Money Talk: Deciding how to spend parent group funds
January 2nd, 2008 by Kathryn LIn the January issue of PTO Today magazine we ask how you would handle this situation…
Deciding how to spend group funds can be tough, especially when the PTO and the principal don’t see eye to eye. What if your principal wants to redo the teachers’ lounge, but parents insist that the money directly benefit students?
What would you do? Click on ‘Add a comment’ below and tell us what you think!
(Some of you might have already received the January issue of PTO Today magazine. If not, it’s on its way!)
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Last year we tried something different.
I asked one teacher per grade level to submit something that they would like to see the PTO spend money on. I then took the ideas and submitted them in a letter home to all parents and asked them what, out of the teachers list would they like to see the PTO spend the money from fundraising on. I told them that since it was from their donations that I felt ALL parents had a say. Our principal didn’t care what we spent the money on.
As the forms came back to school, I tallied them up and found that parents wanted to see the money spent on books for our guided reading program and also recess balls. This is what we spent the money on.
I felt that is was really important to get all parents responses whether or not they were PTO since they all supported us in one way or another. Our teachers were happy too!
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:19 pm
We established a mission statement to direct the PTO’s goals and ultimately how money is spent.
Each year we ask the staff AND parents to submit a wish list for things they want the PTO to pay for with the excess funds. Once the list is created, the PTO executive board, school staff and parents vote on the wish list at a PTO meeting. There is never a shortage of great ideas. We have spent our money on a range of items such as materials for the classrooms, science clubs and educational field trips for all students.