PTO Today

This time the stealing from the PTA was done by a couple! Ugh. When the parents at Erdenheim Elementary School in Erdenheim, PA, decided to switch from a PTA to PTO an audit was done and numbers just weren’t adding up… to the tune of $17,000! Ouch. Unfortunately, this group learned the hard way about the importance of fiscal controls in PTOs and PTAs.

Always love it when a PTO project gets completed successfully.   In this case — thanks to the PTO — this school backyard no longer looks directly into an active cemetary.

Love it even more when a Lowe’s Toolbox for Education grant is a big part of the reason why the project worked.. 

Nice.

I honestly don’t think Lowe’s support of parent involvement and of PTOs and PTAs gets near enough credit.  These guys really walk the walk when it comes to supporting schools in the communities where they do business.  I may be missing a program, but I’m fairly certain that the Lowe’s Toolbox for Education program is by far the largest and most generous grant program focused primarily on school PTOs and PTAs in the whole country.

Thanks Lowe’s!

The 2nd cycle of the 2008-09 school year was just completed.  The totals — more than $4,000,000 shared with more than 900 local parent groups across the country.  And that’s just this year.  The Toolbox program is now well over $10 million in total.  Double thanks, Lowe’s!

PTO Today is proud of the modest role we play as the communications and administrative team behind the scenes of Toolbox. None of this would happen without the generosity of the Lowe’s Charitable & Educational Foundation. Hundreds of playgrounds, hundreds of school grounds upgrades, hundreds of school signs, and innumerable creative building projects that don’t fit squarely in a common category (but which all are making schools better places…) — awesome.

Let’s Build Something Together is the Lowe’s tag line.  With this program, they’re really making that a reality.  Can your group gear up now to get involved next year?  

Congrats to this PTA mom from Maryland who’s up for a statewide parent involvement honor.  Her achievement?  Securing a $300,000 grant for a new handicapped-accessible playground for her school.  Sounds like it’s going to be amazing.

Wow — this is the harshest sentence we’ve seen yet for a PTO or PTA embezzle case.  This Arkansas treasurer convicted of taking $23,000 (and that’s just what they can prove).

We do like the fact that this case was prosecuted and taken seriously. Too often, groups or schools try to sweep these cases under the rug or prosecutors downplay the damage.  Make no mistake — this is stealing from kids and violating a trust.  There’s also often even further damage to the support and involvement at a a particular school for years.

More than worth it to use smart, basic money hanbling procedures.  And to get insured.

Former president from outside Denver arrested — after her kids tried to play lookout on her getaway effort  –  for stealing from her group.  Grrrr.

In this case, the method was forging her co-signers signature on dozens of checks.  Our most basic of financial best practices – making sure that a non-signer opens the checking statement each month — would have likely prevented this one.  Also hope they’re insured. 

There’s a special, very warm place for someone who would sue the PTO because the raffle wasn’t run to the letter of the law.

That’s what happened in New Jersey.  The crime?  A couple of the organizers had a cocktail or two and the big raffle barrel wasn’t rotated/mixed enough. Give me a break, please! The original suit was for $15,000, but PTO settled for $1,000.  And now their fundraiser is less successful, as well.  I hope these folks sleep well at night now that they’ve protected the world from wine-drinkin’, barrel-half-rotatin’ school volunteers.  Good grief.

The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio takes a look at some local auction efforts (and, natch, looks to PTO Today for expertise on the matter). The skinny?  Seems that donations are still healthy, but the top dollars (for the big items) are a bit down.   

This dovetails with what Jon Carson of cMarket observed back a few months ago, as well as with what we’re hearing from around the country.  How are your auctions doing this year?

For more on school auctions, visit our school auction homepage here.

Looks like Varsity Gold won’t make it out of banruptcy.  We’re hearing that their recent Chapter 11 filing (which implies a re-organization) has been switched to a Chapter 7 filing (liquidation). I’m sure there are a lot of good people looking for work today, and I’m hoping that not too many groups are owed $$ from Varsity Gold.  Best wishes to all.

If you are a school scheduled with VG for spring or a group owed money, we’d love to hear from you, as our editorial team is right in the middle of covering this story.  editor@ptotoday.com

I got a note from the folks from Varsity Gold (there’s been a lot of back-and-forth on our message boards about their recent Chapter 11 filing) with an update and some answers from the Varsity Gold perspective.  Will be up to you and your members how you feel about these developments.