We're a K3-8th grade Episcopal school and I suppose you could say, we do something along these lines but this is where it's different: we each contribute a set amount to an "activity fee" and a portion of that is funnelled to the room mothers ($24 per child). That money is used for various and sundry thing like, for example, it paid for lunch for each child when we went on a field trip yesterday. I guess what we don't have is a spending account that is used "individually" for various things. I think it sounds like a good idea. I'm constantly sending a check for the lunch program or something like that.
Shelly

We are a K-8 Catholic School. We have the usual fund-raisers for PTO however other groups have fundraisers as well. Unfortunately people link them to PTO, but that's another story. Some of these other fund-raisers include out-of-uniform days, taffy apple sales, etc. Most of the time people are writing several checks for $2.50 at a time to support these fund-raisers. Have any of you set up a family spending account at your school? We are considering the idea of asking parents to put $50.00 in an account at the beginning of the year. If they chhose to participate in an activity, it would be subtracted from their account. If their account runs low, they would have to submit more funds. I guess this woud sort of be like a "school debit card". Has anyone else done anythin similar? What were the pros and cons?
Thanks for any input.