Could someone please explain this PTA situation?

[Anonymous]

My kids are young, so I am new to this. Their future elementary school held elections a week or so ago for next year's PTA officers. A slate was presented, but several people declined their nominations. Several more were nominated from the floor, but resigned their spots the next day.

Does this mean they were all nominated w/o putting their own names forward?

If so, yikes.

[Anonymous]

yikes, indeed. Usually the nominations committee finds people to say “yes” and the actual nomination process is just routine and perfunctory.

[Anonymous]

I am on the Board of our elementary school's PTA, and this situation has never occurred in all my years of service.

Usually people volunteer for a spot, are nominated and voted in. Why would a PTA embarrass themselves by nominating people without their consent? Or did something come to light recently that made volunteers change their minds and not want to be associated with the Board?

You have to investigate and get back to us

[Anonymous]

That's bad form and not typical. There's a lot of pressure on outgoing officers to find suckers - er, successors - so maybe they thought they could catch people in a moment of weakness in order to get them to succumb.

[Anonymous]

Bizarre

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yikes, indeed. Usually the nominations committee finds people to say “yes” and the actual nomination process is just routine and perfunctory.

OP again. This is what I thought, which is why I found it baffling.

Nominated, then resigned the next day? That's nuts.

[Anonymous]

I've been on several PTA boards and have never seen this happen with even one officer, nevermind several. This is a failure of the nominating committee in the short term and says something larger about how the entire PTA board functions.

One person might be moving or transferring a child at the last minute. Several people says something is wrong with the organization or the person picked to lead it next year.

[Anonymous]

Were the nominated people present at the meeting? Or were they nominated by someone who said "I'm sure Ralph would love to be Treasurer. I'll call him in the morning to tell him and he'll be so happy to help out."?

[Anonymous]

That is rare. I have been involved with PTAs at 6 different schools over the years.

But I will say that I was supposed to be a PTA officer/ board member next year. But my child has special needs and due to some major issues with incompetence with the school team I have to move him next year. Several other bird members have resigned because they know the back story and they refuse to work with the principal and AP who are acting unethically. My child isn’t the only one affected by the situation.

So I would try to find out what is going on.

[Anonymous]

That is very unusual. Typical process is the committee confirms that everyone’s is willing to serve before putting forward a slate. Makes me think something happened between when the slate was decided and the nomination to alienate a bunch of people.

[Anonymous]

They’re fighting behind the scenes about something.

[Anonymous]

If you are talking about the school that I think you are talking about, I think (from the emails and all) that they nominated their friends. I highly doubt this was done without consulting them first

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They’re fighting behind the scenes about something.

PTA leaders are always fighting behind the scenes about something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are talking about the school that I think you are talking about, I think (from the emails and all) that they nominated their friends. I highly doubt this was done without consulting them first

But if they nominated their friends, why would everyone bail within 24 hours?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are talking about the school that I think you are talking about, I think (from the emails and all) that they nominated their friends. I highly doubt this was done without consulting them first

But if they nominated their friends, why would everyone bail within 24 hours?

Because not all of them got elected