It is unfornante(sp) but school boards can set policies that can make a pto/pta life miserable. we use their building, staff and kids!districts are trying to even out funds between schools, although it does not seem fair that is reality. They are afraid that some kids will have lots and other kids have none, if they said one fundraiser does taht mean from a vendor and that you can do like a carnival type fundraiser or just one all year?
We do not carry a large amount of roll-over. We have worked hard to use all of the money each year. We do one fundraiser that the children have to take home and do. We have all the others such as box tops and such that we do as supplemental. We really want to bring in market day. We have had the call to do so from numerous parents. IT is being said that it is a fundraiser because of how much money it creates. We are saying it is supplemental because it does not require the kids to do anything other than take the form home just as they do with our scrip program. Our board meeting is Thursday where they are going to define supplemental vs. fundraiser. I am very concermed with what is going to happen at this meeting and if they deide to put a cap on how much money we can make with supplementals. I work very hard to do many of the programs that are out there and we get a large amount of student participation on these.
I'm sure someone will corret me if I am wrong, but here are my thoughts. If your PTO has it own tax id and bank account, you are a seperate entity from the school. They cannot tell you what to do, but they can make it difficult for you to do it. On the other hand, if your money runs through the school or the district, it is possible that the state could refuse more funding, especially if you are carrying a large ammount over from year to year. Find out why they want to limit your fundraisers. It is possible that like the post above they simply want to limit the number of fundraisers that use the kids as sales people, but would have no objections to other types of fundraising.
The district may also face criticisms and concerns when one school can provide substantially more resources for its students due to parent-raised funds. Especially after the initial purchase of something big like a playground or computer lab. In subsequent years, what the community sees is that "XYZ school has this and we don't".
So ultimately, the district may need to allocate more funds to a school with less parent involvement and less successful fundraising. Then how do YOUR parents feel if your school's budget is cut because it doesn't need as much as another school? It can be a vicious circle.
Our district has experienced some of that and last year asked that most fundraising responsibilities be returned to the schools and that the parent groups focus more on volunteerism.
Our district follows similar rules as Debbie Ball-Odeh. They permit two sales type fundraisers per campus for the elementaries (regardless who owns them).
Like hers, the PTO can have additional activities like box tops, Breakfast with Santa, Spring Fling.
As a parent, I'm thrilled there is some oversight on this. I don't want the children used as miniature sales force.
In our district, the school board allows each campus to have two fundraisers per year using the students as salespeople. The principals at our elementary schools, and now the middle school have been gracious enought to allow the PTA to have one of those, in the spring. We, however, have a total of four fundraisers each year. The Cash for Trash (Box Tops, etc) runs year round. In the fall we have our Fall Arts and Crafts Show, then we sell Krispy Kremes in January, and sell magazine subscriptions in March. Technically, we are using students for the Krispy Kreme sale because we send home a flyer qith the student telling families that we are selling donuts at our community's Winterfest and allow them to purchase the donuts also. It is "suggested" that if parents would like to ask other family members and co workers if they would like to order donuts also, that we will take all orders. We then use students for the mag sale. There has never been an issue with our board concerning the money we raise and how it is used. The board actually applauds all that we do to improve our district. Our principals also take a "hands off" approach, but then we do run everything we plan by them first. We are always conscience of the fact that if we made some horrendous mistake that administration could limit our access in the school.
