School to broke for fieldtrips but can treat teachers all to a spa treatment? (complain, class)
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I live in Troy and my Daughter attends a elementary school here. Every since a tax increase for the schools was voted down the school has done nothing but complain and whine that they need more $. Even though they have received $ every year thus far by a new tax increase yearly. Our district has more than enough $ to get the job done. Cut out all the extra and focus on what it is we need the public education system for. To educate, not entertain, our children. On top of it all they bombarded us with fundraisers. As soon as one was finished we received another. That $ was suppose to go to our children's field trips for the year. Instead they sent home a memo to the parents informing them that there will be no field trips this year due to the fact of funding but yet they treated every teacher in the school to a day spa treatment. Compliments of the PTO slash our fund raising money. What kind of backwards thinking is that? Boy, how our school districts have fallen off the track. It is truely sad.
Isn't this a PTO issue, not a school district one? Very poor decision, IMHO. One of the reasons I got involved in the PTA when my kids were in elementary school was so I could have a say in the fundraisers. In our area, the PTA budget has nothing to do with the individual schools or school district budget.
I live in Troy and my Daughter attends a elementary school here. Every since a tax increase for the schools was voted down the school has done nothing but complain and whine that they need more $. Even though they have received $ every year thus far by a new tax increase yearly. Our district has more than enough $ to get the job done. Cut out all the extra and focus on what it is we need the public education system for. To educate, not entertain, our children. On top of it all they bombarded us with fundraisers. As soon as one was finished we received another. That $ was suppose to go to our children's field trips for the year. Instead they sent home a memo to the parents informing them that there will be no field trips this year due to the fact of funding but yet they treated every teacher in the school to a day spa treatment. Compliments of the PTO slash our fund raising money. What kind of backwards thinking is that? Boy, how our school districts have fallen off the track. It is truely sad.
Not a good poltical move by the school and the PTO in this economic climate. Has your state or local district had any public sector layoffs?
My advice would be to get to the meetings and voice your concerns. Our PTO meetings are almost entirely comprised of discussing how much money we have, what we are going to do for the school with it (dance, end of yr bbq, movie nights, etc...) and what we are going to do to raise more money.
I am pretty sure that is where the decision was made to treat the teachers to the spa day. We do things for the teachers for teacher appreciation week, like bringing them in breakfast or lunch, but it is only one of the many things we do with the fundraising money.
I agree. It doesn't sound like the school is at all at fault; the movers and shakers at the PTO made the decision to spend the money, and probably gave it to the school as restricted money for that purpose. I don't work for a school district and don't know the ins and outs of PTO funding, but when my nonprofit gets a grant for a specific purpose we don't have a choice as to how to use it. Believe me, there's a lot of times we'd rather use it to pay for boring but essential things like the electricity bill, but funders like to give projects. Maybe someone on the PTO had a connection and was able to find someone to donate the spa treatment free of charge.
In short, don't get mad at the school or district about this. Talk to the PTO about your concerns, and in the meantime try to look at the positive: you have a bunch of happy, relaxed teachers, and happy and appreciated teachers are good for the kids (which was probably what the PTO was thinking, too.).
In general, I get so annoyed with all those teacher appreciation days, etc. It puts undue pressure on families who might be facing financial strains. You can talk all you want about how much the teachers do for the class, etc, but if you have multiple kids with multiple teachers it becomes a financial burden just to send token presents.
Just this week they are pushing Teacher Appreciation Week, hey, school just started! Its already a financial hardship for many, including us, just to get our kids ready with the basics for school supplies, clothes, etc, then we're somehow expected to come up with gifts.With 2 kids and 7 teachers each, that's 14 gifts, hey---that's a bit much, especially right now.
They're expecting gifts from parents who might not even have jobs, let alone spend what little they have on gifts for those who at least have a job. I gave up on gifts, period, for teachers, it just got out of hand. The idea of a handmade gift is too much, too, craft supplies, etc, I'm busy trying to supply my kids for school not provide gifts for teachers.
For teacher appreciation week at our school, they put a drop box for parents and students to drop notes to their teachers. I think that a personal note of thanks is just as appreciated, perhaps more appreciated, than a trinket. Just an idea if you are sick of gifting for everything - I know it gets really old. My checkbook has been hemorrhaging the past month between supplies, re-registration for scouts, sports fees, band, and scholastic book orders. I could not buy a bunch of gifts as well on top of all of that.
The official Teacher's Appreciation Week, as established by NEA and the National PTA in 1985, is the first week of May, with Tuesday of that week being the official Teacher's Appreciation Day.
I'm not sure why a school would be trying to move it to the beginning of the school year...odd.
Having said that, in a school where a child has multiple teachers, they don't particularly expect to get gifts at all, nor do they expect to get something from every single child. Even those who only have one group of kids don't expect it.
As far as the field trips, fundraising and spa trips, as a parent you need to join the PTA/PTO so you can participate in the allocation of funds. PTO's are not bound by the same rules PTA's are, so that may be the actual issue here.
All PTA's are non profit corporations and must abide by specific rules, one of which is all money spent must be voted on and approved by the entire PTA membership. If it was voted on to be spent on field trips yet was changed for teacher appreciation, that had to be voted on and approved as well...in a PTA organization anyway. In a PTO it will depend on the by laws they have set forth.
Either way, you must get involved in order to know where the problem is, if there is one. It might simply be that the money recently raised was supposed to be for field trips and there wasn't enough raised to meet the need. Also the money used for the spa may have been money from membership dues that had previously been allocated for exactly that use.
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