PTO Today

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.

Quick story from Utah on a PTA-to-PTO switch. The reasons given are fairly standard: feeling that dollars going out don’t match value and a bit of a mis-fit with PTA politics.  The non-standard part is the state.  Utah remains the highest % PTA state in the country (by far).

Found this quote:

Other benefits Dyreng has seen through the PTO are not having to deal with the politics of a national association. “We’re just not tied to all the politics the PTA has,” said Dyreng.

…interesting, as it captures pretty well the common, subtle disconnect between PTA politics and locals.  It’s not content of PTA positions that is typically the issue, but more the fact that the connection to politics (by definition, politics = contentious) tends to get in way of what many groups consider their more important goals of growing parent involvement, creating community at school and supporting kids and teachers. Politics isn’t exactly the recipe for kum-bay-ya togetherness and involvement.

Two quickies that will be of great interest if you’re affected and not so much interest if you are not.

1. Peanut Butter scare hits clients of Sweet Success fundraising (including several California schools), as some fundraising cookie dough tubs are recalled.

2. Hearing that Varsity Gold fundraising, a pretty big group especially with high schools, has filed for Chapter 11.  The question on our message boards (in some fairly heated exchanges between insiders and anonymous posters (likely competitors) is what happens next.