Question: PTA Purchasing Software

Does your PTA/PTO purchase the educational software that your school uses? Our PTA currently spends around $4,000 each year for A/R software and Study Island. I am of the opinion that this is curriculum related and should, therefore, be paid for by the school and not the PTA. Several of my board members feel the same way but really don't know what the "norm" is for other PTA/PTO. We really want to focus more on the students but it seems that some of the faculty think they are "entitled" to their holiday luncheon ($700) and staff appreciation week ($600) and classroom allocation from the PTA ($50 for each teacher). By reducing these expenditures we could spend so much more on the students. The list of what I consider wasteful spending could go on but hopefully in a few weeks when we finalize the budget some real savings will be realized.

Asked by tvmangum

Answers:

Community Advice

bchase writes:
Both the school and our Parent Group each pay for different kinds of software solutions depending upon availability of budgets. Our Parent Group pays for NetTrekker software $800/year for students to use at school or home vs. Google to have more protected searching. Our school pays for Raptor ( background check software ) our District pays for Infinite Campus ( student information software) and PTO Manager. Then our parent group pays for PTO in-a-box (event and fundraising management software ) Be careful not to take too much/anything away from staff as they directly impact the students therefore it is an indirect benefit directly to students....make sense?