Last year we had enough money in our budget to allot a certain amount to each grade. Then the teachers submitted requests for field trips, reimbursements or purchases using that money. Most requests were filled, as long as they were not for things usually covered by their county budgets (we had one teacher ask for $50 for scissors...adult scissors...for her second grade class, and another asked to be reimbursed for copies she made at Kinkos when our copier was down instead of waiting to have them done at another school like everyone else). Thing is, we didn't have any teachers at our meetings last year, received no input from them on programs or activities we sponsored (but we heard all about the complaints, and they were there every month asking for $$$).
This year, we don't have the dough to give out becuase we are working on revamping our playground. The teachers seem to be pretty understanding of the $$ cuts, since it is going for newer and safer playground equipment (ours was ancient, predating the stone age, I believe.) But we have reserved a certain amount for one local field trip each for our first and second graders.
We have also asked the principal to require a teacher from each grade be present at our business meetings (on a rotating basis) and each teacher to attend and actively participate in at least two activities throughout the year. To make it fair, we grouped our parents together by grade and require the same of them as well.
We found that teachers quit coming because parents weren't there, and parent's quit coming because teachers weren't there...but I still wonder...which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Anyway, we hope that all will see the huge efforts we are making to boost involvement and teachers and parents alike will be much more willing to help out and offer ideas and suggestions instead of complaints and criticisms and requests for money.
There is no requirement for the teachers to attend our monthly meetings, however we usually have at least one teacher at every meeting. Last year we gave each teacher $150.00 to spend how ever they wished. Some bought music CD's, others bought bulletin board sets, nd one group of teachers pooled their money to buy podiums for the kids's speeches. The teachers are always very appreciative of the money. We also have $400.00 budgeted for what we call PTSO room rep. requests. We have a PTSO Room Rep. for each teacher (in some cases it is a group of 2 parents) and this money is used on a first come first served basis for any proposals brought forth by the room reps. In the past year it funded a CD player, Die Cuts and a digital camera. [img]smile.gif[/img]
I am a 3rd year PTO President. We have instituted a PTO Teacher Mini Grant program. We set aside 2000.00 per school year in which they can have it 2 requests at 75.00/ea. We have an application that each teacher Prek-6th receives and they are to fill out and write an explaination as to what they plan to do with it. On our application our request it that it must be for the students and something that they can learn from. They turn in their application to the mini grant coordinator..she brings to next meeting and we vote. Only once have we not liked an idea..we did not turn them down we just suggested something different.
We have pretty must stuck to our 2000.00/year budget for the last 3 years. The teachers love it. It gets more popular every year.
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With as many obligations, teacher meetings, parent/teacher conferences, work done at home, etc., we do not require our teachers to attend meetings. They do attend, don't get me wrong, but more because they understand that we don't have a real tendency to do money requests by people we don't know...lol. Teachers know it is much easier to get funds for something if everyone knows who they are. We ask that someone from each grade be there to represent their respective grade, but there is always a teacher or two there because they serve as treasurer and/or secretary. We gave them ALL $100 this year. They are ALL very thankful. We love all our teachers, even the ones who live 40 miles away and don't want to drive to school in the morning, drive home after school, drive back for a PTO meeting and then drive home again. I guess it also helps that our Principal and Asst. Principal are both very active in our group. At the morning teachers meetings, they go over everything anyway.
Our PTO gives each full time classroom teacher $200.00 in the beginning of the year. Each "special" teacher gym, music, HOSTS, etc receive $150.00 per year. We require that they turn in receipts before the end of the year. The majority of them turn them in real early because they spend quite a bit before school starts. But they are all very aware that it is not a given, our one fundraiser of the year must generate the target goal or the the classroom fund is the first thing that will be cut. Thankfully we have never had to do that [img]tongue.gif[/img] We are a small school, 350 students, 13 classroom, 4 specials with an operating budget of $19,000.
