The PTO dilemma
Thursday, December 18, 2014 at 05:39AM
No man ought to looke a geuen hors in the mouth. —John Heywood, 1546.
Our school district is blessed with active, involved parent/teacher organizations. These groups of dedicated parents raise funds and then use those funds to supplement district-purchased resources. And trust me, we as educators are grateful.
The problem comes when there is also a district goal to create equity among buildings, especially in regard to technology access. Disparities arise when different PTOs have differing abilities and desires to raise funds and when they have different priorities for how those funds are spent. Some buildings become quite technology-rich with the help of their parent organizations, while other buildings get by on what the district and building budget can provide.
Too often people view resources acquired through means other than district funds (grants, foundation gifts, PTO donation, fund raisers) as "nice extras" not as essential. If educational technology is viewed only as a "nice extra," I suspect many teachers and administrators will not regard it as a serious educational tool. If we genuinely believe technology can help students learn, why would we provide technology to some students, but not to all?
So when PTOs offer to purchase technology for a building, how should we respond? Are there some tech purchases that can be made but allow us to still maintain equity of access for all kids across the district? What if...
- All PTOs contribute to a single district-wide project or resource. Were all PTOs across a district to put their funds into a single pot which then could be used for district-wide purchases, equity would be increased. Let the PTO support e-book collections that are accessible to all kids. Let them contribute to an initiative that puts more student devices in all classrooms. Let them fund equipment for maker-spaces in all libraries. (In my experience, PTOs are not likely to accept this kind of plan.)
- PTOs fund technologies that the district is planning to purchase in the near future. If the district is planning to put voice amplification systems in all classrooms over a period of years, PTOs could contribute to doing this in individual buildings so kids get the benefit of the technology early. Possible, but not likely.
- PTOs fund staff grants for innovative uses of technology. I have a teacher who wants $600 to use Mindcraft stuff to investigate collaboration. Cool project, but there is no pot of district money to support such a project. What if PTOs were to fund well-articulated grants that had stated goals, metrics for measuring success, and means of diseminating the lessons learned from the funded projects. I think I like this one best.
Often times parents have a greater faith in the power of technology to help educate than do educators themselves so they encourage the use of PTO donations to acquire it. It's happened for the past 25 years in my experience and I doubt it will go away soon.
How do you handle PTO offers of technology purchases in ways that maintain equity of access?
Reader Comments (3)
I wonder if this is similar to the idea of equal funding for sports - taking all the money budgeted for athletics and dividing it equally among each team.As a swim and water polo coach I can see huge benefits from having a bit more money, but I also realize that some sports really do need more finances (a set of football pads and helmet cost much more than a swim suit and towel).
It has been tough to see the football, basketball and baseball teams travel in charter buses while I usually ended up driving a school van to the meets - or even asking parents to help drive. I often wonder what the phone call would sound like as the head football coach must call parents to ask them to drive a group of players to the next away game...
It is important to front load this discussion at the Board level. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does instructional technology policy. Parents just want what is good for their kids, and they want to see that goodness applied where their kids do their learning. In the absence of an articulated vision of what needs to be happening at every school site in a district, narrow site-level (or even program or classroom-level) technology practices will develop. It's a very tribal impulse we parents bring to our kids' educations.
What school boards (and their hired officers) can do is expand the vision of who exactly "our kids" really are. It's a question of messaging, so the case needs to be made for an enhanced and visionary base-level of technology at every school site. Policy developers need to identify the preferred level of implementation (in professional development, best practices, and gear) likely to occur at the more privileged school sites, then make very public and moral-high-ground pronouncements to the effect that "We are joining with our community partners to ensure that all students of X Unified School District benefit from 21st Century learning tools we know are critical for America's future," or some such thing. Then, rather than starting the conversation with individual site PTAs, the superintendent or board president begins the fund raising discussion with district-wide parent advisory councils, local foundations and service clubs, etc., to fund a broader effort, later inviting site PTAs to contribute to a broad-based fund. At that point, district policy can preclude narrowly cast tech expenditures that would interfere with a district technology plan.
Hi Kenn,
I've not worked in the school sports environment much, so I don't know how funding works. I am guessing the more popular sports would both require more funding and be able to raise more revenue?
I would suggest that sports are an optional (if important) part of most schools whereas technology should be available to all students.
Doug
Hi Bill,
I agree with you whole-heartedly. But unless this district-level ground work has been done, one has to deal at a site level. Being new to my district, I am wondering if we even have a district-wide parent advisory council? I appreciate the ideas!
Doug