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At Rockledge Elementary School in Bowie, the school's PTA raises more than $20,000 per year to use on school supplies, cultural arts programs, teacher appreciation events and technology.

The successful fundraising allowed the school's principal, Pamela Landry, to put her school's operating funds — money that the school system provides based on school size for items such as supplies and field trips — toward hiring a technology teacher for the school.

Under a new policy announced June 25 at a Prince George's County school board meeting, principals will no longer be able to hire extra teachers for their schools using operating funds. The policy change, which is a result of budgetary and equity concerns, has outraged some parents.

"That's something that if our children don't get that, they're going to be a step behind, and I felt that due to the fact that we're middle class, we're penalized," said Kyle Thomas, Rockledge's PTA president, of losing the school's technology teacher.

Thomas said the teacher oversaw the school's computer lab and assisted students with research skills. The teacher is not expected to return to the school system next year.

The school's PTA has raised between $22,000 and $27,000 annually over the past three years, Thomas said.

Landry said the budget cuts have been felt throughout the school system, but the school will continue to provide a good education for its students. She credited the involved parents as part of the school's success.

"Parents may want more for them, as we do, but what they can count on is that the children will be taught with rigor, and the expectations will be very high," Landry said.

School Operating Resources are allocated to schools based on the number of students in the school. Schools with more students from low-income families or who do not speak English as their first language also receive more funding.

The base amount of funding is $2,550 per teacher, and teachers are allocated to schools based on the number of students.

Previously, schools with PTAs that raised enough money to pay for school needs could use operating funds to hire and pay the salary of additional teachers. Although the resource funds would help to cover the salaries, the school system would have to pick up the extra costs, such as benefits, associated with those employees.

While the system could afford to do this in better economic times, the current budget is forcing them to stick with only teachers allotted in the system's budget. This year's budget forced cuts in many areas, including laying off 169 employees, as a result of lower revenue from the recession and the struggling real estate market.

"Our problem now is our budget is strictly the number of [employees] that we've budgeted," said Superintendent William R. Hite Jr.

Last year, Hite said 46 employees were paid from school operating funds.

Hite said schools can continue to use their school operating funds to pay teachers to take on additional duties, such as after school or Saturday assignments, but they cannot use the funds to hire full-time teachers.

The other reason for the change is the previous practice creates an "equity issue," Hite said. Schools without active PTAs or the ability to fundraise successfully will not have the financial resources as other schools and will only have the staffing allocated for them in the school system's operating budget.

Thomas said she and the rest of her PTA plan to continue lobbying the school system to change the policy, arguing they are being punished for having active parents and teachers.

She is not sure if they will continue to raise funds to purchase new technology items for the school, as they have done in the past, because they will not have a technology teacher. She said teachers at the school are very involved in PTA events, such as the fall festivals and ice cream socials, because they know the money raised helps their school.

"Our parents care about our community; our parents care about our school," Thomas said.

E-mail Megan King at mking@gazette.net.