As stated in the last article each school has their own account which is where the donated funds and general funds budgeted dollars from the school district go. How these accounts are handled, spent and planned for is somewhat a mystery to us.

To the best of our knowledge this is how it works:

• Principals Establish a Fundraising goal.
• Fundraising events occur.
• School Budget figures are announced and general fund money is distributed.
  

An Upside Down Process

How do Principals know how much fundraising money is needed if they don’t know how much the district is going to give them? It would seem that the budgeting process for the school accounts is upside down. The principals are determining how much money they are going to spend and how much they have to raise before knowing how much money the school system will be providing. There is just something wrong with that.

Where Does the Money Go?

Each teacher gets some money to pay for teacher supplies for their classrooms. Generally this accounts for about $15,000-$20,000. Where does the rest of it go? We don’t know since the Principals do not list out what their expected expenditures are going to be. The money does not go to pay for books as we have been led to believe at times. Shouldn’t the patrons have some idea where the money they are donating is going? These are the same accounts that were used to buy a big screen TV, paid for murals painted on walls, purchased leather couches, purchased blinds, hired interior decorators, and so on.

Who is Watching Over These Accounts?

After expenditures are made, the Superintendent reviews them. Once the Superintendent approves gives her approval, they are passed on for board approval. Only line items over $5000 are separated out of the monthly budgets and brought to the board attention. Anything under that need not go through this process. That is why there have been so many questionable purchases that were never questioned. Apparently the Superintendent didn’t see the need to inform the board of such questionable purchases under $5000.

Let’s examine the numbers a little closer:

The above numbers only include this year's walkathons and do not include other sources of revenue such as boxtops for education, Target shopping, PTO’s, and other avenues. Add in the revenue from those sources and you will find the DCES has received more than the $50,000 they asked for in the beginning of the year. As for PV we think the principal’s lack of fiscal responsibility has finally caught up to her.

This leads us back to fundraising. The School Board has approved one fundraiser for each school this year. Each elementary school has had their fundraiser which was the walkathon. But that hasn’t stopped school board member Jan Larson from encouraging the PTO’s to do more fundraising. This confuses us. If the schools need more funds why didn’t the school board allow for more fundraiser for the schools? If the schools are in desperate need of more funds why did Jan Larson vote to approve the budget? Or do the schools have all the money they need to properly educate are children? We couldn’t imagine that the board would approve a budget by a vote of 5-0 if the money in the budget wasn’t distributed properly to educate are children.

The PTO’s

Since the perception is PV hasn’t received their targeted fundraising goal, the PV PTO feels they have to do more fundraising. Let the games begin. Initially PV PTO was going to hold an auction to raise more money. The Executive PTO stood their ground and voted no to PV PTO’s request. The reason was it wouldn’t be fair to allow one school to have more fund raising events than the other schools. So what happens next? You guessed it, taking Jan Larson's advice in account, the Executive PTO voted to allow every school to have one more fundraising event each. Then they approved PV PTO’s request to have an auction.

For the record Superintendent Wilkinson stood with the board's decision and voted against allowing the PTO’s to have another fundraiser. Kudos to her for being consistent with the school board policy and looking out for the patrons of the district. You would think that an organization that is supposed to provide support to the district would follow the district wishes. But I guess the PTO’s know what is best for the district better than the Superintendent of the district. Or was it that the the board member, Jan Larson, who attends the PTO meetings was not giving out clear or accurate advice? But then again, it was the RU and the RU PTO that started this by going out on their own to do a calendar instead of support the school district and cooperating with the cheer leaders who have for years been putting out the district calendar.

As a whole the PTO presidents work hard to do the right thing. Still some seem to wander from the straight and narrow. While we support most of the PTO presidents in their sterling support for the schools, it is hard to back those who try to find loop holes so as to "beat the system". One such PTO president called us “…sickening and immoral…” and also said that we were creating a “… parent vs administration society…”. Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. How do they justify going against the administration policies by taking money away from another organization's established fundraising activity and finding loop holes?

Conclusion

It seems they feel that we at the DCSpost.com shouldn’t care about the entire district, but should only care about what is best for us our family. Thanks for the advice but I think we will continue to care about the Entire District and what is best for everyone's children. It makes it easier to look at ourselves in the mirror each morning.

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