<p>In my school system, the PTA budgets are voted on (and minutes approved) by a show of hands at the well-attended back-to-school open houses. No one checks whether the people voting (by a show of hands) are PTA members. I know they should; no one cares.</p>
<p>Also the executive board can meet and recind the motion based on the expenditures not meeting the requirements of benefitting a certain percent of the school. The group who pushed this through knew what they were doing and are right now hoping you are NOT looking into this more closely.
Don’t even think about writing a check at this point.</p>
<p>RED FLAG! RED FLAGS! RED FLAGS!</p>
<p>I believe that non-profits, by law, are required to spend their money in accordance with their charter or purpose of existence. I assume that somewhere there is a charter that indicates what the purpose of your group in, although it may be worded very generally. It may be something along the lines of “to further help the education of students” or something like that.</p>
<p>The board of directors is tasked by law to carry out that requirement, i.e., if you spend the money in a manner that is not congruent with your charter, then the state can hold you liable for your actions.</p>
<p>What you are presenting is that the seniors ready to graduate and who have been accepted to college, are looking for funding so they can a fully paid trip shortly before graduation. I have a hard time believing that your PTA is there to fund senior trips as a final celebration of high school, and I have a very hard time seeing that the state would agree that all expense paid travel is a reasonable use of non-profit dollars.</p>
<p>To me, an Angel Fund is different because you are providing opportunities to kids who would not otherwise have the same opportunity as others. PTAs should fund things like teachers, classroom supplies, guest speakers, field trips, and other things that benefit all students. But all expense paid senior trip doesn’t sound like it meets the grade.</p>
<p>Now, I know it’s not being billed as “party trip”. It’s helping the students advance in a competition. But, the activity would be far less glamerous if it was held in your same town. It’s always more fun to travel. And there will be a lot of partying going on, even if it is all clean fun. (I went on a lot of “party trips” in high school that we called band tours, competitions, speech & debate trips, etc. They were fun but not very educational.)</p>
<p>At my employer, they’ve cut down on travel budgets because they don’t see the expense is justified by the learning. The GSA recently got in trouble for a shindig in Las Vegas. Greg Mortenson got in trouble for his travel expenses - that were deemed excessive - because they didn’t fit the charter of the Central Asia Institute.</p>
<p>So, I would suggest that you reconvene the board of directors and review the decision to determine if the vote taken fits your purpose and charter of the PTA. If nothing else, it shows you were doing due diligence to protect the non-profit as you are required to do. </p>
<p>And then, I would strongly encourage you to work toward revising the bylaws to cover how you will pay for travel expenses as others have said.</p>
<p>I’ve been active in NYC Parent Associations for the better part of 15 years and as both an officer and a parent I can say that I would be LIVID to hear that 1/3 of a fundraising budget had been allocated to a program/project that would only benefit 10 children.</p>
<p>I agree with the folks who said check your bylaws and also on checking on how many actual PTA parents were at the meeting (to make sure you indeed had a quorum). </p>
<p>Also, was this an Exec board meeting or a general meeting? I believe that all budget changes have to be approved by first the Executive Board (only Exec board members can vote) in the Exec Meeting, then the general membership in the General Meeting. It sounds like you had only one meeting, so unless this was a dual meeting (which I also don’t think is quite legal), you might have to retake the vote based on that.</p>
<p>Another thing… for budget changes, I believe that there needs to be some kind of “alert” to the general membership ahead of time, so that people who have opinions can come to the meeting. </p>
<p>So, check your bylaws for these things… they might help.</p>
<p>JoBenny, it wasn’t 1/3 of the budget, it was 1/3 of what we raised in the fundraiser. While it is our big fundraiser of the year, it’s not our only one.This expense still leaves us with plenty of money, but I feel there are plenty of wonderful opportunities to spend it that we are giving up. I’m sorry if I was confusing. engineer4life, I agree with you in that I don’t approve of subsidizing the seniors because they already have their college acceptances. I’m not sure what a national award in this competition will do for them, and I agree that it’s not our responsibility. But I do feel that this is a worthwhile competition, it’s in a nice city but not an exotic or glamorous location, and it will reflect favorably on our school. I know that students went last year (we did not fund it then) and one student did win a national award. I’m really gratified to hear all this feedback. Last night, I feel that we fell through the looking glass.Luckily, we have the weekend to research, and I am not writing a check anytime soon. I believe we were just wrong to allow a vote, and if we can’t fix this now, we have to get ourselves straightened out for the next time this happens. Because it certainly will.</p>
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<p>I shouldn’t sound like I’m coming down harsh on the students…they no doubt have worked hard for this. I went on a lot of trips to Colorado, Flordia, Seattle, and other locations when I was a kid and they were an important part of my childhood. I hope my own children can experience them as well.</p>
