AIBU to be raging at the "PTA"?

[mummyhaschangedhername]

I'm new to a PTA, so still figuring it out but I am raging and annoyed with how it's being handled.

So I joined the PTA about a year ago, we meet once a term and discuss ideas. It's very very small but I have managed to drag a few extras to join up. I have never met the chairs (apparently there are two, no idea why, not a vise chair just two chairs who have not attended the last year), we have a treasurer who Is a teacher who has only attended one meeting as she was on maternity leave and about to leave for maternity leave again and a secretary who does attend and take minute etc but is about to leave.

This treasurer/teacher seems to have taken upon herself the entire role of the PTA. The last meeting at the end of last term the treasurer took charge, called out her agenda, vetoed anyone else's opinions and ideas and just basically dictated what she wanted and how it was going to happen. I was stupid and said nothing. We had a meeting scheduled For first week of term and I asked several times for confirmation from the head and it didn't go ahead, then we get a list of dates of all the HSA events for the term included a sponsored walk by the PTA to raise money for a unnamed charity. I and others have asked several times a week for a meeting, explaining our concerns about how things are being organised without any of our consent or knowledge, including the spending of several thousand pounds of stuff without consulting with the PTA at all.

It's know just got announced that there is a PTA disco for Halloween with all the dates and details, no one on the HSA parents side is aware of this, and there was problems last time with the hall being over capacity and there needed to be a discussion on how to handle this this year, in addition seconds later we had a text saying that they had raised £3500 on the sponsored walk and funds would be donated as per HSA agreement.

1. Am I right to be raging?
2. What can I do about it?

I have made the head and deputy head aware of all of this and they have just scheduled a meeting but things are still happening without approval from the HSA.

The school ran the entire sponsored walk thing, so no members of the HSA were involved, in fact they just really used the title HSA.

We don't do poorly normally anyway, we always turn over in excess of £5000 a term, I only know that as we are match funded for £2500. We do fairly well as a PTA.

Staff usually have a massive hand in the Halloween disco.

I think historically the HSA has been a failure so for years the school has taken over the role a lot, but we are saying we can run it and it seems to be being ran without any parental involvement.

The point is to everyone saying let her do it, 1. We can make that sort of money ourselves 2. She's going on maternity leave this month and 3. It's surely illegal to use an organisation in this manner?

It does seem to me you need to start again with reconstituting the PTA, on the basis that there is at least one rep per class and a Chair who actually attends is elected.

When she goes on mat leave take a vote on positions and roles, set up an online group, take your concerns to the governors. You being a governor should have nothing to do with it.

PTA treasurer here. As a pta I’m assuming you are a charity. As such you are not permitted to raise money for other charities. Ie your sponsored walk.
There are actually strict guidelines surrounding pta fundraising and spending. Constitutions are required - any decisions must be made by vote with a sufficient quorum - Risk assessments for events such as discos - Lottery licences for any raffles. Otherwise you could be raising thousands and no-one knows where it’s going.

This sounds a mess !

The PTA should be a separate legal entity. Its trustees (the committee members) are legally responsibly for how it is run and how the money is spent but it should have a constitution of some sort saying what its remit is. I don't know much about how you challenge them.

organising charitable events is fine, but they should be very clearly not part of the PTA (eg comic relief)

Governors have a very clearly defined role in the governors handbook/competency framework. They don't get a say over the PTA other than dropping big hints that the school really needs x y z. But obviously there is a role in financial accountability / compliance and so on. I would speak to your clerk for advice on regulatory, procedural guidance so that you approach it in the right way. There might even be a whistleblowing procedure for you to report direct to the LA if you are concerned about underhand stuff going on within the school

Another interesting fact - the school governing board has no control over how the PTA operates or how they spend the funds raised. So if you're not happy don't go to the governors. Get advice from Parentkind and maybe ring the charities commission.
If a PTA decides to spend money in a way that the school doesn't want the only action the school can take is to deal with the Charities Commission. Ultimately a school/the governors can't close a PTA down, they can only legally disassociate with them.

