Ours does not just give lump sums to the school. Example if the Teacher need new math quiz books (for state) the school dist. will not buy them so teacher would ask PTO and if we have the money we buy them (which as long as i have helped we have never turned anything down). The school board last year was not going to have enough money for yearbooks because cost went up and Everychild gets one weather they pay or not. And our yearbooks are hardback full color 30 ea. So PTO picked up the extra.
We have 2 restaurant nights a year and one of these goes to the school activity fund. Other than that, our principal has a vote on how we spend our funds and since more than 75% of that goes to aid classrooms, staff, and student activities as well as funds for music and phys ed departments, who otherwise wouldn't have any, I can't see being able to give the school money and not knowing exactly what it is going to or why we can't fill in that gap without the funds going into someone else's hands. Forgive me for being negative, but the money all goes back to the school in some shape or form and I have had really bad experiences with our admin spending tons of money of stupid things that benefit few (like catered lunches for certain staff) while teachers were shelling out 100's of their own dollars and there never seemed to be money for field trips or to fix broken instruments. If you have a huge surplus of funds, I could understand doing this, but I would rather offer that money to teachers to spend on educational things for their students than to be put in some admin account where no one is really accountable for 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
Do any of you give a preset percentage of your profits to the school? Our Principal approached us with doing a 70%-30% split on all fundraising profits that include the school or students (something that would be excluded would like a fireworks stand). For example, if we earn $10000 on our fall cookie dough fundraiser then we keep $7000 and the school gets $3000. Legally this is okay and many of the elem. schools in our dist. are doing this. It would replace us gifting the school a lump some at the end of the school year. We still have to vote on this, but I was wondering if any of you in other parts of the country are doing something like this?
