Hellobee Boards

So I am not sure how normal it is but I'm pretty involved in our PTA so I'll tell you how ours works. We have one paid event in the fall, it's a carnival and the kids pay but the price is pretty reasonable (I think $10 or $15 per elementary aged kid and that includes unlimited games, we get food trucks so that is additional). Other than that we have two book fairs/year that are fundraisers, a "penguin workshop" around the holidays, and also a "read a thon" where students can raise money per minute read if they CHOOSE to, they are still allowed to participate and are eligible for the same prizes, etc. There is no advantage to raising money and the most money raised doesn't get any kind of recognition. Oh and if you want to be an official member of the PTA you pay dues but if you want to join and aren't financially able the PTA will assist with that.

A part of the fall carnival is a silent teacher auction where the teachers auction off different things (teacher for a day, give the class the spelling test, decorate a teacher's door, etc). My husband totally balked at this because he thought it was very exclusionary. I will say though, the winners aren't announced in front of other students...some things went for $5 and some went for hundreds (insanity)...there are also a few "bigger ticket" items (principal for a day, ride to school in a fire truck) that every student gets raffle tickets for that are free so everyone can enter.

That auction aside, I do think our PTA does a good job of not nickel and dime-ing parents or doing anything really over the top. They don't do any kind of "buy this wrapping paper or weird candle" type of fundraiser either.

Oh and our district is mostly upper middle class. I am not sure the percentage of students on free/reduced lunches.

Regarding your PTA, I would be really put off by the winners of the teacher auction being announced at an assembly. I think that's really unnecessary and took the focus off of what it should have been about.

I'm the PTA treasurer for my daughter's school and ours is very similar demographically and what you're describing sounds gross to me as well. We actually don't do anything that requires people to pay for events, and instead do a couple fundraisers where people can donate as they wish so that we have general funds to support events and we hustle a lot to get as much as possible donated or underwritten by local businesses for those events. We have a membership fee ($10/person) to join the PTA, though our events are always open to everyone, regardless of membership, and we do a donation drive that's just open donations that typically generates around $5-10K, depending on the year, plus a book fair that brings in a few thousand dollars. We also did a Read-A-Thon last year that was very successful but all that money went to the library to buy new books. Our events include a fall festival, movie nights, afterschool programs (people pay the vendor to attend those), book fair (people pay for the books) and we've been thinking of adding a spring event but don't have one as yet. Kids/parents don't pay for access to any of that and we feel very very strongly that it should remain that way.

My son is in 1st grade so we are relatively new to the PTA thing, it is interesting to see the variety of responses.

There is a $6 fee to join our PTA but they also offer membership packages that include extras like school t-shirts and signs for an additional donation. The PTA funds a winter party for each classroom and teacher appreciation efforts throughout the school year as well as other small school improvement projects.

Most school events are free to attend but they did charge a small fee for a family movie night in the fall and are having a spring carnival that requires you to purchase a wrist band to participate in the games.

There is a separate school Foundation that raises money to fund the STEM program (primarily the teacher's salary). They do one big fundraiser which is a field day type event that all of the kids can participate in regardless of money raised. However, they do have a reward system and deliver prizes to students in the classroom based on donations collected. The prizes are small items (keychains, rubber bracelets) but I know the kids are paying attention to what their classmates receive.