another great idea (which also requires paperwork): if your school does Scrip giftcards for fundraising, you can offer an incentive for any teacher that raises over $1,000 every month to recieve or be put in a drawing for a $100 gift card for classroom supplies. This would definitely raise awareness and enthusiasm among the teachers to participate in Scrip!
Love the grant idea!
Our principal also asks (but doesn't require) that teachers come to her first, because she stays in the know about all of the different projects and funding sources beyond the PTO. Many teachers will make requests that the principal has already funded through other means without their knowledge. Besides, teachers generally only ask for gift cards for classroom supplies. Your real purchasing power should be reserved for big projects and not nickeled and dimed away on stickers and crayons. If you really see needs not being met in the classroom or in a specific area, do the gift card allotment or grant idea, which extends an invitation to the team or individual teacher to express or purchase what they need.
Some PTO's in our district grant allotments to each grade level and allow the teachers in that grade level to decide how they would like to spend the money (divide it up or purchase a few larger ticket items to share). Not a bad idea, but it does require quite a bit of paperwork for the treasurer.
We have a budget for Faculty requests of $1,000. All requests go through the principal. If any amount is left over at the end of the school year it is transferred to the teacher grants budget. This year we had $200 left over and were able to fund a total of $4,000 in grants. The grants also go through the principal. She decided she could fund some of the requests with school money. Out of 30 teachers we had 18 turn in grants and they were all partially or completely funded! They will be announced at our final meeting next week.
At our k-8 school our bylaws require the voting board to include two teacher representatives, one from k-4th and one from 5th-8th. The rest of the teachers work through them to present ideas and request funds. The principal is not a voting member but he does attend every meeting. His opinions are valid and given a lot of weight in the decision making process.
Large accounts ($1,000+) for things such as PE/Athletic Equipment or General Music Enhancement are still managed by the PTO treasurer but each expenditure requires pre-approval by the principal to ensure that everything falls in line with curriculum.
Your principal isn't necessarily being controlling. But perhaps the process can slowly evolve to include a 'review committee' that includes teacher representatives and the PTO officers before requests are presented to the voting members.
In our case, we have as many seats on the board for staff, including the principal and asst. principal, as parents, so it's not parents making all the decisions. To be honest with you, our budget is more organized than the 3 seperate ones for the school, and it's easier for us to find money for things than the admin. We also have set budgets for field trips, which our principal can't pay for out of his, this helps teachers plan accordingly. The majority of our funding is budgetted and announced so there isn't a bunch of money decision making going on in the middle of the year. We have a small portion designated for extras and that helps keep the extra spending down. In our case, a close partenship and a very well planned, thought out, and communicated budget, makes our group run very well financially without making anyone-the admin or the parents-seem like the bad guy. But this takes a lot of communication with staff and admin to understand what is a priority and what is a desire and planning accordingly.
The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating-in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life. --Anne Morris
I'll second what JHB said. We do not entertain requests directly from the teachers for all those same reasons. I've always loathed the thought of a group of parents, no matter how well-intentioned, sitting around debating the merits of teachers A's request versus teacher B's. Who are we to do that?? The principal is the ceo of the building and we respect his recommendations. Like others have said, we might pave the way for a teacher-led initiative, but we would not overrule the principal's decision.
That said, I should clairify that our budget includes about 30 different spending categories. The principal has discretion over about 4 of those categories, and each has its own "spirit" that he must respect. So we keep some of the control without directly approving or denying specic requests.
