The art, music and gym teachers come to the PTO on an individual basis to request money.
As for knowing what the teachers are using the money for - they must put that in their check request. If it isn't school related then it would not be approved.
Our PTO gives each teacher $11.00 per student to spend throughout the year for class trips, guest speakers, parties and supplies that they may need. The teachers send in a request form to the PTO and they money is then sent to them. If they have used their "alotted" money they can put in a special request for more money that is then voted on at the next PTO meeting - and rarely turned down - this has worked for us for the last few years.
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What we do is if the faculty member joins the PTA with a small membership fee of $3.00 we then reimbuse them up to $50.00 for classroom related supplies. They must turn in a clean receipt and their is a cutoff date of Oct. 31st. I know that $50 does not sound like much but we have 100 staff members. I do like the idea of issuing envelopes in June because I always see teachers shopping when I am buying my back to school supplies.
We have given our techer's gifts of $50.00-$100.00
as our budget allows. We usually give our gifts at the begining of the year. This help suplememt what they have already spent out of their own pocket. Alot of our teacher's use the money for the room or kids in some way or other. From decorations to field trips. Otherwise they would end up using alot of their own money.
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We are a small catholic grade school (165 families) and our teachers are not paid very well. They are very dedicated individuals. At the beginning of the school year, and again at the end of January, our PTO gives each teacher $50 in a card to spend how they see fit for their classroom. We include a note "Welcome back to the new school year, please take this gift and purchase any supplies you need for your classroom. blah, blah, blah." After our signatures we generally put a little "P.S. We would love to hear what you purchased for your classroom! Let one of the officers know if you get a chance." We have always gotten a positive response from this. The teachers are very grateful and usually acknowledge with a thank you card letting us know what they purchased. We then share that information with our parents at our next meeting. We used to give them a gift certificate to The Learning Tree, but realized that many of our teachers can find more bang for their buck at other stores.
