I’m on the PTA of an Evanston elementary school and have worked on fundraising for the last year. While I agree with the concept of the OneFund, the way it’s run makes it almost impossible to fundraise for. We cannot “make families feel badly” about not giving or even tell them what their money will be used for (thus why they should give more). Almost all of my fundraising tips and tricks were shut down. We aren’t even allowed to ask families what they’d like the school’s portion of PTA money to be spent on because those activities are all pre-set for equity reasons. It’s been a very unnecessarily frustrating experience. So much so that I’m stepping down this spring.
When families give to a school or other organization, they feel more invested in that organization and more connected to each other. The poorly thought-out plan for the One Fund strips us of the joy and community that really can come from fundraising.
Hillary I'm sorry hear that you were discouraged from continuing in your role at your school's PTA. As someone who has served on an elementary PTA for two years I know that volunteers are increasingly hard to come by these days.
I will say that we were initially confused by some of the restrictions seemingly imposed by the fund. Our budget operated on a model that was a better suited to old way of fundraising and we were frustrated that expenses for fundraising couldn't be treated as pass through income.
I actually started attending PTA Equity Project Board to try and learn more about how it all actually worked and to see if I could help make it better. What I found was that a lot of the limitations around fundraising were not coming from the structure of the fund but were arbitrary limits proposed in a good faith effort to move away from the kinds of gatekeeping, gala style fundraisers that are rampant in nonprofits and larger charities in favor of a more grassroots style of fund raising.
We asked for clarification with our concerns about fundraiser expenses and found that those on the council were flexible in finding a way to make it work for all PTAs. I think that that level of adaptability is essential if the fund it going to work going forward.
As for letting community members decide how monies are allocated, we are able to keep our budget flexible enough to adapt to needs that arise during the school year. This can't cover every conceivable expense but the other members of my PTA manage to do a lot of great things for our school teachers, administrators, students & family members with what we have.
I feel that being contributors to One Fund means that we can serve our school while trying our best to fundraise at least as much as we spend so that we are contributing across our larger community, the community that will be merged anyway once our kids hit high school.
I believe that most Evanstonians would/still do support some level of (re)distribution —to right the disparities in fundraising etc. —providing for all kids. However, PEP was/is destined to fail. The troubles with decreasing levels of current fundraising, engagement of families, demise of PTAs, was wholly predictable. And importantly could have been avoided if we’d only taken some reasonable steps as a community.
Instead, PEP sits on a foundation of adult level bullying, shaming, canceling, narcissism, holier than though BS. No one could/can ask questions, no one could/can pose an alternative model. Nope. Instead the self appointed all-knowing gurus of d65 knew/know what was/is right —end of discussion. Follow the leader —or find out what happens. That was the message. All you had to do is watch the online heinous behavior and the take-downs leveled by the priest and priestesses of Evanston and their acolytes (this includes all present and past BOE members).
And so….here we are. Most rational people aren’t surprised. The problem is that the rational are either cowering or they’ve left/checked out. As a result, not only is PEP what it is, but our school and community fabric is frayed. I hope it’s repairable —for those young families coming in and kids growing up in the district. For us, we’re just happy to be close to being done.
I concur with lots of the other posters. Prior to the pooling of funds I would give a couple of hundred bucks per year to our school’s pta and participate in all of the big fundraising events.
Now our school doesn’t have fundraising events and the Equity Fund seems so far removed from the school that I feel absolutely no interest or pressure in giving them money.
It doesn’t help build confidence in a centralized pta fund when the School Board’s money management is such garbage.
I would contribute without hesitation to teacher gofundme campaigns for specific projects. The inevitable outcome of this, however, is that the ‘equity police’ will undoubtedly weigh in and try and get the District to stop the practice.