MTBMummy - As a new school governor, you may not be aware of what Governors are responsible for. I am really sorry, but goverors are not involved with a PTA and its money in any shape or form. I have been a governor for years and years and Governors set strategic goals for the school and ethos, not the ins and outs of money raising activities. The only caveat would be anything illeagal!

However, the Head Teacher is responsible for day to day spending decisions and financial management of the school and should be aware of how the school works with the PTA and how the money raised is spent. The best model is that the PTA keeps money in its accounts until spending is agreed with the school. A school should put forward a "wish list" and the PTA agrees to fund items. The PTA money can be transferred into the school's account for each tranaction if purchasing via the school shows a saving. If not, the PTA can purchase direct.

A PTA must have a Constitution. It must be agreed by the parent body. In that there will be rules about how the PTA is to be run. If it raises a certain amount of money, it must be a registered charity. The Charity Commission has details of this. So do organisations such as the National Association of PTAs. They have an excellent model Constitution and Terms of Reference you can use if you join them.

A teacher, who is Treasurer, is misplaced on the Committee. A PTA should be largely run by parents with teacher input and liason. The main officers should be parents or it is not a PTA but a school run association which is a different beast altogether. This is what you appear to have. The parents are not really involved at all. The school is running its own events to raise money. This model is fairly typical of private schools. However, a proper PTA should have their officer appointments ratified at the Annual General Meeting where the accounts should be circulated and all meetings should be parent run. If the teacher is running meetings, again, this is not a PTA, but a School Association.

The Chairman should be proactive - not absent. I do not believe this is really a PTA but an Association where parents are invited along but do not do anything. So, what is the point of it? A PTA Constitution and Terms of Reference spell that out. I think the meeting with the Head should revolve around setting up a bone fide PTA and running it as such; by the parents, for the children. The AGM should be presented with a Constitution to agree and Terms of Reference and nominations for officers. If the school will not agree to that, I would step away because you have no role and its pointless. It is certainly not fun!

There are rules that MUST be followed. The Gov.uk website has some useful advice are legally raising money too.
There should be financial reporting happening too, if you're raising £15k a year, I'd check and see if there any audit requirements as well.

Grasspigeons I'm sorry to say your advice is wrong. The school governing board has no role in relation to the financial accountability or compliance of the PTA. The clerk to governors has no role to advise on how the PTA operates. The LA will not have a whistleblowing procedure relating to PTA's, but would refer anyone who isn't happy to deal with the Charities Commission. This is because the LA doesn't have any role to play either.

Even if the PTA is thought to be acting illegally, the governing board can only report to the Charities Commission in the same way any individual should.

Rhondacross - - we are agreeing actually.

I didn't mean financially accountability or compliance of the PTA - I meant of the school itself. I 100% agree the governors don't have a say over the PTA. That was the whole point I was trying to make. obviously very badly.

I found her post very confusing and it sounded like the school itself had raised this money independently of the PTA saying it was for the school PTA and was now giving it to a charity instead, which sounds like it is a particularly individual not even a charity. So I thought with her governor hat on her clerk might help her with her governor role and whether there was anything untoward and the right process to follow. As I do feel a head raising money for the PTA, and then giving to an individual is strange.

Now PTA have to follow lots of rules and guidelines.
PTA job is to make everyone feel include via social events and raise money to buy things for the school.
Charities should be supported as part of the curriculum.

If a school wishes to raise funds for charities or even individuals, it can. (Little X needs epensive medical treatment in the USA for example). However, that type of fund raising is not normally in the Terms of Reference for a PTA because it is not raising money for the benefit of the children in the school. There would be no need to involve parents at all if a school wishes to have a fun run, non uniform day, or similar and decides what it wishes to do with the money. The point is that none of that is anything to do with the PTA and cannot come under their jurisdiction. So there needs to be clarity of roles and responsibilities.

However, if the school does not have a PTA and is raising money for charities and individuals, and the money goes through the school accounts, the Finance Committee of the Governors should be aware of it but it is not illegal or wrong.

I agree grassroots, I think that's the case, the school are running these events themselves. I have repeatedly raised this with the head. Today the deputy Head said she thinks the teacher involved is just being over eager as she is leaving but really this is very over zealous and doesn't account for the past behaviour.

