Spending Guidelines

Purpose:

  East Side Elementary Foundation (the "Foundation") is a 501(c)3 organization that helps identify needs at East Side Elementary and raises money in order to provide solutions to those needs.

  The purpose of this document is to provide some general guidelines under which the Foundation Board of Directors (the "Board") will provide monetary grants to meet needs at the school.

Grant Identification/Requests:

  The Foundation has a Needs Assessment committee that will help identify and process potential grants for Board approval. In addition, a process has been established jointly with the PTA to handle grant requests from the teachers/administration/parents.

Grant Consideration - Timing of Approvals:

  The Board will consider grant approvals at its regularly scheduled meetings. If a request is of a time sensitive nature, an electronic approval method may be utilized.

Grant Guidelines:

  Grants will be awarded by the Foundation under the following guidelines:

• Grants should fall under one of the primary three focus areas established by the Board:
  • Curriculum
  • Technology
  • Facility improvements
• Grants should affect the greatest number of students at East Side. To the extent that projects are grade-specific, the Board will endeavor to maintain a balance in spending by spending similar amounts for different grade-specific uses.
• When considering grants, the Board should focus its attention on large-scale, large-dollar needs at the school that cannot be easily met by school or PTA funds.

  Exceptions to the above guidelines include:

• On an annual school-year basis, the Foundation will allocate a grant pool for individual classrooms (the "Classroom Grants"). The Classroom Grants will be:
  • Allocated on a per-class basis, with a goal to spend up to $150 per class. 
  • Limited to $8,000 in aggregate
  • Generally used for curriculum or material needs in individual classes but may be pooled on a grade-wide or multi-class basis if requested by the teachers
  • Primarily funded through the proceeds of the Teacher Auction offerings at the Fall Festival
• The Foundation will consider a limited amount of grant requests ("Image Grants") for items that improve the school’s image (such as landscaping or facility improvements without direct impact on children). These Image Grants will be:
  • Limited to $2,500 in aggregate
  • Primarily funded through the proceeds of the Target credit card program
• As set forth in the coordinated Needs Assessment Process, the Board will consider requests that have been first screened by the PTA but rejected (the “Other Grants”). These Other Grants, if not part of the two exception buckets above, should be limited to $2,500 in aggregate. Other Grants are likely to be in the area of staff development (conferences/training).

  Changes and additional exceptions to the above spending guidelines can be made by Board approval.

Coordinated Needs Assessment Process For East Side Elementary

Background:

  Both the PTA and Foundation currently have financial resources to address needs at East Side and are committed to streamlining the process for obtaining financial support for school administration and teachers.

Process:

Requests:

• Teachers and the administration will complete one standardized form if requesting financial support from either the PTA or Foundation   
• The completed form will be delivered to the Foundation Mailbox or Needs Assessment folder in the teacher’s mailroom. The PTA will be responsible for making a copy of the request form for both the Foundation and the school administration representative.

Screening:

• Note: It is hoped that the following screen process can be handled by e-mail and phone if necessary, alleviating the need for in-person meetings
• The school administration representative will assist the PTA and Foundation in evaluating requests to determine if county/school resources can be utilized to meet the request.
• The Needs Assessment chairperson for the Foundation and the Appropriations Committee Chairperson for the PTA will review the request and mutually agree to direct it to either the PTA or Foundation for formal review/approval.
• Assignment towards either the PTA or Foundation will be dictated by the size and type of the request, as well as the current financial resources available at either organization. Some preliminary guidelines on screening requests:

Approvals:

  Need requests will be considered on a scheduled basis according to the assigned respective organization. For the PTA, this will be at regularly scheduled Appropriations committee meetings and executive board meetings. For the Foundation, this will be at its regularly scheduled Board meetings.

  Either prior to or at the approval meetings, the respective organization may make additional information requests of the person(s) requesting the request to appropriately evaluate the request.

  Approvals will be granted or denied according to the criteria/guidelines of each respective organization.

Decision Communication:

  If approved, the approving body will be responsible for communicating to the requestor.

  If denied, the original considering organization will communicate its decision with the other organization and allow for the request to be evaluated by the second group. If denied by both groups, that decision should also be communicated back to the requestor by the second reviewing group. In the case of denial, the rationale for denial should be communicated.

  Both the PTA and Foundation will regularly share their information on approved items with each other.