School Board looks at policies involving PTOs

By Dave Fidlin

Correspondent

Waterford Graded school officials are in the process of reviewing district policies pertaining to school PTO organizations and associated activities.

At a recent Policy and Curriculum Committee meeting, officials discussed the revamped role PTO groups have within the district.

In years past, Waterford Graded had a joint PTO that served all four schools. This school year, a decision was reached to have an individual PTO serving each school.

The revised scenario means Waterford Graded has four PTO groups with separate budgets and parent leaders.

Despite the autonomy from one PTO to the next, building principals assert there are some shared visions for the groups, which traditionally provide activities and funding for programs that cannot be supported through the traditional budget.

One of the PTO groups’ missions this school year is to create a series of activity nights that are designed to provide children with safe opportunities to socialize and enjoy a variety of games in a supervised environment.

While PTO activities fall outside the course of the traditional school day, the School Board still has oversight of the groups since activities take place within district buildings and are, in essence, school sanctioned events.

Dan Jensen, president of the board, said he and his elected colleagues need to have a full understanding of the PTO groups’ budgets and planned activities.

“I don’t have a problem trying this out,” Jensen said of the four groups. “But if they’re in charge of something that’s taking place in the school, we have to know what it is.”

Jensen and other board members also expressed interest in having some form of bonding or guarantee in place with each PTO budget, ensuring that all of the stated funds were indeed in accounts.

“I think we have to have some kind of controls when it comes to that,” Jensen said.

While each school has its own leadership team in place for the individual PTOs, there is an overarching executive committee that steers the groups to ensure there is a shared vision.