<p>But, I don’t see sending high school seniors that have been accepted to college on a all-expense paid trip as a function of PTA. I see that kind of trip more as a reward for years of hard work, and something that will be a positive celebration for them for their years of study and work. It’s a worthy cause to help them with their fundraising efforts - maybe contributing a portion of what is remaining after they’ve done their fundraisers and contributed some of their own money.</p>
<p>I agree with you that the PTA shouldn’t be the first place they turn to. You said your school is full of smart kids, and many or all of them could find trips and events to go to that would benefit them individually - but you won’t be able to fund them all. </p>
<p>I agree that funding something that could help more of the students in class would be a greater benefit to your cause (helping students) than sending kids elsewhere on a trip.</p>
<p>Seriously, READ the bylaws and the charter of your PTA. I have been PTA Treasurer or Financial Sect’y for years. The budget is generally proposed by the Exec Board and passed by the general membership (usually at the first meeting of the school year). Expenditures outside the budget require a revision of the budget–which requires it’s own motions and procedures. Your bylaws may be different, but since PTA is a national organziation, I wouldn’t think they would be all that different. One of the reasons for this formula is to prevent these sorts of situations. I pity the fundraising chair for next year when everyone finds out a huge portion of the funds benefited just 10 students–who contributed nothing towards their trip.</p>
<p>Follow up on that membership issue, it could be critical. If nothing else, you can call a special meeting to reopen the issue. You should expect that to be uncomfortable, but it may be necessary given the situation. I am shocked that they asked for 100% funding. Aside from scholarships (ie Angel Fund) we don’t do that. Generally speaking, the Angel Fund kids know they need to show up and help out in the office/library/somewhere on campus in exchange for those funds. We understand that the economy can make it hard for the kids to get a job, etc…but those funds are a hand up not a hand out. And they are generally not for 100% of funding. We will give them the opportunity to hold a car wash/garage sale/whatever, but they have to help out.</p>
<p>I was a PTA officer for many years. The entire membership voted to approve the budget at the beginning of the year. One of our budget items covered “student support” and was used for requests like this one. The executive board met monthly and only exec board members could vote on the actual allocation of those funds. Other PTA members were welcome to attend the meeting and present their request, but they couldn’t vote. </p>
<p>We has similar concerns about whether it was appropriate to use PTA funds to pay travel expenses for small groups of students pursuing activities of would only benefit the students involved. We decided to cover only the registraion fees for these student groups and tried to apply that consistently. Most groups were happy with that support. I recommend that your Exec Board discuss this issue and try to set a policy about what you will cover.</p>
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Apparently more and more school systems are handing PTAs bills they expect the PTA to pay, but I thought paying for teaching staff was not allowed. I guess it’s discouraged, but not forbidden?</p>
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<p>In Washington State, it’s fairly common for the PTAs to fund a teaching position for arts, which aren’t funded through the state. We can debate whether or not elementary arts instruction should be included in the state budget, or whether PTAs should fund the position, but that’s another thread.</p>
<p>OP, don’t forget about the possibility of contacting your local and/or state PTA folks, to see if a local or state PTA bylaw was violated. If it was, then you have your reason for revisiting the whole issue and taking back that money. Good luck!</p>
<p>We had to deal with that same issue this year. A small group wanted partial funding for their “bonding activity”. What dismayed me wasn’t that they asked, but that our PTA didn’t know how to respond. Protocol should’ve been established before requests came in. bTW, this was one of two requests the whole year from student groups. “So, why not give $ even if it were a token amount.” Fortunately, someone had the wherewithal to make it a " trade". The group will now help with graduation parking. </p>
<p>I have always advocated for “teach a man to fish” approach. If the PTA set up activities where the groups would participate and earn their own money, we would be promoting school spirit as well as bringing helping to fund EC groups indirectly.</p>
<p>Thank you for all your responses. I shared your information with the Executive Committee at tonight’s meeting, and I’m going to send a link to this thread to the President. We’ve reviewed our bylaws, and found them lacking in many respects. So we all want to amend them, and set up procedures for such requests that are reasonable. Our executive committee meeting was very heated tonight, and after our general meeting some parents expressed great distress about the outcome of our last meeting. Our more fiscally conservative parents indeed felt bullied. One glaring error: the teacher who is the advisor for the club was allowed to stay for the vote. One parent felt intimidated, because that was her daughter’s teacher, and she was afraid to speak out.