I guess my question was how to do deal with it, I have asked for paper work, accounts, constitution and haven't received any of these ... I guess I just thought I would get it at the AGM but that hasn't happened either. Thing is I have been hands on, probably the most out of the parents, running events and spending money on the card (with the treasures name on), so I'm worried about my own liability too here.

As I said, I think it innocently enough was mostly run by the staff as no parents attended, but their over involvement has run many anyway.

Sorry if my post is confusing, I am a bit lost with this.

This does seem to be a bit fishy really. Whether there is an abuse of position going on depends on several things. Are you in England/Wales and is your PTA a registered charity with the Charity Commission(CC)? If the answer is yes to both then the situation is quite serious. Officer positions on a PTA (Chair, treasurer, secretary) are also the charity's trustees and have to run the PTA on strict guidelines laid down by the CC ie: open AGM meeting held once a year to elect committee members & officers, submission of accounts to the CC etc. It also states that a PTA charity can not raise funds solely for another charity under its own charitable umbrella - there must be a fundraising agreement to split the funds if it's a joint effort.
You can go on the CC website and search for your PTA's registration. It also has lots of info on trustee responsibilities and PTAUK also has loads of good advice on how to run a PTA properly and well.
If your PTA isn't a charity and is a 'friends of society' (raising less than 5k per year I think) then it is easier to deal with this problem if you feel brave. You and others can call for and insist upon an AGM (if there hasn't been one in the last 12 months) or an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) and then challenge the current holders via a fair election. All AGM's must give about one month's notice but an EGM can be called at any time so an EGM is probably best if you want the element of surprise as notice only needs to be about a week in order to give you time to give the parents and staff notice. An EGM is designed for the purpose of dealing with emergency/urgent issues.
The thing to remember is that ALL parents and staff are members of the PTA and it is the job of the committee to make the decisions on what the PTA does for the school and the committee is answerable to the members at the AGM every year.

Hope this is helpful. I was a PTA secretary for too many years and have seen it all but the behaviour of 'your' chairs really got my back up! Good luck if you decide to challenge.

The only thing I have to add here is be careful to make sure that the money is fully accounted for. It should be crystal clear what's come in and what it's been spent on.

Seconding others that the school itself is certainly able to raise funds for any charity (assuming state school).

However most PTAs will be a charity in their own right, which means they can onlqy do fund raisers for themselves and cannot give PTA money to another charity, only to the school.

Personally I'd distance myself from the PTA fairly quickly.

This isn't very helpful and I did only skim read the OP.

But that people get raging angry at the PTA is the reason I stay well clear of the PTA!

It is also worth pointing out that any member of the PTA (ie parent) can demand to see all the minutes from meetings held and the accounts at ANY time. The Secretary and Treasurer must provide these within a reasonable time limit (I'd say a week).

Sounds a bit dodgy. I remember a previous thread with a badly run PTA, OP hinted it didn't end well:

AIBU-to-be-the-only-person-concerned-that-the-PTA-treasurer-seems-to-have-gone-missing

@MypetPorghasdied
I am in Wales, the PTA must raise more than £5000 a year but I can't see it on the commission. It must be registered though, it has a match fund set up through with a well known bank. 🙈

I think I'm already implicated so I would rather sort it out then walk away, particularly as I am a governor and while not connected if I did let it go because I had suspicions then I'm still just as liable.

I do love the school and staff, he's been amazing with my children, hence why I am so involved, but I'm not happy with the current situation.

