One key point is - who owns the fundraiser? Because that determines where the money goes.

When I was first involved, we had two sales fundraisers a year - a big one in Fall and smaller one in Spring. PTO owned both, deposited funds from both.

Few years later school took over ownership of the Spring fundraiser, and still later it owned both. The fundraisers never really changed except who signed the contract and where the funds were deposited. PTO's role never much changed. But in the latter years we were merely providing volunteers to run the fundraiser for the school. (District was on a push to have parent groups focus on communication and volunteerism rather than funding.)

But if you are sure the funds do belong to PTO, then these are TEA rules. Visit their website to open the PDF on this.

Even better, go to your district website and see if it has accounting rules posted. Most do. Use key words like "booster, activity fund, school". (Add Texas if you search via Google.) You'll see rules like this posted from various school districts.

Or tell me your district name and I'll look.

Thank you. You have no idea how happy I am to hear this. Are school has been doing this with a "Non active PTO fundraiser" for about 2 yrs now. I have no problem inlisting the help of the principal and the approval or even giving him finacial information monthly as I think he should have. Parents are having a hard time trusting him with money that he cant show or tell what has happen to it. How do I go about making him understand he can not put they PTO money in a school activite fun. Is there a web site I can go to maybe to have it copied off of so he cant say it was made up???

In Texas, schools manage "activity funds" which consist of two types.

Campus Level Activity Fund promote general welfare of each school and the educational development and morale of all students. This would be for school-sponsored fundraisers, yearbook sales, picture sales, etc.

Student Activity Funds are the property of student organizations and are held by the school in a trustee capacity. (All the different clubs and organizations).

Parent and booster organization funds are NOT allowed to be accounted for in the school’s activity fund. They must be maintained independently by the organization owning them.

That being said, the principal does have many governance rights such as:

• Requirement that organization be properly/legally organized
• Approval rights for any information distributed throughout the school
• Approval rights for any activity held on school property
• Pre-approval of any fundraisers or activities

They may not exercise all these rights (and this isn't necessarily an all-inclusive list).

As far as fundraisers go, if the school "owns" it, the proceeds are deposited in the Activity fund. If fund belong to a PTA, PTO, Booster Club they cannot be deposited in the school accounts. Nor can the group use the school's sales tax exemption.

Here's the citation:

TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY
FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM
RESOURCE GUIDE

5. Site-based Decision Making

5.5.6.3 Other Organizations
Booster clubs and parent-teacher organizations are separate legal entities from the school district and must maintain separate federal identification numbers and bank accounts. The University Interscholastic League (UIL) provides booster club guidelines on its website, as do national and/or parent-teacher organizations.

I am trying to get a PTO started in my small town in Texas. I tend to be having issues with the principal and it has not even gotten off the ground. One issue is I thought all PTO's were a non profit organization (ran by parent/teachers), and the school had no bussiness handling the money it raises??? I have been looking for information on this and can not seem to find anything. Are principal wants to put the money in a "PTO" fund that the ISD runs. Is that right??? Does it make it a "school organization" if I make sure its okay with the principal befor going ahead and doing it??? Please someone help me!!!!

I am a new Principal at a public elementary school in a small rural district.
Here is the setting I came into: The former PTO president thought nothing of using her title when complaining about the school district or the school to the media and would and still instigates negativity among parents.
There was a power struggle between the former principal and the PTO president that affected community relations, teacher morale, etc.
I asked for a copy of the by-laws and was provided with a portion of the by-laws. Follow-up was not successful.
At the end of the last school year the PTO board appointed a new PTO president
who started out by going to the School Board meeting and demanding the re-hire of recently released teachers and questioning my leadership as well as criticizing another teacher.

This is the current setting: I have contacted the current president and we have met to discuss the PTO and how it is important for us to work together. MY hope is that this will happen especially since one of my teachers told her she felt
they were put in the middle.
As a new principal, I have so many irons in the fire that I need the PTO to run smoothly and to allow me to run the school. I have gone so far as to contact the PTA regional coordinator (PTO does not have a regional coordinator) and even Dept. of Education looking for guidelines. Some suggested the need to disband the PTO.
I have spent a lot of my time trying to correct the issues with the PTO. Is this the way PTO operates?

In trying to learn more about the PTO as an organization, I have also been researching PTO Today. Here is the status of the PTO :
PTO by-laws are incomplete
PTO is Not 501 (C)3
PTO does not have their own account or their own treasurer
PTO Funds run through the school bookkeeper (no separate audit)
PTO does not have their own insurance
PTO becomes involved in personnel for their favorite staff members
PTO Communication is sent out without prior notice to me
PTO Board/ and gen . membership parents use FB and other social media to vent and instigate negativity about the school/principal/personnel/superintendent, etc.
PTO has created a divide between parents as some are embarrassesd by PTO and do not want PTO to represent them
There are several other concerns but no room to list them all.


I have met with the new PTO president to create a calendar of meetings. I have provided her with a copy of the PTOToday by-laws outline, role of the PTO and even a copy of another school's by-laws. School starts in August and I need them to take the intiative to complete their required steps and want this completed before the start of school in 2 weeks.

Any help will be greatly apprecated.
Newbie

I am the PTO president at an elementary school. This is only the second year this school has been in operation. I am pretty sure the principal has been a principal before this school. I am not sure what the school boards requirements are for the PTO. I do know that my principal is forcing the PTO to Have our accounts at the school. Last year the PTO had a bank account, and we are still using it. She has told me it was against school policy, and told mer if my teacher sponsor did not follow her rules, she would not approve the fundraisers the teacher sponsor wanted to plan. What are our rights? What can we do? I feel like I am always being stepped on. I do not remember the PTO's of other states I have been in being like this. HELP!!