It seems like the PTAs are “quietly quitting”. If we have a need at our school, I want to be able to directly contribute money to it without being told by someone (not even in my community!) if and when we can. I can tell you that I hear from many big fundraising school parents that they lack the same motivation to raise money, host buy-in parties, or even participate in their schools’ PTAs at their pre-PEP levels. Communism is bad, people. It didn’t work in Eastern Europe and Russia, and it doesn’t work here. I wonder if there is a way for parents to form their own outside neighborhood organizations and raise funds that way? I always felt shitty that Oakton could barely raise 10k a year (back in my older kid’s day) and our school was routinely pulling in near $50k. But the answer isn’t “Dig deep, work your ass off on galas to raise big money, then give me all your money and maybe I’ll give you some back”. Needless to say, we pulled out of the d65 shit show when the schools would not reopen and have not looked back. I happily buy crap at my kid’s school, buy tickets to buy-in parties I don’t show up to, bid on crap I don’t need, contribute to the all-staff Christmas and EOY gift fund, and even raised money for our public crossing guard back when we had one. But that’s because I know where the money is going, and it all benefits my student one way or the other. I don’t like being told to whom I can make charitable contributions. And you know what just occurred to me? I see teachers in d65 ALL THE TIME posting up on Donors Choose for stuff for their classrooms. This is stuff that their PTA would previously have funded. So how can you tell me this PEP thing works? Clearly, accepting funds from Donors Choose is not against the rules for teachers, so maybe the answer is that school families get their teachers to post up needs and they crowdfund to pay for it.
What is the over/under on how many months will it be until the Equity Army tries to abolish the use of Donors Choice by teachers under the guise of it being ‘inequitable’?
Like .. the crazy thing about all this is like .. they do have a point that is in inequitable that some teachers are in wealthy areas and some are in poor areas, and the wealthy ones can do this to get additional supplies, etc. But they also *control the school board* so it's like, if there is something that teachers need, which they are not getting they *literally have the power to solve this*
This is my same complaint with 2 board members seeking PTA reserves to help people during the COVID crisis. Like, they *literally* are in a position as board members to solve the problem of helping families during COVID. I don't think there would be a single taxpayer complaining that the District helped provide routers or tablets or whatever for families in need during this time. But instead, it was like an opportunity to blow up something they didn't like for purely political or personal reasons.
They get their new secretly hired puppet to make a proclamation that no district employee can ask for publicly funded items because it’s not equitable as some teachers will get fully funded and others won’t so no employees can participate. I’m sorry I even mentioned it in case it spurs this very action.
Thanks for mentioning Donors Choose, which I think I had heard of but never before looked into. I see requests from only a few of the Evanston schools.
I can go back in our bank records and find all the ones we have contributed to. It has been many over the past two years. We have a friend who teaches at Walker. They had one, too.
I moved to Wilmette because the District 65 school board is so infuriating. This model disincentivizes parental involvement. I would much rather have my kids in a school district that still motivates families to participate and children to excel. I love Evanston but the current school board is completely irresponsible, and the declining test scores and ranking show what their rhetoric has cost the children.
I was on the PTA equity Committee for its first 3 years. This committee actually began its work in 2016 although it had no formal name and no money was distributed at that time. There was a lot of discussion about the inequality between what the PTA's were capable of raising in the 18 schools. Rice was of particular concern. There was a lot of data gathered from the schools. A formula was developed. There was an initial distribution of funds. Nothing like the high numbers now.
And yes for all the reasons you outlined above, there was concern by many of us that this project was initiated by 2 school board members. Suni even used her District 65 email initially for this committee’s work.
I believed then and I do now believe that some equalizing across the PTA’s in district 65 is important. However, I have concerns that the current way this is being done is unsustainable.
The first few years there was some redistribution of funds, essentially all the schools's PTAs were ranked on how much money they raised per student and then the top fundraising schools gave an annual distribution that was split between the schools with fewest resources. That allowed individual PTAs to still raise directly for their needs or projects and budget for the next year knowing how much they brought in and how much they were putting into One Fund or getting from it since it was a set dispensation. The way that the pandemic was used to push through the new model was hugely uncomfortable -- and getting all the reserves in one huge chunk like that was never a sustainable way to plan for the future. Not to mention all the forward modeling was done based on what the schools were able to raise in the before, and none of the schools are currently raising near that level. And the PEP committee also sold the PTAs on the power of fundraising as one entity -- applying for grants and corporate donations. However, no one on PEP since has had the nonprofit or grant-writing background to do that -- especially not as a volunteer.