We have had school governors on our PTA committees and it actually proves useful in getting help for events etc and I have never seen it as a conflict of interest as long as the person concerned can keep the roles very separate. At one point we had a rep at the governors meetings to keep them informed of our fundraising progress when we did a huge project. We also like to have school staff on the committees as they're great for arm twisting the HT into agreeing our fundraising programmes. To be honest a good PTA runs better if all the members are involved but it can also be a pretty thankless task so if you go for it be prepared for a hard slog. I made some great friends, some terrible enemies, had some fab times and learned a lot of skills. We had several incidences of bad behaviour including theft and general CF-ery including the disappearance of approx 4k during a period when I wasn't involved but because there was no official secretary or treasurer there were no accounts so it was 'unprovable'.
In your case if you have the certain support of other parents and are prepared to weather the shit storm that will follow then do the right thing. My plan would be to write a formal letter to the chairs and request a proper AGM, a copy of the PTA's articles of association or constitution, minutes for all meetings for the last 24 months and full accounts for the last 24 months with a copy of the auditors report and give them 7 days to comply and see what happens. Get as many other parents to sign the letter as you can and give a copy to the HT. Do not involve the governing body - the HT should be the one to advise them of issues. If the chairs fail to respond or refuse then you can call an EGM meeting for the whole membership and hold a vote to dismiss the current 'officers' from the committee and set a date to hold a new EGM to nominate and elect a new committee. In order for your EGM to be legal, there should twice as many PTA members as there are committee members so 8 parents would need to attend as a minimum as there are 4 committee members - this is called a 'quorum'. If the parents are as unhappy as you believe then you'll exceed the quorum easily and the more on your side then the better.
Look at the Parentkind (was PTA UK) website. It's full of useful info and tells you how to set up a proper PTA. PTA+ also has a good website. The Charity Commission site is also good for more technical info. If your PTA is already a registered charity then its charity reg number should be on all letters and info sent out by the committee and it is illegal not to put this on. If the current committee decides to comply with the AGM request then they will need to give a 21 days notice letter to every parent/staff member along with a nominations form stating that positions for chair, treasurer, secretary and other committee members are up for election. Other than chair, treasurer + secretary (officer positions), any number of members can nominate themselves to be committee members. The form must ask for any nomination to be 'seconded' by any different member (you can ask a friend to second your nomination and you can also second theirs iyswim). The only thing that I would advise is that general committee members are limited due to the quorum issue at future meetings - we tended to have 3 officers, 5 general members and a separate non-voting events committee of any number of members who wanted to just have a say or help plan events.

Gosh, I hope that helps you decide what you want to do. Like you, I do not like seeing people abuse their positions but at the very least what will happen is that they will comply and all will be seen as okay and above board. At worst your fears and suspicions will be proven and things can be taken in the right direction. If they fight back then it will put any doubts to rest or they'll be proven as liars or incompetent so it's a win-win really. Be prepared to be backstabbed, bad mouthed and attacked at every angle as they will be desperate to hold on or hide their shenanigans. As a defence, study the legal stuff on Parentkind and CC sites as if you know your stuff they will back down. Knowing for certain that I was legally/factually correct has saved me many arguments and awkwardness over the years and helped during a nasty plot to have me voted off a committee because the 'chair' didn't like the rules because it was 'boring' and she wanted to have fun without regard to CC regs (I stayed and she was asked to leave!). And lastly, don't ever make it personal. When speaking to other parents reiterate that they and their children deserve answers and their children deserve nice stuff in their school. Keep to the higher moral high ground and merely state facts regarding the current committee/co-chairs and save personal opinions & the more emotive stuff for the AGM/EGM when you need to 'win'.

MypetPorghasdied thank you for that, it was really informative. Problem is there has only ever been 4 parents and a secretary, who is as annoyed as us. I think the school has a history of just doing what it wants, there is a new head now but I think they are a bit lost. I don't think anyone is doing anything deliberate, but money is being spent without the PTA approval. We have a disco coming up that's already been announced, no risk assessment will have been carried out.

Do the PTA need their own insurance or does it fall under school insurance?

I have been busy reading up on the sites and writing down my concerns, some of the sites have paid on content so haven't been able to read everything I would like.

Believe it or not, I worked with community groups a lot in the past, I have set up, chaired, dearth with issues like this before, but one it was such a long time ago and two I'm unsure what role the school have in the pta. I would like them to be active, it's a very good community, a lot of staff live locally and tend to run a lot of events because none of them leave much before 5/6 anyway. I don't want to lose their support but I am concerned about the current running of it and the lack of transparency.

If the teacher concerned is leaving - who else is a signatory on the bank account? It is hellish sorting that out once someone leaves, even when the previous signatory is playing ball. There is an account we can't access after 2-3 years of trying to resolve it.