PTO Today

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. 

Over the ten years, we’ve been tracking PTO and PTA embezzle stories, two things have been true:  1) they just don’t seem to ever go completely away; and 2) there have been several periods where the volume seems to pick up markedly.  Sadly, I think we’re in one of those up-cycles now.  (Guess we should call it a down-cycle.

Here’s a bunch more:

Massachusetts town uncovers 4 cases.

Illinois HSA victimized.

As always, here’s our feature on preventing theft in your PTO or PTA group.  These basics steps are worthwhile. Please.

Embezzle cases  — like this $10k case in Connecticut – drive me crazy for many reasons:

1. They’re preventable with some basic checks and balances.
2. It’s the worst kind of theft, stealing playgrounds and field trips and classroom supplies from kids
3. (As the comments on that above-linked article show) they invite the worst kind of suspicions and chatter about the good work of PTOs and PTAs.

New Year’s Resolutions: don’t think this can’t happen at your school and don’t let this happen at your school.  And for good measure, get the modestly-priced PTO insurance that protects you even more.

Wall Street Journal takes a look at how school budget pressures are trickling down to parent groups. Not a completely new story (we’ve been writing on this for a decade now, at least), but the pressure seems to be increasing with the state of the economy.

Big challenge — no matter what you pay for — is keeping your parent group about involvement and community.  Ironically, if you become known as the pocketbook or the fundraising machine, then even your fundraising efforts will suffer.