In our school, we use most of the money earned from the fund-raisers to pay off school debt from previous years. Some of other money is used to run the school, for example, staff salary, books and supplies. Tuition is very reasonable compared to other schools in the area. Fund-raising participation is a "must" in our Parent club. We are very close to paying the debt. Maybe next year we'll get to see some of the money earned from fund-raising directly to our children.
I work at an elmentary school with enrollment of about 300 students K-6. I am also on the fundraising committee (which consists of 2 people, but that is a whole other story). We try to spend the money at our school on the students. About ten years ago we saved up and bought new playground equipment. We also spend it on lyceums, field trip money for students who can't afford the trips and "fun" equipment, such as DVD players, etc. We have a large amount of money saved up again and are thinking of investing in more playground equipment. We do not feel our principal should have the final say on spending since he did not help earn the money. Also, as someone pointed out, it is a parent group. I love this message board, I have found a lot of great information. Thanks for sharing!!
PTO means parent/teacher organization.
I can't believe that your principal would
tell you what to spend your money on and how
much he wants you to make for the next school
year. We spend our money on our kids, teachers and parent volunteers. Our third
grade teachers ask for $200 this year for
"Super Science Friday" projects. The whole
third grade class, switches classes with each
other and do science projects. It's a great idea which we did not hesitate to say YES to.
Hands on science!! Everything we pay for goes
to our kids either directly or indirectly. No
one dominates our PTO. Our problem is getting
more parents to attend!!
At our Catholic school,we were told that we could only carry over $500 to the next year unless there is a major project we are working on. The principal already has a list of things he wants us to spend this year's remaining money on. These include new desks, new computers, a VCR projector, new windows and doors etc. Needless to say we will not have anywhere near that amount. We will be lucky to buy just the VCR. It was suggested that our profits from SCRIP go towards the tuition assistance fund too. The final decisions have not been made yet.We are a school of 400 K-8.
I am wondering if any other PTO has to raise a certain amount of money as part of an obiligation that is put back into the budget to run their catholic school. Our school board keeps raising the amount each year. We are doing many fundraisers just to meet the obiligation. There is little if any money left over to spend on the children. And if there is any money left, the principal and priest have told us that the school board will determine where the money is to be spent. I find this totally unfair. We parents work hard at each of the fundraisers, and think that we should have some say as to where the money is spent. Our obiligation was $10,000. And in three years it has gone up to $14,000. We also have to give money to the tuition assistance program.
Our preference is naturally to leverage our funding where the most children benefit. The fewer the kids involved, the more discussion/justification within our Board meeting. However, we HAVE funded things that only benefit a few, such as participation in math competition that only involved about a dozen kids and also funding orchestra scholarships for two children who wanted to participate but couldn't afford the instrument rental. It's more rare for these type of items, but it does happen once in awhile.
