I stumbled upon this today - I cannot imagine any public school PTO having this type of tiered membership. Outrageous in my opinion. Anybody every have a PTO with this membership structure?
Itâs a common fund raising technique used by many organizations if not usually by PTO. It only buys early access to buy a ticket to a special fund raising event (which it appears most in that tier refused the offer.) Only 26 tickets of 300 were bought in this way. Iâm sure there is more to complain about the PTO than this.
2 Likes
There was a disparity between the wealthier families and less wealthy at the silent auction our PTO did. The wealthier families were bidding $1000 for some of the favored prizes. Letâs just sayâŠit didnât encourage the less wealthy kids and families to even come to the event.
I lobbied heavily for a kids only auction with some very good prizes (things like the favorite teacher reading a bedtime story, a week at a summer camp, new bicycles), and insisted that every student in the school be given 5 free tickets. Because every student regardless of wealth needed to feel they had the chance to win. The PTO board agreed! It was a huge hit with all of the families!
20 Likes
Our PTO (BTW we were a PTO which meant unaffiliated with the national PTA), typically did tricky tray events instead of silent auctions. This way, everybody felt they had a chance to win. Usually family events where the kids also participated.
1 Like
Our PTO was so cliquish I couldnât stand it. Never had anything to do with them.
2 Likes
My school district is NOT one that would have a tiered system. Itâs way too diverse and there are too few wealthy parents (and those parents arenât typically involved in PTO). My kids went to private school in later years, and there was nothing like that in the parent group there, either. However, like so much in life, the connected folks sometimes reaped benefits other parents didnât. For example, H & I bid on a trip at a silent auction, and we were the high bid when the auction closed. A certain parent came by after close and over-bid us. The auction committee let it happen, so we just shut our mouths and let it ride. I had already learned that this parent was special when my kid got in trouble for wearing a pair of shoes that his kid was allowed to wear even after I pointed it out to the principal. It was kind of the way things were there, but those who donated got benefits. In public school, though, no way would I accept that as okay.
What is a tricky tray event? Never heard of it.
2 Likes
Thatâs not âreaping a benefitâ --itâs cheating. And a good way to undermine the integrity of any auction they later hold if it was well known.
3 Likes
Our schools and organizations have tons of tricky trays, simple ones at the parks and rec building to fancy banquet halls, and they sell out. People and business donate prizes starting at around $25 up to $1000+, you put tickets in the buckets you are interested in, full cocktail hour/dinner/cash bar, and numbers are called. Lots of tables are just woman although there is usually that one dad table. Someone has to volunteer to store all of the prizes for up to a year. I donât think Iâve ever paid for behind the wheel for my kids, I always put in a lot of tickets in that basket because most didnât. They were called Chinese auctions back when I was in school.
At my school, vacations and teachers coming to read bedtime stories were the BIG draws.
Parents who didnât win very often would ask the donors if they would do a second of the same prize for the same as the highest bidder. I was glad when the PTO put a stop to thatâŠin their publicity. It really put the donors on the spot.
3 Likes
Oh! We did that yearly for our community organization but I forget our name for it. Easiest fundraiser ever. And a lot of fun! EVERYONE bought tickets if only for âa chanceâ.
1 Like
Not only put a donor on the spot but another way to undermine the auction integrity. Why increase bids if you know you can get it later? No wonder they didnât win oftenâthey were gaming the system.
As a donor Iâd probably tell them ânopeâif you wanted it then you shouldâve bid higherâ.
Iâm not a big gambler, but one year my job was to walk around selling tickets (with balloons attached to me) and I ended up spending SO much money on tickets because I wanted to win stuff (I never really won). Itâs nice because besides the ticket for the dinner and initial tickets, you donât need to spend anymore if you choose not to. Plus, it becomes interesting the more people drink.
Sure - but THIS should not be one of them. Ever.
In a public school there is no justification to explicitly enact a cast system!
And any PTO that organizes a parent/child event too small to accommodate everyone, is beyond my comprehension.
The reason why the âEAâ round was necessary in the first place, because they created an event that was designed from the outset to exclude those who couldnât afford tickets (or at least couldnât justify the luxury, in light of more pressing household expenses).
At our school/district, the school administration would have stepped in immediately to correct this.
3 Likes
The donors just simply said no. I think one year they might have said yes.
One thing that happenedâŠa group of us teachers were bidding on a vacation house. A pretty large group. We lost out to a big spender parent. WellâŠthe owner of the vacation house spoke to her kidâs teacher (who was in the group) and offered us a free week! Of course we made a donation to the PTO, but not nearly as much as the winner ended up bidding. And we got a primo weekâŠactually ended up being almost 2 weeks.
6 Likes
I agree but I think the challenge is the dual-nature of events the PTO organizes.
They organize fund raisers.
They organize events for students/families.
Sometimes they make an event that tries to do both, and I think that can be a challenge.
I donât think anyone gets upset that some families canât afford butter braids or tubs of cookie dough. But that is because those are pretty explicitly fundraisers. But if you hold a kids Halloween party/dance and the tickets are $20 each? That feels like you are trying to exclude the less able to pay.
6 Likes
Iâd normally agree but in this case the population sounds fairly homogenous as to ability to pay. And I donât think it was billed as a kids event. At least âZiti with your Sweetieâ doesnât sound like one to me. Sounds like they underestimated the popularity of the eventâor maybe not.
This wasnât the âHalloween kidâs Fairâ or âSchool Field Dayâ. In those cases (at least in my experience) the tickets would be sold at school directly to students.
Okay, maybe that is the case. Our school does a âSweetheart Dinner & Danceâ that is geared to parent & child (like Daddy-Daughter dances but gender neutral).
Our sweetheart dance was actually sponsored by the scouts. It turned into a mini promâŠwith some families renting limousines. Corsages were originally provided by the organizers, but then that sort of became a contest too.
Girls got their hair and nails done. Iâm not kidding.
Letâs just sayâŠour lower income kids didnât feel they fit in.
And the tickets werenât cheap either.
Definitely a time I need the 
emojisâŠ
1 Like