<p>Re: voting, all dues paying members have a right to vote, the vote should be by ballot</p>
<p>engineer4life, I agree with you. This “honor to the school” thing is driving me nuts. I love my son’s school, I think the kids are great, I love (almost) all the teachers and the principal is the most approachable, involved,reasonable person ever. That’s why I volunteer for this, because believe me, I’m not the “Board Member” type. But it seems like heresy to question the value of this trip, because they’re all “great kids” who “earned it” and it “boosts our image”. </p>
<p>Well, they all are great kids, and they did earn a place, but how much does winning (if anyone does) benefit the entire student body? I’m wondering if anyone else in the world cares at all if 2 or 3 of our students win a national award. engineer4life’s example of the speaker series is exactly what I’m talking about. In fact, we have instituted such a program in our school.</p>
<p>The executive committee (minus one) realizes that this went horribly wrong, and we’re eager to set things right. If anyone else has an argument for or against the “honor to the school” idea, I would welcome it. It just seems so nebulous.</p>
<p>Check out the USNWR rankings for high schools, and see if the competition is listed in a description of the school. “Honor to the school” is nebulous, winning impacts the individual student, not the whole school. What is the school giving up to fund this? </p>
<p>Consider responding “We have many great kids here–have you heard about the XXX program?” “have you heard about the latest test scores?” </p>
<p>This has happened, now it’s time to work on the future. If the PTA funding is directed towards the whole school, then put a cap on future funding of this type. We do. PTA funds are used for school wide programs, honor roll socials (ice cream), extra library books, guest speakers, drunk driving awareness, etc. They are not used for small groups of students to compete in specialized programs. We offer organizations opportunities to raise funds (ie sell water/snacks/food at certain events), we offer to help with scholarships (not more than 50%) for those in need. We have a separate organization that does the large item funding (technology, teacher grants for special equipment like ceramics kilns).</p>
<p>Mom2M, thank you. We do many of the same things, including breakfasts during exam week, transportation for school trips, speakers, drunk driving awareness, coordinating SAT/ACT prep, and special faculty and student grants. Last year, we realized that we had a surplus, and bought extra items for the school and started a speaker series. We have helped out clubs in more reasonable amounts. Keep in mind that we are a very small school. We are a very young school,and as the PTA, we have to define our purpose.</p>
<p>High schools near where I live always brag if they have any students reaching the Intel Science Talent Search finals. That’s about the only braggable academic feat I can think of. I doubt they rely on PTA funds for this though.</p>
<p>Good luck defining your purpose! You will help your young, small, school get on the right track for future challenges.</p>
<p>Our high school’s Science Olympiad team made it to the state finals most of the years that my kids participated. We always had to petition the board of ed to find some money to help pay for one night at a motel in the area and bus transportation for the team. Meanwhile the sports teams got 10x as much money without blinking an eye. I’m not saying it’s the PTA’s job to fund this stuff, certainly not at the expense of other programs, but I do think there’s a place for funding academic team type events. Maybe it’s time for a secret ballot, if you are worried about teachers taking it out on students?</p>
<p>I’m the president of the booster club at my kid’s high school. I’m sure our bylaws differ in some ways. I would echo what others have said about knowing your mission statement and following your bylaws. That said, our bylaws would not specify what to do in this situation and it is the task of the executive board to come up with policies for this sort of thing. Some years ago we drafted a policy that we would not fund individual students because there were too many worthy students with opportunities that needed funding and because we believed that money raised by parents should benefit as many students as possible. At one point, we had a request for funding for our school’s vocal group because they were invited to perform at Carnegie Hall. We handled it by specifically contributing some funds to pay for the faculty chaperone. Thus we did not fund students, but we did fund the required faculty member’s travel expenses and we felt that was fair. We also drafted a form to be used when funding requests are made in which we ask what other efforts have been made to find funding both within the school and by fundraising efforts. Some of the things I think we would consider with this type of funding request is how does this activity benefit the school as a whole? Is this something that used to be funded by the district and budget cuts eliminated? Then we might feel like we should step in. How much money is it? Sometimes we fund things that benefit only a smaller group of students – examples would be portable ballet bars for our dance classes, lab equipment for our physics program and sometimes it benefits everyone. I don’t know what PTA requirements are now, but my understanding from years ago is that PTA can only give money for things that benefit all the students. When I was at a school that had a PTA and a booster club, PTA funded the things that benefited all students and the booster club was able to do things that were more specific. I was told it was a requirement of PTA to benefit all kids. This is something you should check out. It may vary by state or district and I might be wrong and there may be nuances to the principle. Your area PTA person should be able to shed some light on this.</p>
<p>HotCanary
I think you know wasn’t criticizing you, the school or the PTA. Just defining what we do…we have been in the same situation as you find yourself now. Fortunately, someone wrote different by-laws in the past, and I helped with a huge by-law update last year. It was a challenging process, but we were determined. Most of us on that committee have students who graduate this year, it gave us a year to “tweak” if needed.