Finally, it was HUGELY an issue that it was led by two board members, as many school PTAs were in previous years raising PTA funds for improvement projects at their school that the Board wouldn't cover because it wasn't on the priority list. I.e., well-resourced schools were directly told, if you want X, you need to fundraise for it because your school has the capacity to do so. There was a big to-do when one school did exactly that for some playground improvements, doing a direct appeal and asking parents to tap their employers for matching gifts. PEP didn't have an answer for the how capital projects could be funded equitably and still doesn't, but it doesn't really mattter because One Fund is not raising at a level to be able to fund those types of projects anyway, nor should they really be the purview of PTAs.
I need to dig into the above more deeply, but I can share my experience being involved in fundraising at one elementary school when my kids were there. We raised about $25K-30K for a playground refurbishment. This was OUTSIDE what the PTA was raising for general operations. Part of what I raised was a $5K grant from Lowe's, so it wasn't just individual donations. Part was from a paddle raise at our big fundraising evening.
I believe the annual PTA budget was something near $72K. I don't recall what the reserves were exactly but I remember thinking that we could have just paid for the playground refurbishment outright w/ no fundraising.
My kids went on multiple field trips per year (partially subsidized by our parental fee), each teacher got a mini grant for their classroom, scholarships were available for after school clubs, etc. I would have to dig up my old paperwork to see the full list, but as you can imagine, $72K went a long way.
Meanwhile, less than a mile away is another elementary school in the district where my sister's kids went. This school's annual PTA budget was $20K. They struggled to meet their fundraising goals. There were scholarships for after school clubs, but you could only get one per year and I believe it was on a lottery basis. This school simply does not have the same fundraising base or parents who have enough free time to volunteer. Maybe "fundraising for other kids" is not motivational for some, but it is for me. I always gave to this school's PTA as well, and was financially secure enough to do so. I did this because other people's kids deserved the same "extras" my kids were getting just because they lived on the other side of the "line."
Thank you for this comment; I hope my article didn’t come off as overly pessimistic, I am actually generally in favor of a district-wide system. But it does come with different challenges.
I was and still am fully supportive of an equitable distribution of fundraising, especially in a district as financially segregated as Evanston.
My main concern is how this initiative suffered from the same problems that have negativity impacted other well-meaning district initiatives.
Basically, there is not really any plan to authentically bring all stakeholders along with the change, nor does there seem to be an interest on the part of the Board. Once the thing is decided, it happens, and no intention is paid to continuing to sell or explain the why to the entire district community.
My hunch is if the Board had made any effort to convene school communities - at the schools themselves - to not just launch, but continue explaining the work - they would have a) retained more families in their schools and b) not landed in a place where they have nearly zero social capital with a lot of families.
Its interesting; if you listen to the video of Biz and Suni, at one point they discuss considering alternative ways to accomplish PEP - things like sister schools, charitable structures, etc. They specifically call those out as being “white saviors” and weren’t even willing to consider the options. When you think the community and parents are all racist, why even bother including them?
The One Fund is a good idea, but they need to make changes to it. Bottomline, we are raising less money and that only hurts the children in the end. No one is opposed to helping struggling PTA's, but there needs to be a compromise. The new system has literally fractured the sense of the community with our local school. Fun events that were equitable and fun for all are all canceled. Parents don't feel connected anymore and it is very sad, and I am sure is one of the many factors contributing to declining enrollment.
At least at Willard the post One Fund impact was an almost immediate collapse of a visible school community that reinforced the role of the school in the broader fabric of the neighborhood.
And like most things these past few years it’s unclear if this initiative actually improved things for the intended stakeholders.
100% agree. There was a big pushback on the types of fundraisers that Willard PTA did in the past successfully (Fall Fest, Spring auction, buy-in parties, etc.) that were also big community events and initiatives that were tangible to raise money for -- e.g., the grounds project and outdoor track that never happened. This in conjunction with fewer school events generally as we came out of the pandemic, and it has been hard to rebuild that community. There are great people involved with the current PTA and the emphasis on continuing cultural events (Hispanic Heritage, African diaspora, etc.) is awesome, but it doesn't help that we've also lost a ton of families and our TWI program is under stress of being ended / moved to another school.
