This is a great resource from the file exchange:

www.ptotoday.com/filesharing/document/32...-what-it-does-not-do

Jen --

Sorry to hear that things are off to a rocky start already.

Does your PTO have a written "mission and goals" statement? Every PTO should have one. For example, our PTA's mission statement is here . If you do have a mission statement somewhere, perhaps you can use that to make your point about what your PTO should and shouldn't be doing.

In your PTO, if it is the VP's job to handle fundraising, and this person is refusing to do it, then she misunderstood the job description when she signed up to be VP. As uncomfortable as it may be for you, you need to sit down with her, and explain the responsibilities and duties of a VP. If she is willing to do her job, then great. Otherwise, yes, you need to ask her to step down. And if you need to force the rest of the board to vote on her removal, then so be it. You don't want a non-team-player on your team ... it will ruin your entire year.

Regarding her idea about a "Parent's Voice" group, I don't think that's necessarily a bad idea, and it doesn't necessarily go against the mission of a PTO. But, the group needs to be a problem solving group, not just a complaint group.

Hope that helps, and good luck.

--Rajeev Goel

I am going to serve again this year as PTO President at my school and have recently run into a very frustrating person to work with.

This is a parent that attends the meetings and has handed out her notes afterwards but is too shy to talk. According to her, all we are is one continuous bake sale. I really don't understand this way of thinking considering that other than spirit nights, we only have one big fundraiser each year. We do spirit wear and a holiday shop but we don't make money off of them. The holiday shop is something the kids love so much that we have continued it and the spirit wear is supposed to be a way to raise school spirit.

Our school has had an ongoing struggle in getting parents to be more involved and we are working hard on ideas to improve that. This year we have worked extra hard to change the sour relationships with the teacher that were created from the previous board and I believe we were very successful. Teachers are beginning to look at the PTO as a resource when they did not before.

This person has agreed to be on the school board. We basically have to ask people to take positions since noone wants to do it so she was uncontested. The position she took was on of our two Vice President positions. The by-laws clearly state that the VP's are in charge of fundraising. Rather than jump on board and be willing help she has blatantly refused to have anything to do with fundraising!

She now want's to create a seperate "Parent's Voice" group to address issues in the school and be a parent forum. I'm not sure what to think of that but I am going to tell her to address it with the Principal. Apparently she thinks the PTO should also be a place to voice complaints and issues about the school. I don't see it that way. Is there a document somewhere that says what a PTO does and what a PTO does not do? Our meeting is on Monday and I'm asking her to resign so that I can find someone that will fufill the by-laws.

I think I'm going to create a power point presentation to show all of the great things we have done for the school this year which she does not seem to take note of.

Thoughts? Help? Please!