PTA chapters worth the cost, supporters say
Posted on Monday, September 3, 2007
Charles Warren wasn’t surprised when a Bentonville mother was arrested Aug. 27 in connection with money stolen from her parent-teacher group’s bank account.
Warren, treasurer for Arkansas PTA, said theft is a risk every parent-teacher group runs by operating independently of his association.
“This is a sad way to show it,” Warren said. “But you get what you pay for.” PTA leaders in Arkansas said the felony theft arrest of Heather Jennings, former treasurer of the Sugar Creek Elementary School Parent-Teacher Organization, is a symptom of soft financial oversight among parent-teacher groups that aren’t part of the 110-year-old PTA.
Sugar Creek wouldn’t be in its predicament if it were a dues-paying member of the Arkansas PTA, said Ginny Kurrus, president of the state association.
PTA policies require checks having multiple signatures and completed annual audits. Some PTA groups double-check the treasurer’s reports with scanned images of deposited checks.
Local PTA units also have the state office as a line of defense to make sure these protections are in place. Sugar Creek would have had a way to recoup some of its money if it was with the PTA, Kurrus said.
Every Arkansas PTA member must insure itself against theft for up to $ 10, 000. The policy costs about $ 60 a year if bought through the state association.
Sugar Creek had no insurance, like many independent parent-teacher groups in Arkansas.
“They can do all these things we ask our units to do on their own. But who is reminding them ? Who is asking them about it ?” Kurrus said. “Things tend to fall by the wayside if nobody is enforcing it.” Supporters of independent parent-teacher groups said PTA isn’t worth the money it charges its local units. Plus, the organization is too political, they said.
And Travis Riggs, accountant for all the independent parent-teacher groups in Bentonville and a member of the Bentonville School Board, said there’s no guarantee that PTA membership would have prevented the theft.
“I’m not trying to justify what happened, but let’s keep it real,” he said. “There are inherent risks in being a small charity. You try your best to minimize it, but you can’t stop it.” MISTAKE WAS TRUST Indeed, thefts from parentteacher groups aren’t unusual. Tim Sullivan, founder of PTO Today magazine, said the common theme is a combination of opportunity and personal financial crisis. Investigators said Jennings told them that her husband lost his job and she took the money to keep her family from “starving.” “Since Adam and Eve, people have had temptations,” Sullivan said. “And the fact that a lot of parent groups aren’t run in a hugely businesslike fashion means the temptation is greater because the opportunity is there.” Police accuse Jennings of stealing $ 23, 129 from the Sugar Creek PTO account. Police said she wrote unauthorized checks to herself, to cash, to her husband and to businesses such as Radio Shack and Home Depot.
Leaders of the Bentonville Parent-Teacher Organization said Jennings presented false financial statements at meetings and misstated the group’s policy to require multiple signatures on each check.
Jennings also didn’t complete a required audit, they said.
Christina Rodriguez, president of the Sugar Creek PTO last year, said Jennings was the last person she would have suspected of stealing the money.
“She was at the school all the time, she was very generous, very hardworking — she could always be counted on when volunteers were needed,” Rodriguez said.
“If someone forced me to guess who would do something like this, it would definitely never be her.” Rodriguez said members of her group did everything they could to protect themselves against the theft. They counted money after fundraisers. They studied the treasurer’s reports that Jennings gave at meetings. They created a committee to help Jennings do the annual audit.
The only mistake they made was trusting Jennings, she said.
“For all these years at Sugar Creek, this was how it was done,” Rodriguez said. “You just trust the fact that these people are here for the same reasons as you and unfortunately, in this situation, that turned out not to be the case.” LOSING MEMBERSHIP Even though PTA officials present their organization as being more secure against theft than the independents, PTA membership has eroded in the past few decades. State officials put membership at about 60, 000 in 2001. It’s closer to 40, 000 today, Kurrus said. Only 186 of more than 1, 000 schools in Arkansas have a PTA this year, according to the state association. National PTA puts its membership at about 5. 5 million, down from a peak of 12 million in the 1960 s. The Northwest Arkansas school districts with PTA units are Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Harrison, Ozark Mountain, Rogers, Springdale and Van Buren.
Arkansas PTA also has a large presence in the Little Rock, Pulaski County and Russellville school districts along with a handful of rural districts across the state.
PTA officials nationwide attribute their losses to myriad reasons. The organization lost millions of southern members when PTA combined previously separate organizations for black and white parents.
Millions more left the group when more women started entering the work force in greater numbers.
Sullivan estimates there are twice as many independent parent-teacher groups as there are PTAs nationally. Parents don’t believe they are getting enough services for the annual dues they pay, he said. Many of them believe they can run parent-teacher groups themselves, thanks in part to the availability of more information over the Internet, he said.
Doing it themselves means money that would have been spent on dues for state and national associations stays local.
Sullivan said the average PTA spends about $ 1, 100 on annual dues. In Arkansas, PTA members must pay $ 1. 75 in national dues and $ 1 in state dues each year.
Others choose to leave PTA because of its perceived political positions.
Charlene Haar, author of The Politics of the PTA, said in an email interview that the association backs a left-leaning political agenda.
Dues and politics are what drove the PTA out of Bentonville, said Beth Haney, vice president of the Bentonville School Board and a former PTA president at Sugar Creek.
The last five Bentonville PTA schools abandoned their membership in 2001 after the national association endorsed a video for elementary schools called “That’s a Family !” The video showed images of families that included gay and unmarried couples. PTA doesn’t hide the fact that it takes stances on important education issues, said national President Jan Harp Domene. She calls it “advocating.” “ We will continue to take stances on children’s issues, ” she said. “Do children’s issues have a tendency to fall a little bit on the liberal side ? Sometimes.” Keitha Lovette, vice president of the Springdale PTA Council, likes the fact that her dues pay for national education lobbying. It gives Springdale a voice in state and national education issues, she said. Springdale stays in PTA because of committed leadership. Many of its school board members, top administrators and principals all come from PTA backgrounds, Lovette said. “It’s a tradition,” Lovette said. “We’re just really strong believers in PTA.” To contact this reporter: jkrupa@arkansasonline. com
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