I was a parent in the district when the one Fund model was started and I wasn’t exactly against it, but I didn’t think it would be successful. I work in fundraising, and the PTA have to acknowledge that families have so much love for their own school … not the district as a whole. The PTAs that were successful was not because of fundraising efforts, per se, rather giving directly by parents who had capacity to give and host parties, etc.
I do disagree with your article in terms of the declining reserves as any type of measure, however. PTAs should not be stockpiling reserves. They should be using money raised to meet needs of our schools NOW, not held for a rainy day.
Bottom line, the amounts of money PTAs raise are almost irrelevant in terms of the overall spending in our district. I don’t know how you measure whether equity has improved, but providing scholarships for after school activities isn’t the needle on anything.
Endowment (like at NU) and reserves are also totally different. Legally, nonprofits can’t spend endowments other than the restricted purpose. Reserves are supposed to be for cash flow reasons…. Organizations need a little to weather downturns, but shouldn’t hoard them at the expense of current uses.
I realize they’re technically different, but abstractly they are piles of money being raised on the idea of supporting some future thing at the expense of the present.
$5k seems very low though. I gusss it depends on what is supported. We try to have 3 months of essential costs in our reserves, but we work differently as a fundraising org outside the PTA (different district). We support some contract work. Seems like it should hav been a %age formula.
I’m not very close to the PTA’s so thanks for the information. I’ll certainly dive into the references when I can find the time.
My question… is it possible to disentangle the PTA model from the larger context of declining D65 performance? Ie. declining enrollment, declining scores, and I’ll politely say hugely polarized politics around the board and administration.
I’ll venture a guess that many that can afford to have pulled out altogether and their dollars are being invested elsewhere. Speaking for myself we’re actively applying to private schools and pinching pennies to help make it happen.
I don't think that your fifth footnote is definitively correct. The drop in the PTA fundraising mirrors the precipitous decline in enrollment, and it seems logical fewer kids=fewer parents=less PTA fundraising.
However, there is a good chance the same high dollar donors are the ones who switched their kids to private school (as other stories have shown, the number of school age children in Evanston increased during the drop in d65), it just isn't provable due to confounding factors.
Yes, it is a chicken and egg problem. Money is down because enrollment is down, but is enrollment down because families feel less connected to their schools?
Perhaps Tom just doesn’t need an Econ student, but a sociologist to do an exit study on people who left.
This may be anecdotal but as a PTA member I also feel like there has also been a shift away from the willingness of community members to get involved with PTAs since the return from COVID lockdowns.
Our school has experienced a dramatic decrease in community members who are willing to donate their time and energy to PTA activities. I know that volunteering in this way is not for everyone but I find it hard to believe that this decrease in both manpower and money is solely because they dislike the PTA funding model (which IMO most people don't give a hoot about) or the current board.
Thankfully we still have a small but dedicated group of volunteers who work hard to make school events great, though.
You may find this hard to believe, but people are more motivated to give and volunteer when the benefits are significant and tangible.
I am not sure why this would be surprising, but my concern about my kids' school exceeds that of my concern of the other schools in the district.
I have zero interaction with neighborhoods and the schools on the other side of town. If I am giving money to strangers, I would rather give it to a Syrian or Sudanese relief agency than to the PTA equity fund.
We have this same issue in my district and I was talking to a mom friend in a whole different state and they are seeing the same. I think it is a national trend. I also think it is impacted by a higher %age of a specific type of parent going private post-COVID, impacting the volunteer base.
I do not understand the public school system. I attended a religious school for which my parents paid no tuition. It was funded by the tithes of the church community. Fundraising made sense there. After all, it was supported by the church. My children attend D65 and I cannot understand the additional fees and the need for a PTA. Unpopular opinion here I know, but levy enough tax to support the schools and please elect people who understand what it means to be a fiduciary.
