I'm a governor at a school in a community where our parents can't afford to make donations or fundraise through a PTA, it's quite the opposite with a charity that the school works in partnership with having a food pantry, uniforms, laundrette etc.
We are in a deficit budget (which we've smashed down from where it was predicted to be), as are MANY other schools in our local authority, the vast majority in similar areas of deprivation. We do not receive enough money to provide the basic and essential staffing structure that we need due to the very high levels of ALN. We have many children with IDPs that require them to have 1:1 or other support like check ins, being met at the gate by an adult etc. We don't get enough money from the LA to pay for all the adults our children need to make them all feel safe and supported. The majority of the budget goes straight to salaries. We have sliced the amount spent on the building and on materials, we've cut back on trips and swimming and all sorts of other things that our children and our staff deserve to have, we've had to limit our breakfast club (which makes me so angry because we have so many children who really need it - they don't go hungry but they can't all attend and be better regulated before school starts - we get money from Welsh Gov for the breakfast club but it doesn't cover the full cost of the staff we need there (ratios for all ages, those with ALN who need 1:1 etc), the heat and electric, the good quality nutritious food etc).
I beg of you, get of mumsnet and talk to the school, ask to have a parent and governor meeting to look at the budget and talk about your financial concerns. Recently we offered an online meeting and an in-person coffee with the governors gathering to answer any questions, clear up any misunderstandings and to be really transparent about the budget and why we've had to make some really hard decisions that we've not wanted to make. We've avoided redundancies so far but haven't replaced staff who've left. That's not a sustainable strategy.
Management of the school is the same in terms of the people and expertise as it was pre Covid when we had plenty of money in the bank. What has changed is that the money we receive hasn't kept to the same scale as the wage bill, the utilities etc. And we have very high levels of children with ALN.
A child at our primary is worth around £4k per year, if that child needs 1:1 that's roughly how much comes into the school. An LSA earns more than £4k pa so you can do the maths. If that child has ALN and is awaiting a space at the local special school it's still £4k in our mainstream primary. When/if they get a space at that special school, they're worth approx £35k per year to that school.
There's something really off with funding formulas when you also start comparing primaries with highs - why are they worth more there? Some money's worked out depending on square footage so a new build sprawling high school gets more money than a tiny old falling apart Victorian primary with its dying boiler and leaking roof and much higher staffing needs.
There are fewer grants available and they're more competitive to secure. With the required cut backs on staff, we no longer have the same capacity for SLT to deliver training and other things that actually brought money into the school.
I could wang on and on about this. I've been trying to change things and challenge things and work at improving the system while also supporting a head whose stress levels and MH are at severe pressure from the aggressive bullying we've had from the LA. We've coordinated meetings with Chairs of Govs and Heads from across the LA, we've had cluster meetings with schools in the same situation as us, we've communicated with the Education minister at Welsh Gov, all the relevant people at the LA, Governor representative groups, unions. And I do all this voluntarily. Governors aren't paid.
The LA say they've supported us. They sent their finance officer to meet with our finance team and they couldn't find any savings, nor any mismanagement or overspend. They spent an outrageous amount on an expert to come in and help the schools in deficit. That expert was an expert in education not finance and our head is more expert in education that the "expert" they brought in e.g. the expert said they'd been consulted on some part of national curriculum while the head actually was part of writing it, piloting it etc. The expert's report was that the school is excellent, the teaching is high quality, the environment exemplary etc. Nothing about the money. We know what we're doing well but we can't continue to do it if we have to lose any more staff.
I know of a school in a similar situation which is going from 3 to 2 form entry, and other schools which will be merging year groups to lose staff. The LA will have a struggle on their hands finding future school places. I have a friend teaching in a school in a similar situation to ours who's escaped redundancy but has had to step down from SLT and go back into class at a lower level. She's literally award winning, she's excellent, but the budget dictates that she gets effectively demoted.
We can't ask our parents for donations because the majority of them have sweet FA spare at the end of the week. If you haven't got the money to give to your school, don't give it but do engage with the school and talk with them about what's happening. We've shared our school budget with our parents, we've taken their questions about it, we're being transparent. We have nothing to hide. We don't have enough money coming in to do what we should be doing.