For a copy of the Purchase Request Form, email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
We keep copies of this form in the teacher's lounge. Most teachers know they have to submit it first to the principal who actually presents the request during PTO board meetings. It's a good idea to make a list of your PTO meeting dates so teachers know when they should turn in the request form.
I would very much like for you to send me a copy of that form. If you would please leave your email address here and I will email. I am trying very hard to keep the identity of the school from being known. I don't want people to think a grant program is what we are doing when we haven't yet as a board made a finial decision. Hope you understand.
Any funding request (PTO funds) by teachers go through the principal first. If the principal doesn't have money in the school budget to pay for the request and believes it is something that will benefit the school, she presents it during a PTO meeting. We have a form teachers fill out and submit. If you're interested, let me know and I can email you the form.
We OCCASIONALLY do things for individual grade levels--we bought tricycles for the kinders one year, we pay for the 5th grade send-off (kind of like a graduation) and have helped out grade levels in the past. However, one teacher requested the PTO to pay for a magazine subscription for her classroom, and we told her no. Our PTO conducts a Harvest Fair in the beginning of the school year in which individual classrooms or grade levels keep all of the money they earn at their booths. This helps cut down on requests for PTO funds and it's a great way to get a variety of activities, food, games for your school carnival.
Yikes--we don't do grants either but we do heavily push the Adopt A Classroom program and encourage parents to join together to adopt their classrooms (500 dollars each classroom but only 18 bucks per parent) in lieu of Christmas gifts etc. We have over 50 percent of our classrooms adopted this year. That is huge money that we could never have done ourselves. We heavily support the "common groups" like music, math, PE, etc but all of our request for support come through the principal, who is very earnest in her support of us, and she will quickly turn back requests that are not educationally oriented (like t-shirts for a particular classroom). We did fund the DARE t-shirts, but eventually everyone that is in the school will benefit from that (a 5th grade program).
Your idea is sound I think, but grants are such a sticky business...I would even consider a matching grant through adopt a classroom, where if the parents raise X amount of dollars, you will match it toward the 500 bucks it takes....good luck
We do not have a grant program. Staff are told up front what they have to work with instead of making them ask for it.
As a member of both the PTO and School Planning Team (which decides on federal and local grant money spending for the school, among other things), I have to admit that most of us are willing to spend a few extra dollars on the grades who are doing the testing in a given year. Test scores have become a real issue with most schools. It's not like they are asking for money for a field trip. I would hope the materials requested would be kept in the school making them something that would eventually benefit more than just one grade of students, but every student in that grade for years to come. I guess it's all how you look at it.
The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating-in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life. --Anne Morris
