Hi TRMom,
We'd say lots of folks run into this. How about asking the principal for a sit down to go over what the PTO's priorities are and how that squares with all the requests. This may help you winnow down the list of requests.
More generally, talk to the principal about helping your group be more proactive in how it handles all the requests by setting some guidelines. For example, you may want to give each teacher a donation for the classroom at the start of the year. You may want to set up a teacher grant program with a certain amount of money in it for each year and teachers can essentially apply for a grant. If you have a cap on the amount of how much you can give in grants, that's another way to help manage all the requests.
Here's a link to an article we have about creating teacher grant programs:
How to start this off.....I'm exhausted before I've even begun my first year as President! Our administration is great. They set high goals, and achieve them not only with students, but staff as well. However, the PTA gets used and abused. We get asked to pay for things constantly for teachers whether it be a welcome back gift, back to school breakfast, funding some random item that is not for us to fund. How do we explain to our Principal that some of the things she is asking us to fund are unnecessary and have nothing to do with the students. Has anyone ever run into this issue before? If so, how did you handle it respectfully?