We found a “hole” in the plans/budget in the fall. A wonderful staff member deals with seniors who need help with senior event costs. For whatever reason, last year she added a substantial number of students to Grad Night at the last minute. It was expensive, and drove the planners crazy. Some of these were added a couple of days before the event–really messed up the bus space. When the situation came to light this fall, we tweaked the situation (with a vote), spoke to the staff member and the principal. It’s not that we don’t want to sponsor the kids–we want the kids to attend if possible (and she’s pretty good about getting some service hours in exchange, if it’s possible for the student to do them). More partial sponsorships than full pay, which means more kids can attend events. It’s about deadlines and budgets. This year, scholarship budget is $XXXX and deadline has been set.</p>
<p>It’s not that anyone in your school or PTA doesn’t want the kids to attend the competition, it’s about the purpose/budget of the PTA. You are in a tough spot…but it will pass. Look towards rules for the future so this doesn’t happen again.</p>
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<p>Mathmom, I want you to know we’re on the same page. By my username, I hope you can tell that I’m a science/math kind of guy, not a sports dad. I did math competitions & the like in high school, and have completed high level math courses like advanced differential equation and high performance scientific computing in college. So please don’t think for a moment that I think it’s ok for schools to fully fund lots of sports activities and ignore science & math programs. It’s wrong.</p>
<p>But, the problem is, the PTA could have fully funded a sports competition for 5 students just as easily as it fully funded the academic competition. Say a few students were highly skilled cyclists and wanted funding to go to a national level cycling competition. Once the PTA has established that national level highly selective competitions are eligible for funding, it’s really hard to say that a science olympiad can be funded but a olympic level downhill ski race or 200 mile endurance cycling event can’t be funded by the PTA.</p>
<p>If the football coach, who has the following of a lot of parents of football players, shows up at the meeting asking for special funding along with the parents of the players (who are all hoping that coach will make their kid a starting player this year) come along to vote in favor of a proposal to send the 5 top football players to a highly specialized football camp, they could get funding just as easily. Even though you - as mathmom - would probably be much less enthralled with funding a sports camp for the quarterback in lieu of a math event for the brainy kids in your class.</p>
<p>Just to give you an update, tomorrow night is our first meeting for the year. I want to thank you all for your very sensible ideas. We have two new board members who have great insight, and we’re excited for our new year. We have implemented so many of your suggestions, including a revised form for clubs to request grants, with a reasonable time frame for applying. And our bylaws are our guide. We’ve discovered several gaps in our bylaws, and we’re working on it.</p>
<p>Thanks to you, we have instituted an “Angel Fund” to help individual students in need. Our principal immediately thought of a situation where this would have worked. I think that even the member who pressured us to grant the request last year is beginning to understand that the rest of us aren’t just hoarding money. We are trying to find the most beneficial ways to spend the money we raise so that we can benefit the most students. </p>
<p>So, after all that, we DO have money to spend, or at least I expect we will by the end of the year. What have you financed that you believe is worthwhile? We have some great ideas within our association, but we could really use some of your ideas that worked.</p>
<p>Can a PTA finance something? That sounds very risky. I remember one occasion where we raised money for an awning to cover the outdoor eating area. Of course the expected money was not fully raised after the awning was purchased. The PTA was in the hole for a full year scrambling to raise extra money to cover the expense. Not fun as an incoming board member as I recall!</p>