So, while I don't support communism, the inefficiencies of democracy are incredibly irritating to my ND brain. Furthermore, I can't find a strong enough adjective for how frustrating it is to me that people don't understand that the best solutions would be found if those with opposing viewpoints worked together to find a solution. The extremities of both sides could be mitigated. Of course, it requires that everyone involved agree that everyone involved acts with good intent. And everyone involved understands that perfect is the enemy of better. I spend almost every day of my life accepting the least objectionable option in situations based on the way my brain works. Honestly. I wish everyone had to do that.
Bear with me, I have have lots of thoughts and this is going to be a long one.
I volunteered on the executive board of a north Evanston elementary school for years. I remember when the PEP idea first came about. As others have said, the idea of an equitable distribution of funds for all PTAs is one that many people can get behind and as others have said, the way it was implemented is an issue.
The problems with PEP are multi-pronged. Again, as others have stated, having two school board members work on this was problematic to say the least. I got the distinct impression that all Biz and Suni wanted the north Evanston schools to do was to shut up and write a check. When members of the exec board brought up questions on the funding model as it related to McKinney Vento students in one of the many zoom meetings about PEP prior to the vote, they were brushed off by Suni. These were two Black women. Our executive board wrote a letter expressing concerns over how the women were treated in this meeting and we received some communications back from the committee, one person called us racist and the Black members of the executive board tokens. If you are on any of the social media sites where D65 is discussed, you can probably guess who that was.
Prior to the vote, it was rumored that Biz stated "I just need 2 of the North side schools to vote yes and then all of them will."
Let's not forget that not only did PEP request almost all of each PTA's reserves during the pandemic, they also went to other organizations like the Evanston Baseball and Softball Association and asked for them to donate reserve money as well. I would love to see which organizations gave donations. I would love to see a full financials on how that money was spent even more.
Now we're in the 2021-22 school year. Each school has a fundraising goal to hit. The numbers they based it on were from 2018-19 school year. You know, when people could get together in person and none of us had any thoughts of a worldwide pandemic. There was no way any school could have met those numbers because the events that raised the most money were the ones where people came to events. So right away, PEP is operating on flawed numbers.
So, you have a school district who doesn't have school in person. Your school (like my kids') discouraged any kind of in-person meet ups for the kids, even if they were held outside. You have a school district who treats parents as pariahs who shouldn't be on school grounds once school is back open. How are families supposed to feel connected to their school? And if you don't know other families or feel connected in any way, why are you going to donate money?
Let's add in that some school board members and school administrators have portrayed some fundraising as racist. Before the pandemic some yearly events were discontinued at my kids' school because of the principal. A sitting school board member said that instead of having people pay to attend a fundraiser, you shouldn't charge admission and you should provide free childcare to remove barriers for some families to attend. We tried that. The families this was geared to didn't come. Less money was raised. There is a difference between a school event that is open for everyone to attend and a fundraiser where the goal is to raise funds. Some people lose sight of that.
The same group of people volunteer for most of the activities at my kids' school. Some of those families pulled their kids out of the district to private school, some of those families' kids graduated from elementary school. Since there were no in-person school fundraising events, there was no opportunity to bring in new families to learn the ropes and take over. Additionally there has been such high principal turnover, that institutional knowledge is lost as well.
I'm interested to see how PEP is going to work once schools start being closed. Thankfully my kids will be out of D65 by then.
That very last part is an interesting one -- schools starting to be closed, as well as the new one opening in the fifth ward, because this is all going to result in a lot of kids/families' association with a particular school and community. I'd imagine if the current model continued, an even further reduced portion of donations to some school's PTAs are going to wind up distributed to that school. Everyone loses there. People who have more means to donate feel even less inclined to do so, which hurts the district as a whole and erodes parents' sense of feeling connected and invested in the school their kids attend.
Like so much in this district, the intention here is sound. As a parent of two former d65 students at different elementary/middle schools and as a former d65 teacher, I agree the disparity in PTA fundraising across the district has historically been embarrassing and inequitable. And also, like so much in this district, asking that all stakeholders have a voice and asking for accountability gets pushback. Whether labeled white saviors or worse for daring to question authority, we're (voters, parents, staff, etc.) are supposed to just "trust" the process because the intentions are good. Look where that's landed us.
