Money raised at the elementary school level should stay in that school. The high school can come up their own fundraising to raise the money themselves.
I would hate to be a PTO board member at your school once word gets out to the parents that their money was actually spent on students at a different school. It would seem to be a violation of your PTO's fudiciary responsibility, regardless of that unfortunate word (i.e. "district") in your by-laws.
I understand the band's predicament, but they need to find a way to raise the money other than hitting up PTO's of feeder schools.
I don't think I could/would want to sell this one to the group of parents who are raising money to support their children in elementary school. Even the oldest grade will get to the school when those uniforms are 3 or 4 years old so I'd tell the HS that you'd be happy to provide support with manpower at one of their fundraisers, or distro a flier through the school for one of their fundraisers (with the principal's approval etcetera) to support their effort but I think I'd keep the money I raise in the school the kids raising it are attending.
Maybe consider having a cake sale or a donating one day of your profits on something else where you've preadvertised what the effort is for...but if parents think their raising money for their children's benefit then I think that any deviation from that would be a bit difficult to "brief".
Last night at our PTO meeting, we had the band director approach us asking for a donation. He did not want any set amount. The band has not gotten new uniforms since 1993. All the money the band gets is from what the students in the band raise. They don't get much help from the school. The uniforms are for the high school band, & are very expensive. Currently they do not have enough uniforms for both the Jr High & High School. There was much discussion on whether we should be giving money to the high school. However in our by-laws it states that we are an organization raising money for the school district, not specifically to the grade school, which is PreK-6th grades.
Discussion was brought up that parents, & people in the community may not be happy knowing that some of the money raised by the elementary went to the high school. However, we have a 6th grade band that will benefit from the uniforms once they get into the high school. We will be having our fall fundraiser next month. However, we had money left over from last year, so it was voted on to give them a portion of that. They did however leave it open for the band to come back at a later date to ask for more money if they were still in need of it.
I realize that that the PTO needs to be careful how their money is spent, & should use it to benefit the best interest of the school. So can I get some opinions? We currently do not have any goals of major purchase for the school for the present school year. We have had money requests, but none of which add up to a whole lot of money. Should the PTO give money to organizations if it is within the school district or only those things that benefit the grade school kids??
