Frustrations are heating up over the shutdown of the Baltimore City Council of Parent-Teacher Associations, with state lawmakers considering hearings and legislation to fight revocation of the group’s charter.
Maryland PTA shut down the Baltimore PTA council about a month ago because it had not submitted a slew of required paperwork, including meeting minutes and audits. About two months earlier, Maryland PTA had put the group on “inactive” status, warning it to turn in the documents. Maryland PTA President Debbie Ritchie also accused Eric White, president of the city PTA council, of using his position to spread his personal views without consulting his group’s members.
White, at the time, denied the accusation and said his group sent the correct paperwork. The council had been on probation for about two years — before White became president.
“There’s no accusation of any misappropriations of any sort,” Richie said. “If they don’t have the minutes of the meetings, the documents of the meetings, then how do I know they did what they said they did?”
But now, Sen. Joan Carter Conway, and delegates Cheryl Glenn and Jill Carter, all Democrats representing the city, are trying to regain the council’s authority. Maryland PTA rules stipulate a council cannot be reformed until two years after it is shut down.
“That’s our whole objective…to try to get them reinstated,” Conway said.
But if they can’t, they want to set up a group to support PTAs at individual schools. Conway also might hold hearings to investigate the shutdown.
“We want to work through it before I go there,” she said.
Ritchie, however, said her group is independent from the state.
“They can hold all the hearings they want to have on things, that’s their prerogative but they don’t have any jurisdiction over us,” Ritchie said. “We belong to a national organization, and they dictate to us.”
Conway added that she plans to draft legislation to emphasize that the council’s shutdown does not affect a law passed last year requiring the state to match funds — up to $200,000 — that individual PTAs in the city and Prince George’s County raise for their schools.
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