Since you were so great in helping me with the restricted funds problem, please let me reciprocate.
You are correct in that the school district and the principal have no say in how your PTO spends its money. That is, unless the principal is on the executive board. Then, of course, he or she would be in a position of influencing the discussion at the meetings (but definitely not controlling it - he/she only has one vote after all, the same as everyone else). I assume you have money that was left over from last year's pto? And I assume that that money was raised by your PTO for general PTO use? If so, then it is the community of your school, that shows up for the meetings and votes, that decides where your money is spent.
If your PTO does not have the money to fund more money to the teachers for field trips, you should definitely let the principal know that. I suggest sitting down with your Treasurer and making sure you understand the budget, then perhaps have a meeting with the Principal and the Treasurer, and show your Principal the facts in plain view. He/She cannot argue with the facts in front of him/her (at least I hope not!).
You may want to show up with your board's ideas of how you and the community want to see your excess revenues spent. If you don't have much left, you may want to spend it on supplies for the classrooms (paper, pencils, etc.) We sent out a survey at the beginning of the school year that gave everyone a chance to tell us how they'd like to see our excess revenues spent. It gave us a clear vision of what the parents want, but also showed them that we are interested in their opinions and we will represent their opinions at our meetings, not the board's opinions.
I'm the new PTO co-president and have been reading here for awhile but this is the first time I have posted.
Here is my situation - we give $200 per classroom in field trip grants. We just announced this to all of our parents at meet the teachers night. A teacher submitted a request for half of a field trip and was asking parents to pay the other half. I spoke with the teacher and explained that she should use the PTO money first and then ask parents. This has been done before at year end when there is not money left. She seemed okay with this and said she would send what she recieved back to the parents.
Then I got a call from the principal saying we need to give more to each classroom because what we give is not enought to cover everything. She also said we should stop telling parents we pay for everything. We never said we pay for it all. I tried to explain that it was a perception issue and didn't make sense to ask parents for money when the PTO allotment hadn't been expended. She was talking over me and would just say we needed to talk. To cover two field trips per class regardless of cost is not in our budget. Some classrooms never ask parents for money and some do I just think it should be at year end. She also told me they checked with the superintendent and he okayed it. I am really confused because the superintendent has nothing to do with PTO funds.
We have alot of new volunteers and have been getting great feedback to the changes we are making and I want to keep that going. I do not want angry parents asking me why the teachers are asking for money in October.
I want to be really clear when I speak with our principal and I am looking for a "reality" check to see if I am off the mark here.
