To be angry head treats PTA as piggybank for her pet projects

[Frazzledredhead]

Reading other threads about PTA/FOS thought I'd throw this one out there as its been a longtime chip on my shoulder.
When DS1 started school I went to PTA meetings and got involved. The level of fundraising and effort is admirable and generally friendly not a press ganged approach. Got to accounts and discovered a five figure sum had been handed over to fund a project for the school on enhancing the school paths/entry. There wasn't much wrong with the old ones but to give such a huge sum with no questioning shocked me! How much pocket money paid over at stalls and fayres just went. A few yrs later and again PTA with no backbone agrees to a similar request! Aibu?

But surely all funds raised are to benefit the school? Why should the Head go cap in hand to the PTA every time they need funds for "pet projects?" (Don't agree with this insulting term AT ALL).

Who on the PTA do you believe should judge whether or not the Head should have access to funds and for what particular reason? It's too open to exploitation. The Head is HEAD of the school and surely s/he and the governors have the right to decide where school funds are allocated.

Doesn't sound like you've got a very good idea of the way things work. Our PTA funds went on new fencing - not very thrilling, but our OFSTED report specificed low fencing being a safety concern, hence it needed doing.

I am assuming the Head did not just take the money and that it was given by the PTA. The Head can spend the given money anyway she chooses!

Our seconadary school PTA donate money every couple of months to the school, ie if the bank balance is £1200, £1000 is given to the Head who then tells us what it was/is going to be spent on.

Our primary PTA secretary is very reluctant to give any money to the Head - we are sitting on a balance of £1500++ with no outgoings until Christmas.

I feel money should be given to the school to spend in any way they see fit - as long as the children benefit, does it matter??

I was Chair of the PTA at my children's school and when I was voted in I found we were sitting on £18,000 which nobody had touched because they couldn't agree on what to spend it on. We passed it to him to spend on making the playground a better place.

In the end, it's the Head Teacher's vision that drives the school. If you don't agree with the vision, don't send your children to the school.

But wouldn't £19,000 be better spent on books, ICT, special needs equipment, etc than paving stones that look marginally better than the old ones?

It wasn't spent on paving stones!

In the end, he wanted the playground sorting out and the council wouldn't fund it. They had plenty of books and at that point (years ago) they had a computer suite and didn't want another. They were unusual having such a good one.

The way I looked at it was that that money had stayed in the account for years and years because the PTA didn't know what to do with it. We couldn't make a decision to spend it on whatever, because it wasn't 'our' school. We asked whether some should go for children who couldn't afford school trips etc and were told that was dealt with with other money.

In the end it's the head's school (and governors' of course.) The playground did need sorting out and we paid for that.

He spent it on goals for football, a few basketball hoops, hopscotch painting and similar, soft landings (rubber) in some places, benches etc. There was also a small treelined area that some money went towards for a memorial for a teacher and parents/children who had died. I think we did pretty well, really.

I think the OP means the paths at her DC's school

In our PTA we consider (small school) that the head knows where the much appreciated funds can be best apportioned. This year it's smart boards, last year it was other ICT, prior to that active literacy stuff. Its always to enhance learning for every pupil in the school however if there was a specific need (there is another thread about PTA funds being spent on roof repairs) then that's where the money would go. Well of schools raising £19k in a year!

In our school the PTA raises the money and the Head spends it on planned (by Head and Governors) improvements and budget headings. Sometimes the PTA make a specific gesture like paying for crackers for the chrismas lunch, or giving each child a Jubilee coin.

Strategically schools find it much easier to get certain costs from other sources than others and use PTA funds for things they can't get other money for.

At our school the teachers come up with ideas and the PTA decide whether to fund the cost or not. This term we have bought diamond jubilee coins for every child and paid for a 2 day dance workshop focussing on the olympics that has supported their learning.

We've previously paid for an outside tap and for the environment area to be tidied up. They ask and we say yay or nay. As far as I am concerned, and I am chair, it's our money and we decide what it is to be spent on but the school have the ideas and the knowledge.

Our PTA raise around 10k a year to go towards school projects. This year we are funding an amphitheatre for our Forest Schools program, Last year we bought the school a minibus (we fund insurance/tax/training too) Our head comes to every PTA meeting, he tells us what he/the staff would like, and we vote on what to spend the money on. We would never give a lump sum with no idea what it was going to be spent on!

We hadn't raised it in a year - the previous committees had sat on it for several years. It also meant there was no real impetus to raise any more.

It was a nice moment going to the Head and telling him how much we had!

Bigredindia - yes I did mean our schools path- it wasn't a dig at Imperial!

Things have improved and spoke to current PTA chair tonight and there is more structure now - I think an issue in the past was the past PTA chair being too "cosy" with the head. Thanks for your input though on how your PTA runs things - it does help