• If you were a committee chair this year, please fill out your event/project summary and give your folder to Lisa Aulerich-Marciniak, or put it in the PTA mailbox in the office. Review the on-line job description for your committee and let us know if it needs to be updated.
• If you are interested in chairing a committee for next year, please contact Lisa Aulerich-Marciniak, Fran Sitkiewicz, or Michelle Hejna.
• If you have any receipts for PTA reimbursement, turn them in ASAP to Mary Lescher or the PTA mailbox.
  Please remember that the May PTA meeting has been rescheduled for Tuesday, May 25. It is important that we have as many PTA members in attendance as possible as we take our final vote to dissolve our association with the State and National PTA and become an independent PTO. Our new officers will be installed that evening also. Mark your calendar. We’ll see you in the Hauser Library at 7 p.m.

Check your school calendar. May is full of end-of-the-year events that you and/or your child won’t want to miss!

Proposed PTO Bylaws
Proposed PTO Standing Rules

PTA or PTO: What’s the Difference?
State PTA Legislative Agenda
PTA/PTO Legal Structure
Hauser Parent Groups: A Brief History
PTA/PTO Mission

Also available is a chart comparing PTA and PTO.

The issue was discussed at length at the November PTA meeting and a decision was made to take a vote on creating a PTO at the next meeting on January 6, 2010. If you were not able to attend the November meeting and need more information, or if you did attend but still have questions about the issue, please contact either of our PTA co-Presidents, Lisa Aulerich-Marciniak or Fran Sitkiewicz, or the PTA/PTO Committee.

The process of converting from a PTA to a PTO would take several months and would include the following steps (based on Central PTA’s recent conversion):

Vote to form PTO
Vote to elect current officers as PTO officers
Vote to allocate $1000 to PTO start-up costs
Draft bylaws
Adopt bylaws
File Articles of Incorporation
File IRS form SS-4 to obtain FEIN
Complete IRS 1023 form
Circulate dissolution petition
File IRS form 1023 for “Letter of Determination”
Open checking account
Apply for Illinois sales tax exemption
Notify PTA members of dissolution vote
Mail letter to state PTA/District Director
Vote on dissolution (60 days after written notice to members & IL PTA)
Switch insurance coverage from PTA to PTO
Notify Secretary of State of dissolution of PTA corporation

PTA or PTO: What’s the Difference?
State PTA Legislative Agenda
PTA/PTO Legal Structure
Hauser Parent Groups: A Brief History
PTA/PTO Mission

Also available is a chart comparing PTA and PTO. Discussion of converting the Hauser PTA to a PTO is on the agenda for the November 4 meeting (7:00 p.m. in the Hauser Library).

When considering whether the Hauser parents group should continue its affiliation with the national PTA, it is instructive to ask: How well does our mission fit with that of the national organization?

Though incomplete, Hauser PTA archives show that the priorities of our group have changed over time. What started in 1893 as an effort to beautify the school, a few decades later had become primarily about parent education, and then evolved further to the group it is today. Indeed, the activities and programs of our PTA today make clear the following priorities:

* To make possible academic, cultural, and recreational opportunities which are otherwise beyond the means of the school district;
* To build a sense of community among parents and staff;
* To educate and support parents in their role as advocates for their child’s education, and for the education of all children in the district;
* To facilitate communication between parents, principal, and school board.

In other words, our focus is on the educational experience specifically in our school and district. The national organization, by comparison, has a preference for advocacy on a broader scale, as reflected in the following official objectives, which are required to be in our bylaws:

* To promote the welfare of children and youth in home, school, community, and place of worship;
* To raise the standards of home life;
* To secure adequate laws for the care and protection of children and youth;
* To bring into closer relation the home and the school, that parents and teachers may cooperate intelligently in the education of children and youth;
* To develop between educators and the general public such united efforts as will secure for all children and youth the highest advantages in physical, mental, social, and spiritual education.

What would be possible as a PTO that isn’t as a PTA?
Complete autonomy and, potentially, more inclusivity. (For example: we could decide whether or not to require dues as a condition of membership.)

Is there anything possible as a PTA that we’d lose as a PTO?
”Reflections” is a PTA- sponsored program in which we would no longer be eligible to participate. It may be possible to participate in similar programs sponsored by other organizations.

Isn’t parent advocacy important on more than just a school level? Yes. But, if enough interest exists, our PTO could sponsor educational programs on how individuals can effectively advocate for their beliefs. Right now, your dues support the national PTA platform, whether you agree with it or not.

For more information on national PTA mission and philosophy, visit www.pta.org.

1871: First public school formed to serve the children of Riverside.

1893: Riverside parents form the Art League, a group dedicated to ”beautifying the school and awakening in the children the love of art.“¹ The group gives gifts of painting and sculptures to ”the” school (Central was then the only school building).

1914: Riverside-Brookfield Parents-Teachers Association is formed. ”The aim and purpose of this Society shall be to bring parents and teachers into closer co-operation in behalf of all the children in the community.“² Membership is open to all residents of Districts 95 and 96; dues are voluntary.³

1923: The Riverside-Brookfield Parents-Teachers Association joins the National Conference of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations, which, after a couple of name changes, becomes the National PTA. Dues become a requirement of membership.

1923-1949: Ames, Hollywood, Intermediate (now Hauser), and Blythe Park schools are built. Ames, Hollywood, and Blythe establish their own parents groups. Riverside-Brookfield Parents-Teachers Association becomes the Central PTA, and later the Central-Intermediate PTA.

1951: Intermediate parents establish their own, separate PTA.

1973: In a move to save dues money, Hauser parents separate from the national PTA and reorganize as a PTO. The new name is the Hauser Council of Parents and Teachers. The new group is, apparently, uninsured.

1987: Hauser rejoins the PTA because of insurance needs.

1999: PTO Today offers the first comprehensive, affordable insurance/policy outside PTA.

2006: Wall Street Journal articles details trend away from PTA, and toward PTO.

2008: Central PTA becomes a PTO. Ames, Blythe Park, Hauser, and Hollywood continue to be PTAs.

1. ”Hauser School History” by Joan Shurtleff, 1974
2. Constitution of the Riverside-Brookfield Parents-Teachers Association, 1914 Secretary’s Minutes
3. Ibid.