The good thing is that we are learning the importance of establishing a fair procedure for requesting grants, and that this will not happen again. I’m sorry if I don’t post about how this particular incident turned out, because I just don’t want to get too specific.</p>
<p>I do have an important question, for me at least: much is made of these competitions, and how they bring honor to the school. Even if Seniors who have already graduated are participating. So, how much honor DOES go to the school? Are there some national awards that really help the school’s reputation? If so, which ones? Does it matter? Because I was thinking that a high school is primarily rated on SAT/ACT scores, and college acceptances, and AP courses, etc. My reasoning is that if a junior won a national award, he could include it in his college app and increase his school’s standing by his acceptance at a great school. But what good does the graduate’s award do for the school?</p>
<p>Frankly, there is no reason to fund all this to bring “honor to the school”. If this is important to the students/school then the participating students/school need to find a way to fund it. Bullying a PTA meeting is not a funding mechanism. Most of the honor goes to the individual participating students, not the school or the PTA. I’d be upset with this situation. It can errode support for future PTA fundraisers.</p>
<p>Consider rewriting those bylaws asap. You may want to include rules for funding ie not more than 50% of overall costs, parents with students participating, teachers advisors cannot vote or cannot be more than X% of the vote (this can be a mess, I don’t really recommend it, but it’s an option), funding requests must be presented one month, voted on the next month (make a provision for emergancies to be funded by exec board approval). Let the whole PTA know that you are making changes, if handled professionally, this could calm things down (yes, the bylaws currently allow this funding request, we are reviewing the bylaws, would you like to help?).</p>
<p>Our school board sends out a newsletter right before the budget vote. It always includes any honors the students have won. </p>
<p>I don’t think you can exclude teachers from voting it’s the Parent** Teacher **Association. And that’s a good thing. Most PTAs would be better with more teacher representation.</p>
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<p>mathmom, nobody is suggesting to exclude all teachers. What they are suggesting is the advisor of the group (teacher or otherwise) should not be present in the room. In this case, the advisor was a teacher and parents were worried their students education would suffer if they did not vote in favor of the project. This is a likely concern, and a serious breach of ethics.</p>
<p>I understand the concern, but perhaps none of the concerned parents who stand to benefit should be there either in that case.</p>
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<p>Concerned parents aren’t in a position of authority over students and do not hold a position to affect the education of students, so it wouldn’t be an ethical breach for the parents of the kids to be present during the vote.</p>
<p>If a teacher is present during a PTA vote and sees which parents vote in favor and which vote against an issue the teacher supports, this is a serious enough issue they can and should get reprimended by the school board / superintendent / principal.</p>
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<p>Well, let’s think about it this way. For $5,000, we can send 5 students to a national competition that will bring pride to our school IF they win, or we can bring in 5 guest speakers that will speak to the entire student body and help motivate them to do great things with their life. I’d say that the 5 guest speakers will have much greater impact.</p>