DCPS School Donations

[Anonymous]

Can DCPS schools solicit donations from parents separate from the PTA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can DCPS schools solicit donations from parents separate from the PTA?

Not sure how that would work. Where would the money be deposited/stored? (Note that a DCPS school itself would not have a bank account.) Who would decide how the money gets spent? What oversight would there be? I also don't think it could be tax deductible."

[Anonymous]

Need more detail. Who is asking and for what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can DCPS schools solicit donations from parents separate from the PTA?

Not sure how that would work. Where would the money be deposited/stored? (Note that a DCPS school itself would not have a bank account.) Who would decide how the money gets spent? What oversight would there be? I also don't think it could be tax deductible."

Where do field trip checks get deposited?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can DCPS schools solicit donations from parents separate from the PTA?

Not sure how that would work. Where would the money be deposited/stored? (Note that a DCPS school itself would not have a bank account.) Who would decide how the money gets spent? What oversight would there be? I also don't think it could be tax deductible."

Where do field trip checks get deposited?

With DCPS. But that isn't a donation. It's payment for a particular purpose.

[Anonymous]

In many cases, such as the one I presume you are referring to here, pre-payment is required. For example, buses need to be reserved. This reservation requires pre-payment to secure availability. The PTO pays for the reservation and then collects the payment from students after the reservation is made. Otherwise there’d be no bus, and no trip.

Did you think something sinister was going on?

[Anonymous]

And, again for the trip I presume you are referring to, the donation request is from the PTO, not the school. The PTO would like all extra-curricular activities to be accessible to all students regardless of ability to pay. In order to execute this, the PTO asks parents with means to donate to help sponsor students besides their own kids. Functionally, the PTO has offered to help pay for kids, but the PTO needs donations for this to materialize. The school is just a distributor of this request.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And, again for the trip I presume you are referring to, the donation request is from the PTO, not the school. The PTO would like all extra-curricular activities to be accessible to all students regardless of ability to pay. In order to execute this, the PTO asks parents with means to donate to help sponsor students besides their own kids. Functionally, the PTO has offered to help pay for kids, but the PTO needs donations for this to materialize. The school is just a distributor of this request.

Works differently at our school -- the PTA is not an intermediary in this way. But the school does ask those who can afford to pay extra to help support those who can't.

But we don't know that funding field trips is what OP is asking about.

[Anonymous]

You definitely can make in-kind donations, at least, directly to your school but it’s officially to DCPS. There’s a form to fill out. In recent times, DCPS has let schools that have attracted donations in this way keep them. Our school has gotten tech in this way, because it has to go to DCPS officially to get networked appropriately.

[Anonymous]

Yes of course a school can ask for donations. It would go into the school’s account. We do have accounts, how do you think school merch and such gets funded sometimes? (It’s not always the PTO)
You’ve never funded something for a specific purpose? Maybe they needed something that DCPS wouldn’t provide. A school once needed things for a sensory space and parent donations were asked (it’s always optional).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can DCPS schools solicit donations from parents separate from the PTA?

Not sure how that would work. Where would the money be deposited/stored? (Note that a DCPS school itself would not have a bank account.) Who would decide how the money gets spent? What oversight would there be? I also don't think it could be tax deductible."

Where do field trip checks get deposited?

With DCPS. But that isn't a donation. It's payment for a particular purpose.

This is not true. It’s the school’s account -which DCPS has access to at all times.

[Anonymous]

From the DCPS Student Activity Fund (SAF) Policy Manual (revised August 2025), page 2:

"Unsolicited or “Drop Off” donations less than $500 may be deposited into the SAF account and credited to the Donations sub-account in School Funds Online (SFO)."

[Anonymous]

OP here

Our school has a PTO. But a teacher wants to spend money differently and on their own terms so solicited donations from the parent community for their own use without PTO oversight. They asked to give cash or check written to the “Student Activity Fund”.

We were told the “Student Activity Fund” was used to hold left over field trip money (I.e the school says the cost of a field trip is $25 when it’s really only $23 and then the school keeps the left over $2 for kids who can’t pay).

My question is - can an individual teacher or support staff solicit funds to use as they please. Who would have oversight?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here

Our school has a PTO. But a teacher wants to spend money differently and on their own terms so solicited donations from the parent community for their own use without PTO oversight. They asked to give cash or check written to the “Student Activity Fund”.

We were told the “Student Activity Fund” was used to hold left over field trip money (I.e the school says the cost of a field trip is $25 when it’s really only $23 and then the school keeps the left over $2 for kids who can’t pay).

My question is - can an individual teacher or support staff solicit funds to use as they please. Who would have oversight?

Have you considered googling “DCPS donations” which is far fewer characters than you’ve typed so far?

https://dcps.dc.gov/page/make-donation-dcps

[Anonymous]

For the record, a PTO/PTA has no legal authority to oversee how a school spends its money. School staff does not report to the PTA. The PTA is a support organization. It has no governing authority. I say this as a former member of a DC elementary school PTA.