PresidentJim;134848 wrote: So this year I will be writing a letter to the teachers, that will be provided at the back to school staff lunch, explaining the allocation of funds and that we have created a new Enrichment committee which will be dedicated to assiting the teachers with planning away from school field trips, as well as the in-house enrichment opportunities that we always do.

Overall we are hoping that we can get it to the point that it becomes standard that each grade goes on a certain field trip every year. That way the parents, children and staff would all know that Kindergarten goes to the local farm in October, 3rd grade goes to Plymouth Plantation in April, etc.

We "require" that each grade provides a teacher representative to attend a meeting requesting the use of the funds for the field trip. This way we are provided all of the information that we need, know what to expect as far as bills, etc. If the trip ends up costing more than the $7 per student then the teachers provide the parental $ to us and we cut all checks, including the bus bill. We have the bus company bill us directly.

Also, we make it known to the teaching staff that if any student would not be able to attend due to financial difficulties that no one would be left behind and that we would take on the costs for those students.

Hope this helps,
PresidentJim

Jim - I am trying to figure out how to draft a simular letter and accompanying form to the teachers to use. For grades k-4 the field trips are pretty standard and 5 grade is somewhat but it's gotten out of hand in the past few years and we'd like to nip it in the bud by setting guidlines for them in advance this year. I'd love to see what you come up with?
What about teacher classroom welfare requests? what do you do for these? I want to approach them the same way. In the past we purchased the same thing for every class, a news type magazine for the 2, 3 and 4 graders and some teachers are asking for different things.

For our pre k -2 school the PTO paid for the buses 2 field trips per grade. There is a teacher rep from each grade and they usually talk to the PTO at the beginning of the school year to let us know of the plans. The PTO only pays for the buses the tickets are teachers responsiblity whether they collect from the parent or raise funds. As for the billing we are sent a bill directly to the PTO from our transportation dept.
This upcoming year we may have to look more carefully into how we budget this. We spent probably close to $5000.00 in the school year. The school did get grants in the past from our local supermarkets but I guess they stopped that which made a huge impact on our budget. Also the price increase with gas didnt help either. So we shall see what happens this year.

We currently give $2,000 a year total for field trips. The school district doesn't pay any field trip expenses. This is a BIG expense for our little PTO and we are trying to think of ways to ease the PTO out of paying for all field trips. We're afraid if we don't pay, our children will not get to go on any trips. Any thoughts? HOw can we ease parents into footing the bill?

Our PTO doesn't get involved in field trip funding at all. Parents are asked to pay for non-curriculum field trips. We've talked about PTO funding field trips in the past, but quickly dropped the subject when we realized the complexities and possible inequities. It's just not something our principal and PTO officers have wanted to tackle. Thankfully, our parents are supportive of field trips and haven't balked at paying for them out of pocket.

Our PTO pays $100 per classroom. Our treasurer writes a check that is deposited into the Student Activities Fund.

Can someone please tell me what a field trip requisition form looks like?
I am a new PTO President and our school to my knowledge has never used any thing like that. We just gathered reciepts at the end of the trip. Is there a benefit to using such a form for teachers to take their kids on school field trips? Or does it just cause more paper work for the auditors to go through and find something wrong.
Please I'm not trying to be rude although reading back it certainly does look that way...But I really would like to know the positives of using this form and would love to know how it would be worded. I may have to try it this year to see if it makes things a little less confusing.
Thanks in advance for any replies
PTOMXMOM.