<p>My suggestion…don’t say you will fund it if you don’t have a REALLY good guarantee to have the money to pay for it. Suggestion…buy 10 computers instead of the 15 the school may need! Chasing down committed donations in this economy is not easy.</p>
<p>Thanks, ilovedcollege, but that’s not an issue here. We weren’t committing to spend money that we didn’t have yet, we were being asked to fund individual students with money that we had raised from a recent fundraiser. We would never commit to spend money we don’t have. Our budget each year is always realistic. I was looking for worthwhile ways to spend money for those times when our fundraising efforts are more successful than we planned. We have been very fortunate in the last few years.</p>
<p>Some of my favorite PTA funded things are events - like an author or artist is residence day. We have had authors and illustrators come and talk to the kids and run writing workshops. We had artists come and work hands-on with the students to do stuff like printmaking or basket weaving. </p>
<p>Our PTA also funded themed days for the students in a particular grade - victorian day, medieval day, colonial day which corresponded to that grade’s history curriculum. These however require lots of volunteer time not just money.</p>
<p>When the budget got tough they helped fund the middle school newspaper, the music group trip to see a classical concert, or the class trip to a museum.</p>
<p>My favorite PTA activity was Reading is Fundamental - most of the money came from RIF but the PTA kicked in as well. We bought a whole bunch of books that we thought kids would like and they got to pick one four times a year. The idea is that kids who own books that they have chosen (not the teachers, not the parents) they will read them. We always had plenty of silly stuff like joke books and Captain Underpants as well as more difficult books. In conjunction with the distributions we had book related activities. Ones I remember:</p>
<p>We organized a vote for your favorite book in at election time. We had nominations in the classroom so that kids had three or four book choices on the ballots. There was a different choice for each grade level.</p>
<p>We made a bulletin board with a map of the county and showed where local illustrators lived with a picture of the illustrator and a sample of his/her work.</p>
<p>We had an illustrator come and give a grade level presentation and show how they put together a book.</p>
<p>At the end of the year we had kids write recommendations for summer reading and published all their reviews in a newsletter which we distributed to the entire school.</p>
<p>In middle school we had a committee that gave money for teacher grants. They would apply for special projects and we would help fund them.</p>
<p>Our PTA helped fund a learning garden for the school and helped run programs to keep the garden in shape.</p>
<p>We’ve done things like: better textbooks than the ones the district supplies; class sets of things, such as TI-84 calculators; give every teacher a $100 classroom supplies reimbursement (must provide receipts); fund professional development for teachers; offset school costs for various community-building events; buy technology the district doesn’t provide; bring in speakers.</p>
<p>Hot Canary is talking about a HS PTA - not elementary. </p>
<p>One thing our school board has that could be adopted by a PTA is a mini-grant program. Teachers come up with ideas where they want funded and apply for grants. These are often technology related, like flip video cameras for a classroom. Part of the agreement then is for a report back showing how the funds were used.</p>
<p>We have a parent group that has more lattitude than a formal PTA and we give mini grants to each teacher, help fund a seafaring expedition (that not all kids go on), and last year, helped with a trip to South America (that not all the kids went on). Because these trips are OPEN to all but not all CHOOSE it, we don’t see it as supporting one group of kids over others. Those that need financial assistance to even go at all get help from the school with that.</p>
<p>We’ve also helped with technology but the foundation that supports our school provides most of that.</p>
<p>Please forgive me if this was already addressed, I have not read the entire thread. Do your bylaws conform with your state and national charter? I don’t know if they support PTO funding to individual students versus funding for programs.</p>