I dislike the comparisons to communism here, I think it’s disingenuous and meant to be a scary word. Communism as an economic philosophy revolves around workers owning the means of production. This isn’t a business, there is no “capital” or means of production, it’s simply how donated community funds are distributed.
Whether those funds are being distributed and spent appropriately is a valid discussion, as are the continued conflicts of interest of board members, but I dislike the utilization of red scare language in the process when it’s not even applicable.
Well, on a very simple level, communism is about individuals working hard and their efforts don’t go to themselves, it goes to everyone, regardless of how hard the others worked to get it. After a while, you stop working so hard because what good does it do you? That’s human nature. People work hard at goals that benefit them. If you take away the benefit, you might still get the work, but it won’t be to the same level. We are not talking about government takeover of utilities here, but I think the analogy is sound, if still a bit tongue in cheek. I honestly don’t believe any reference to Communism brings up red fear here in Evanston. Despite elected officials desperate to take more and more money away from us and give it to whatever they think is unfair or deserves it more, (really- we should pay an Amazon delivery tax??) this town is mainly funded by people who live very much so with capitalist beliefs.
I’m on the PTA of an Evanston elementary school and have worked on fundraising for the last year. While I agree with the concept of the OneFund, the way it’s run makes it almost impossible to fundraise for. We cannot “make families feel badly” about not giving or even tell them what their money will be used for (thus why they should give more). Almost all of my fundraising tips and tricks were shut down. We aren’t even allowed to ask families what they’d like the school’s portion of PTA money to be spent on because those activities are all pre-set for equity reasons. It’s been a very unnecessarily frustrating experience. So much so that I’m stepping down this spring.
When families give to a school or other organization, they feel more invested in that organization and more connected to each other. The poorly thought-out plan for the One Fund strips us of the joy and community that really can come from fundraising.
Hillary I'm sorry hear that you were discouraged from continuing in your role at your school's PTA. As someone who has served on an elementary PTA for two years I know that volunteers are increasingly hard to come by these days.
I will say that we were initially confused by some of the restrictions seemingly imposed by the fund. Our budget operated on a model that was a better suited to old way of fundraising and we were frustrated that expenses for fundraising couldn't be treated as pass through income.
I actually started attending PTA Equity Project Board to try and learn more about how it all actually worked and to see if I could help make it better. What I found was that a lot of the limitations around fundraising were not coming from the structure of the fund but were arbitrary limits proposed in a good faith effort to move away from the kinds of gatekeeping, gala style fundraisers that are rampant in nonprofits and larger charities in favor of a more grassroots style of fund raising.
We asked for clarification with our concerns about fundraiser expenses and found that those on the council were flexible in finding a way to make it work for all PTAs. I think that that level of adaptability is essential if the fund it going to work going forward.
As for letting community members decide how monies are allocated, we are able to keep our budget flexible enough to adapt to needs that arise during the school year. This can't cover every conceivable expense but the other members of my PTA manage to do a lot of great things for our school teachers, administrators, students & family members with what we have.
I feel that being contributors to One Fund means that we can serve our school while trying our best to fundraise at least as much as we spend so that we are contributing across our larger community, the community that will be merged anyway once our kids hit high school.
I wish I could prioritize this comment somehow. Thank you for chiming in!
I believe that most Evanstonians would/still do support some level of (re)distribution —to right the disparities in fundraising etc. —providing for all kids. However, PEP was/is destined to fail. The troubles with decreasing levels of current fundraising, engagement of families, demise of PTAs, was wholly predictable. And importantly could have been avoided if we’d only taken some reasonable steps as a community.
Instead, PEP sits on a foundation of adult level bullying, shaming, canceling, narcissism, holier than though BS. No one could/can ask questions, no one could/can pose an alternative model. Nope. Instead the self appointed all-knowing gurus of d65 knew/know what was/is right —end of discussion. Follow the leader —or find out what happens. That was the message. All you had to do is watch the online heinous behavior and the take-downs leveled by the priest and priestesses of Evanston and their acolytes (this includes all present and past BOE members).
