they were a partner. That made it much easier for them to justify copying, sending flyers home, providing facilities, allowing teachers to spend time.

Yes our PTO was a separate fiancial entity. But all events/activities were jointly "owned".

I guarantee you that if your school district wanted they could write a policy that would allow "organizations that operate for the direct benefit of the school" to be allowed to distribute materials relevant to that "school support". This would allow parent groups to go back to working within the school.

It's all in the wording!

Actually, the past isn't quite past yet. Went to a meeting last night with some school board members and the superintendent. The end result is that the other district pto presidents and I are going to meet, organize, and then basically storm a school board meeting sometime before the end of the year to urge that the policy be changed to an open forum where people can send stuff home again, including the religious group.

The thing about the teacher fundraiser is that it's two weeks before our spring social fundraiser, so we're afraid people will be tapped out and not come to ours. Also, I simply cannot support the teachers' pet projects when the other board members and I will likely be hand delivering all of the order forms and magnets for our Kids Art fundraiser to the parents in our spare time. Lastly, when I mentioned the idea of going to an open forum at the last meeting, the teacher rep said "I don't want to go back to having to stuff folders every week. It was so time consuming." Hello, YOU didn't stuff the folders...PTO volunteers did. I complained to the principal about that one.

I also found out last night at the meeting that this whole situation is causing a rift between parents and teachers in other schools as well as ours. We (the various PTO presidents) are feeling that we need to threaten to cut funding to the teachers/schools if they do not join our fight to change the school policy (or at least not complain about stuffing envelopes). For example, the district community relations director organizes an assembly each fall for all of the elementary schools, expects the PTO to run it and supply copious amounts of food, and then sends us a bill for $3,500. Many people are now thinking that since we are officially separate entities, the district has no business planning assemblies for us.

As expected, the school superintendent had no answers except "we're working on a policy" but was not open to the idea of letting parents in on meetings to help develop that policy.

Oh well, at least my year has been very exciting so far!

I can absolutely tell how frustrating this is for you.

That said.. the past is the past and you have to find a way to put it behind you. Does it stink that you can't send home information with students? Is it unfair? Yes. But it is, what it is.

It sounds like the upcoming Bingo night is a community effort, which will be a fun evening for the students and parents as well. I would attempt to refocus. Check and see if your PTO could join in by supporting the charity in some way with maybe a clothing or canned food drive.

Good luck & take care!

Don't know if this has happened to anyone else, but our PTO was recently officially informed by our School District that we are a separate entity and no more information about the PTO's activities could be sent home with the children. This was the result of a lawsuit brought on the district by a religious group that wanted to send home a flyer advertising it's Bible classes that were to be held at the school during after-school hours. The organization sued the district on grounds of discrimination because the district would send home flyers from the PTOs and other organizations (e.g., Boy Scouts, various baseball/softball/soccer leagues, etc.). Based on a Supreme Court ruling in New Jersey, our district settled with the group and forbade the PTO and even the district's education foundation from sending home any paper flyers. Their argument is that as an entity that has its own officers and handles its own money, we are separate from the district.

As a result, we've had to go completely paperless. We had to find a webmaster to quickly get a website up for us (before we could at least post things on the school's website), and even hand deliver some fundraising information. We had decided to go as paperless as possible a year ago, but still had the option of sending home fundraising brochures, etc., so we weren't sending home a whole lot. We had developed a comprehensive e-mail list and were sending things that way, attaching forms, etc. We also had the option of posting things on the school's website (which is owned and operated by the School District) but one day they took it all down due to the lawsuit settlement.

Fast forward to where we are now. The website is up and running although there are a few glitches with the new e-mail system we're trying to implement. We have a fundraiser coming up in the next few weeks where we will have to deliver some of the materials to families who don't pick them up. However, people are getting used to the website idea and seem to be checking it regularly. In fact, there is the possibility that the school's website will quickly become irrelevant as people are checking ours first.

Sorry if I'm rambling. Anyway, we do have one problem. Our teachers do an annual bingo night and they give the proceeds to a charity. They can send their information home via student backpacks because it's a school sponsored thing, even though none of the money is going towards the school, and the teachers pick the charity. They sent it home last week and then wanted me to e-mail the information in our weekly announcements. I find that galling in itself, but for fear of looking like a witch, I'll include it.

I know the next thing they'll want us to do is to post the information OUR website...the one created, maintained, and paid for by the PTO, because according to the School District, we are a separate entity and cannot be supported by the district. I don't want to post the info to our website because the school has it's own site that is maintained and paid for by the district.

I don't really know my point here exept to bring it to light and to ask if this has happened to anyone else. I just still cannot get over the fact that the school district has cut us off at the knees and would rather go with a closed forum (meaning NOTHING gets sent home but school related stuff) rather than have an open forum and just send the darned religious flyer home to begin with.

Can you tell how frustrated I am? By the way, I am co-president of the PTO this year and this all started in October so my whole tenure has been focused around this situation.

I'd welcome anyone's thoughts.