Question: Do gifts from PTAs to teachers enable school districts to keep a low budget?

Recently, there were several teacher gift requests. One example was software for a kindergarten class, and another was a new music classroom mat. All were approved by the PTA board, but it felt like the district should be paying for classroom items since they are directly tied to education. As a brand new general PTA member and board member, it made me question the big picture of PTAs in that... Are we enabling the district to budget less for our school's needs?

Asked by Anonymous

Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Liz L writes:
It's hard to know the answer to that specifically, but in general, PTOs and PTAs do help fund things like what you've described. Whether your group should or will depends on what you decide as a group, what you've budgeted for teachers/classrooms, possibly your bylaws, etc.

Community Advice

ParentAtSchool writes:
Yep. Plus enabling inequities across schools. A kids public educational experience shouldn’t be based on where they live and their community’s ability to raise private funds.

PTAs should not be supplying things that should be met with public funds. PTAs can advocate for it by demanding their legislators and school board to not be ignorant to chronic budget shortfalls.

Imagine all that time parents spent on chocolate fundraising and instead directing that time advocating to those who hold the purse strings to public education funding. If every single parent demanded their legislators to give kids what they need in school, we will no longer have fundraisers.