We provide 2 types of Teacher Grants per year the first is a $50 per semester ($100 total) for the teachers to use how they want to in their classroom (rewards, items for a project etc). The 2nd is a Classroom grant which is $100 per teacher per year. For this one some of the children have to come into one of our monthly PTO meetings and present what they want the money for and how they plan to use it. The older kids typically put together their own presentation and for the younger kids the teachers help. It is a great way for the children to get involved and usually I get more parent involvement because the parents want to see their children present.

We give each teacher up to $200 in reimbursements each year (classroom items, often items that are used up each year). We have traditionally split up another about $10,000 (depending on the fundraising success) among teachers. We became frustrated that some teachers were buying fabulous stuff, some just not so fabulous. Some big ticket items would never get funded and other teachers were obviously looking for items to use up their funds. So we switched to a grant system.

VERY simple. Application goes out first week of school. VERY short. What do you want? how will it enrich the lives of kids at this school? Attach photo, catalog, something with details. Applications are usually done by grade level. Media, PE, music, special ed all apply too if they want to. They can fill out several apps, but must prioritize them.

Board members, principal, and asst principal meet to review and vote. We can usually fund all first choices and some second choices. We hang on to other apps in case more money becomes available later in the year. Teachers come present their app - which is really just a chance for us to ask any questions.

Everything is ordered and into the school by late Nov for use throughout the year.

It was controversial to switch (teachers felt their judgement was being questioned) but hopefully will get smoother as time goes by.

BTW/ after much discussion it was decided the 'fair' is not always equal. i.e. we do not spread our funds out evenly. Sometimes a need is greater in one area than another. We decided that the "fairest" thing to do was to buy each area what they identified as most needing.

The previous elementary school I was involved with elected to have a "Teacher Supply Closet". We found all the teachers had the same basic needs. So we generated a list of needs from the teachers and began the supply closet. At anytime a teacher could go to that closet and take what she needed, whether it was paper, pencils, folders, erasers, gallon jugs of hand sanitizer, crayons, batteries for overhead projector hand pieces, construction paper, paper towels, kleenex, ink pens, dry erase cleaner....u get the idea. One of the officers was in charge of the closet and kept it restocked. We gave it a budget and depending on how we did at the end of the year we would expand it the next year. It was convient for the teachers and those teachers whom may have had more financially strapped children that couldn't afford the school supply list could get what they needed. The only draw back was finding a school closet as usually mosts schools need all the space they have.
Something we are currently doing. My child is now at the middle school and several of us started a parent group this year. What we thought we'd try is our own version of an "Adopt-A-Classroom" program. This isn't a teacher grant program, but we thought those parents that don't want to participate in fundrasiers but wish to contribute can make a donation to any of their child's favorite teachers. Every cent donated goes to that teacher. We promote it though flyers, and our webpages, and basically any individual or business wishing to make a donation can do so. We give the specified teacher a "Congratulations" certificate for their classroom door (to display all year) along with our Reimbursement form advising them to attach receipts to this form and turn in to us. We even offer a "Corporate Sponsorship" that starts at $250, and with this they get their picture on the web and sent to the local papers. Suprisingly, we have obtained $1,190 so far within the first six weeks of school. One thing we asked our teachers to do is give us a teacher "Wish List' so we could place it on our webpages along with the prices. Parents/guardians usually don't realize the many things teachers need or want; and the cost; this way, the Adopt-A-Classroom program puts that information out there. If anyone is interested in seeing our Adopt-A-Classroom webpage they can go to Petal School District and choose the middle school from top left. There is a link under the "shortcuts". Those are just some additional ideas.

We also have funds for this. We give up to $200 (reduced from last year's $300 due to economy) per classroom, including the specials and even cafeteria, office, etc. They have to use the money for the classroom, not on students (in other words, not on incentive prizes, class parties, etc.). If they cannot afford to buy something and get reimbursed, they can submit a catalog with items they want, and we will make the check to that company, and they can submit order with check. This is very successful. Some teachers use it consistently year after year, others don't. It is use it or lose it. If there's something that costs more than that, they have to submit a proposal to us at a meeting.

In the elementary group I was involved with, we set up an enrichment fund and then designated an amount per teacher. We included, music, art, pe, librarian, and the resource teachers. Perhaps other schools have had different experiences, but we found that if we just responded to the teachers who made requests that we had some teachers who were always asking for money and some who never asked for a cent but instead were spending out of their own pocket.

We included this amount in our budget and our fall fundraiser was intended to cover at least part of the amount with the spring carnival used to begin covering the amount for the following year. That way we had some money set aside already, so we could make a good estimate of what we could allot each teacher.

The program was also done as "use it or lose it". The teachers couldn't roll it over into the next year. Instead, at the end of the year any unused funds and any extra money raised was used to fulfill a need from a school wish list.

Now this doesn't mean that teachers couldn't come to the group with special requests, but we found that the amounts we allotted covered most of their needs and we were always willing to consider any special project that came up. Funding for these special projects was voted on by the general membership and educational value and number of students benefiting were the main considerations on approval.

Our PTO is considering offering Teacher Grants. Who else out there does this? I'm worried about how to make it fair and the application process, not to mention where we are going to find the money.

I'd love to hear about groups that do this and those that decided not to do this.