Thankful for the Support

In preparation for the December 14th Community Conversation, I gathered information on the support of the PTO/A groups in our District.  I was astounded to learn this school year our PTO/A’s are raising and spending in our $220,000 this year!  Digging into the details reveals that of this amount over $44,000 of it supports field trips alone.  Another $43,000+ goes to direct teacher/student support.  This illustrates what many of us in this District already know – the parents in Saline are extremely supportive and generous towards Saline Area Schools.  There is even a group of parents in Saline who have organized to advocate for public education in Lansing!  Check out their blog here.

The above figures also represent previous areas of “silent cuts” that have already been made within the District and the PTO/A’s covered these cuts.  So today, eliminating field trips won’t save the district many additional funds, the financial support for those activities have already been shifted to the parents. The bottomline, our parents are already investing a great of resources into our classrooms.  The requests to the PTO/A for items that the school has traditionally provided are rising and with the recent reductions in State funding, they are likely to continue to rise.

In addition, many of our local businesses support the District and PTO/A’s in our combined effort to keep the quality programs and services.  I encourage you to shop locally at the businesses that support the numerous fundraisers, school events and programs.

As we move through the cuts to the current year budget and constructing of the 2010-2011 budget, as painful as it is and will be, it is made better by the strong support of our parents and local business supporters.