Interesting+Finds

Foundation +PTA=PTO Notes: gathered by Laura Montgomery. found in searching online discussion boards RE; PTA/PTO re-organizations.

NEED: 1. Copy of Bylaws for PTA and Foundation a. Examine their process for dissolving/disbanding b. Can we donate funds to new PTO before disbanding?

From online discusstion thread:


 * An Illinois PTA**

Posts: n/a Default Re: Help in Changing from a PTA to a PTO I've been reading this thread and several others relating to dissolution of a PTA and the vote required to dissolve. In another thread Tim suggested that the requirement for a 2/3 vote probably refers to 2/3 of the members present, assuming there is a quorum. **Illinois PTA bylaws** (which local PTAs are required to include, verbatim, in their local bylaws) **state that the vote to dissolve must be by 2/3 of the membership:**

"d. Approval of dissolution of PTA shall require the affirmative vote of at least two-thirds (2/3) of the membership. The District Director or designated representative of the State Board of Managers shall be invited to this meeting." (Article XIII, Section 8).

Our membership is approximately 200 families, but an average meeting will have 30-40 members in attendance. With a total school population of about 275 families, it's hard to imagine that we could get approximately 130 members to attend any meeting.

Have other PTAs encountered this problem? Other possibilities might be proxy voting, for paper "absentee" ballots, neither of which are specifically addressed in the bylaws. Please advise

Originally Posted by tigerfamily5 View Post We are considering changing from PTA to PTO. My biggest concern at this point is our assets and how this change will affect our finances. I've read throught our by-laws but cannot find mntion of any seizure type clause. Any advice? I don't want to ask our state PTA rep. b/c they will then be aware of our concerns. Hi tigerfamily -

This clause is always fairly gray, because (in my opinion) it's virtually indefensible. The good news is I've never seen a disbanding group lose it's assets. It's almost always a threat, but I do not believe it is enforceable.

That said, **the easiest way to eliminate the worry is to just spend your funds down to zero and dispose of/gift/transfer (legally) your assets before officially disbanding. Then there's nothing to argue about, even if PTA wanted to argue.**

Tim

Re**: HOw can you start your PTO before your PTA is dissolved?** Quote: Originally Posted by PTO in Colorado View Post In our case, we couldn't use any money from the PTA to start a new "non-profit organization" as stated in our PTA by-laws. You might check yours to see what they say. Even if they don't say specifically that you can't, you might not want to do it to avoid any potential problems. So you would have to spend all of your money before Sept. 30th and then don't start a new PTA membership drive/year. (And yes - our state went after our money.) As for how you then start a new group with no money, we started a fund raiser right away. We did a survey and our parents were really tired of selling items so we ran a "Capital Campaign" where they just wrote a check to the new parent group. The donation (because you are a 501c3 - get that non-profit status done right away) was 100% tax deductible that they could write off. We promised that we would only solicit donations one time a year. We suggested a donation amount per student and we raised $50,000 our first year. But you could do any fund raiser. Start up costs to the IRS are not great and you can buy insurance from PTO Today and soon as you start collecting money from your fund raiser. I hope that answers all your questions and helps! Hi Colorado -

Your PTA bylaws said that specifically about not spending PTA funds to start another nonprofit? Wow -- that's very rare. Haven't seen that language in any other state.


 * That said, good advice on rest. Another key fact on the 501(c)(3) process is that the acceptance of your status by the IRS is typically retroactive to the start of your organization (provided you apply within a reasonable time -- like 12 months -- from the start). So you don't have to wait for the acceptance before soliciting donations that are/will be tax deductible.**

Tim Red face Nontradition Group OK I am going to throw this out there & see if anyone can help.

I am the President of our PTO - we are a year round school, so we are still in school. I can not be President next year. While I love the PTO, I was given a long term sub position this year & have been teaching. I love it so much I got an intern certificate to teach and went back to school to do the fast track certification. I have been offered the position I am in currently next year (at the very school I am PTO president). I am exhausted.

My entire board is exhausted. I can not come back for the sanity of my family. I just can not take on that much responsibility and go to school and work full time. My family needs me more. The rest of the board does not want to come back because they feel unappreciated and there just is not enough help most of the time.

We were suppose to get a nominating committee in May to put together nominations for next year & I could not even get anyone to do that - the board can not do it according to the bylaws.

I am afraid that the PTO is going to get disolved & we really have done so much for the school.

We are a charter school & we are trying to figure out a nontraditional, innovative group. Maybe titled Community Involvement Association (CIA) or Community Involvement Initiative (CII). Our school already has all the teachers on committees, from PTO to Title 1. Parents are on most of the committees as well & was trying to find a way to merge the groups, add a fundraising group and room parents. Our Vice Principal is very excited about this idea, but I don't know where to go from here.

Can anyone help???

Thank you!

Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Green Bay, Wisconsin Posts: 69 Default Re: Nontradition Group** Year round or not, there should be some sort of term start and end time on your position. As to the nominating committee, the whole idea of someone other than the board doing things is great. . . . but then reality sets in and it takes a board member to work with others to make this happen.


 * One year of inactivity does not dissolve an organization. If no one steps up - they will start to wonder where everything has gone and people will figure it out. I also really like the 2 hour volunteer program featured on this site - that looks like it could generate interest. We are starting with that this year (OK, my board does not know that yet - but I really see the need to keep fresh blood flowing in this group and letting people know that even just a little bit of help can make a huge difference.)

If you are going to make it a letter name besides PTO - make it an acroynm that is positive and spells a word perhaps. One school in our district uses K.E.Y.S. (ok, I don't know what it stands for. . . .Kennedy Elementary Youth Support...?) But it is something more.**

One by-law rule that we have in place is that any parent at our school may be a member or officer, however - no teacher may server in an elected position other than the teacher member at large seat.**