4/16-4/20 Weekly Update

There were some statements expressed at the PTO meeting on Tuesday afternoon that I feel I need to provide context for the benefit of everyone.

Working with a PTO versus other forms of parent organizations has been a new process for me and I am thoroughly impressed with this group of dedicated parents.  

We have a system in place that supports organized, responsible spending on classrooms for teachers.

There seems to be some perception that I am blocking or gate-keeping PTO funds.  To address this perception I need to provide some history as I understand it;

Request Process

When I started this position, I was told all teacher’s requests to PTO for funding were to be in writing and go through me first.  Requests were then presented at the next PTO Board meeting and voted on. (This was not my process, and this was not intended as an approval process.)  Since that time the process evolved to allow for requests to be submitted via email to the PTO president ([email protected]).

Once the request is received, the past president and current president have always kept me in the loop.  It’s not a requirement, but it is the norm for most any parent-school organization to run requests through the principal.  This is done for a few reasons;

• Avoid redundancy.
• Avoid violations of school/district policies.
• Opportunity to check if more appropriate school/district funds should cover the request.

Since July of 2015, not a single request from a teacher has been denied by the PTO.  In fact, I encouraged several requests outside of individual teacher accounts, such as field trips for grade levels.  

FYI – I have met with several donors over the past few years.  When we meet each donor is interested to know that we have a process in place for distributing funds that follows a mission and has purpose.  This is important and expected to the people providing the funding.

PTO Budget, Line Items & Student Body Accounts

The PTO Budget is developed in 3 Tiers, the first tier being the highest priority.  The PTO budget is drafted first by PTO Treasurer, PTO President and Principal. It then goes to the PTO board for review and input.  The annual budget is passed by a vote at the first general meeting each year and has been for over a decade. It’s available in hard copy at all meetings.  To the best of my knowledge, this process was in place long before I came.

Line items on the budget allow for quick approval.  For example, release time for Storyline planning is specifically called out in the budget and does not need to go the board for any discussion.  You ask, I say “yes”, and Shawna ensures sub coverage is covered by PTO funds.

The Student Body Account is where we hold specific funds that the PTO releases to us at the start of school year.  These individual accounts hold both your classroom materials funds and your storyline funds. Since it can sometimes take a few months to reach the giving campaign goal these funds are typically released in installments.  Questions regarding this account go to Shawna or me, not PTO.  I encourage you to spend this account down to 0 or as close as possible each year to cover all classroom materials and storyline needs.  This account is under different constraints and we are limited on what we can roll over from year to year (about 10%).

This year the minimum starting balance for many of you was $1374.67.  (I would be hesitant to compare this number to other schools in Bend, but I think it’s safe to say it is far more than twice the average.)

1. Only 3 of you spent your entire balance last year.  Based on previous years budgets this appears to be fairly typical.
2. Right now we have over $8,000 combined still sitting in your individual accounts.  Balances range from $20 to $1220. If you are closer to the the 20 and need to make purchases, please see and let me help.  If you are closer to the 1220 please be sure to submit receipts to Shawna; I don’t want you to spend your own money.
3. In looking through past budgets, I have not noticed any past practice of separating out regular storyline funds and all school storyline funds for the individual teacher accounts.  I also have not noticed an increase to these individual accounts due to the all school storyline.

One specific line item, “All School Storyline”, in the PTO budget seems to have been a source of confusion based on what was expressed in the meeting.   Here is what I know about this topic;

1. 1. 1. When developing the budget for the current year, we review previous years budgets and make adjustments to each line item as we see necessary.
      2. This particular line item was not very large on the National Parks Storyline year, so I suggested we increase it knowing we were doing a new storyline and there might more expenses involved, for example spheros or similar purchases.
      3. I did not access this line item myself during the National Parks SL.  From what I remember PTO used this line item to cover costs of things like the backpack/satchels bought for all the students.  Prior to my arrival it is my understanding it was initially created and intended to be used by PTO to make purchases for the All School Storyline Committee.
      4. Since we did the initial budget last summer I had pretty much forgotten about this line item until the first week of December when a PTO board member sent an email to all PTO board members saying all the teachers were requesting $200 because they were out of money.  A staff member also sent me a similar message that same week. At that time most all teachers had a balance over $1000 in their individual accounts and I believe nobody was under $500. The numbers I could see did not match the claim and it did not seem accurate that “all our teachers needed more money”.
      5. Since the All School Storyline line item appeared to be unused, I suggested then that we use it to fund any requests related to appropriate items for teachers and Shawna would be able to make those adjustments as necessary.  Again, I don’t think this was how it was intended to be used in the past, but it provided some flexibility and essentially increased funds available for each of you. I also informed the PTO that we did not have any teachers anywhere close to a negative balance and it was in our best interest to spend these accounts down before requesting more from the PTO since our school budgets have a limited roll-over.  I did my best to explain this in an SIW and on a few other occasions, but it would appear that I did not explain it very well or very thoroughly based on the limited re-tell on Tuesday afternoon.

Most all my actions and suggestions with the PTO were intended to streamline things and minimize any of my own “oversight”.  I’ve worked with them to try to create line items in the budget that are appropriate to the year so we can reduce the need to make vote-required request to the board.  Although I am technically a voting member of the PTO board I want them to operate as a separate entity as much as they feel is necessary.

Learning from this past experience, moving forward with new budget maybe we can add a sub line item to the all school storyline allocating all school classroom funds.

Meeting Schedules and Times

1. 1. To date, I have not given any input on meeting times.  I simply accept the meeting schedule presented and I make the majority of the general meetings and many of the board meetings.
   2. When I started I was told approximately half the meetings occurred in the evening after school and half during school.  The attendance for the after school meetings was consistently low, so at some point the PTO moved to more morning meetings with just two evening meetings.  (Prior to Tuesday, the attendance of the evening meetings consisted of a board members and one or two other parents.)
   3. I have offered to cover or get coverage for teachers if they would like to attend a meeting on several occasions over the past few years.  
   4. I do think it would be good to involve teachers in the general meetings however I am concerned about asking for the meeting schedule to change back to afterschool for a few reasons;
      1. If attendance for both parents and staff was historically low in prior years, why would we return to that model?
      2. As you saw, many of the board members were unable to make the after school meeting and the ones who were there, had limited time and children to transport to different activities.
      3. I also question the effectiveness of rotating teachers in and out of different meetings.  PTO meetings are agenda-driven work meetings and ideally there is continuity in attendance for both board members and general members.  These are not open-forum socials. They are intend to be work meetings with purpose. Rotating different teachers in for each meeting challenges that continuity and dilutes the purpose of the meeting. Maybe having 1-2 teachers who commit to the year would be a better idea?  There are other ways to provide opportunities for people to meet and still preserve a productive meeting structure.