The majority of PTOs seem to be independent entities - heavily enmeshed with the school, but legally and financially separate.
Some PTOs have the principal on the checking account as a convenient second signature. Unless your school district has some requirement about that (probably not), then whether the Principal is on the account is totally up to the parent group. Those that do use the Principal as a signator generally do not allow him to control the funds. That's still the job of the group and the treasurer.
It's very important to have everyone's expectations align before you begin fundraising. From our discussions in the Forum, it seems most PTOs accept input and requests from the Principal, but do not let him (or her) control the disbursements.
However, there are some groups where the parent group simply serves as a volunteer arm of the school - all fundraising is done on behalf of the school and under the control of the principal. It seems to be more common with private schools and parochial schools. In that scenario, the group doesn't even need a bank account or to be set up as a financial entity.
"Yes" the principal can own a fundraiser. (And these days, they frequently need to have one.) The key is that everyone agree up front why the funds are being raised and who controls them.
Our school is limited to two major sales type fundraisers per year (by district policy). (Thats two period, not just two for the PTO.) In our case, the PTO "owns" the Fall fundraiser. The school owns the Spring one. In Spring, we still supply volunteers, promote, count the money, help with disbursement of goods, etc. But the incoming funds go into the Principal's account (activity fund). This works fine because it's planned that way, no one is twisting our arm after the fact to "take away" money.
So it can work a lot of different ways - but everyone needs to agree in advance so there are no misunderstandings.
Thanks pals. The last PTO group was in 1989! And our superintendent just took over 1 month ago. I will start with him. kimsway-I will let you know any info I find out, maybe it will help you too.
lynne-this doesnt seem right at all. Since you are a new group I would try to find out from your school's old group on whether he did this with them also. The first thing my principal said to me was that she wanted NOTHING to do with the bank account(when the our group first started there was no officers or leaders so it was in her name. when i took over it was closed and a new account open). This is a parent group and i'm not sure why his name would be on it...it seems like this would cause major problems. Check with old groups and maybe your superintendent about is this school policy....if it is then change your bylaws stating that his name is required( to prevent any questions later for others). To me it seems wrong but i'm not sure maybe others can comment. Chances are if parents knew your situation it would be ugly....i believe parents want their funds to be spent by parents(your group). Good luck
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
I'm having similar problems. Our principal isn't stealing, but is insisting we move all our funds into the General school account. She'll have sole access to the funds. I say it's not fair...things ran very well with our own PTO account up until we got the new Principal this year. Principals should not run PTO's. That's my opinion. They should be run by the members!!!!
I need help. Does the school principal have to have access to the PTO money? We have more than one incident where he has taken money and we do not want him on the checking account. He says he has to be on it. Does he? We are a new PTO, our bi-laws say nothing about this, but where do I find out for sure. I need facts before I try to confront him about removing his name from the funds. Also, there is one fund raiser every year that he claims all profits as his to use as only he sees fit. Is this right? Help me please.