And so….here we are. Most rational people aren’t surprised. The problem is that the rational are either cowering or they’ve left/checked out. As a result, not only is PEP what it is, but our school and community fabric is frayed. I hope it’s repairable —for those young families coming in and kids growing up in the district. For us, we’re just happy to be close to being done.
I concur with lots of the other posters. Prior to the pooling of funds I would give a couple of hundred bucks per year to our school’s pta and participate in all of the big fundraising events.
Now our school doesn’t have fundraising events and the Equity Fund seems so far removed from the school that I feel absolutely no interest or pressure in giving them money.
It doesn’t help build confidence in a centralized pta fund when the School Board’s money management is such garbage.
I would contribute without hesitation to teacher gofundme campaigns for specific projects. The inevitable outcome of this, however, is that the ‘equity police’ will undoubtedly weigh in and try and get the District to stop the practice.
It seems like the PTAs are “quietly quitting”. If we have a need at our school, I want to be able to directly contribute money to it without being told by someone (not even in my community!) if and when we can. I can tell you that I hear from many big fundraising school parents that they lack the same motivation to raise money, host buy-in parties, or even participate in their schools’ PTAs at their pre-PEP levels. Communism is bad, people. It didn’t work in Eastern Europe and Russia, and it doesn’t work here. I wonder if there is a way for parents to form their own outside neighborhood organizations and raise funds that way? I always felt shitty that Oakton could barely raise 10k a year (back in my older kid’s day) and our school was routinely pulling in near $50k. But the answer isn’t “Dig deep, work your ass off on galas to raise big money, then give me all your money and maybe I’ll give you some back”. Needless to say, we pulled out of the d65 shit show when the schools would not reopen and have not looked back. I happily buy crap at my kid’s school, buy tickets to buy-in parties I don’t show up to, bid on crap I don’t need, contribute to the all-staff Christmas and EOY gift fund, and even raised money for our public crossing guard back when we had one. But that’s because I know where the money is going, and it all benefits my student one way or the other. I don’t like being told to whom I can make charitable contributions. And you know what just occurred to me? I see teachers in d65 ALL THE TIME posting up on Donors Choose for stuff for their classrooms. This is stuff that their PTA would previously have funded. So how can you tell me this PEP thing works? Clearly, accepting funds from Donors Choose is not against the rules for teachers, so maybe the answer is that school families get their teachers to post up needs and they crowdfund to pay for it.
What is the over/under on how many months will it be until the Equity Army tries to abolish the use of Donors Choice by teachers under the guise of it being ‘inequitable’?
Like .. the crazy thing about all this is like .. they do have a point that is in inequitable that some teachers are in wealthy areas and some are in poor areas, and the wealthy ones can do this to get additional supplies, etc. But they also *control the school board* so it's like, if there is something that teachers need, which they are not getting they *literally have the power to solve this*
This is my same complaint with 2 board members seeking PTA reserves to help people during the COVID crisis. Like, they *literally* are in a position as board members to solve the problem of helping families during COVID. I don't think there would be a single taxpayer complaining that the District helped provide routers or tablets or whatever for families in need during this time. But instead, it was like an opportunity to blow up something they didn't like for purely political or personal reasons.
Yeah, I can see that happening!
How would they actually be able to actually do this? Isn’t Donors Choose independent? You don’t need to register with the PTA…
They get their new secretly hired puppet to make a proclamation that no district employee can ask for publicly funded items because it’s not equitable as some teachers will get fully funded and others won’t so no employees can participate. I’m sorry I even mentioned it in case it spurs this very action.
Thanks for mentioning Donors Choose, which I think I had heard of but never before looked into. I see requests from only a few of the Evanston schools.
I can go back in our bank records and find all the ones we have contributed to. It has been many over the past two years. We have a friend who teaches at Walker. They had one, too.
Looking further into Donors Choose, I see that they are 501/c/3 tax-deductible, which I don't know that PTA would be.
PTAs are 501c(3)s.
I moved to Wilmette because the District 65 school board is so infuriating. This model disincentivizes parental involvement. I would much rather have my kids in a school district that still motivates families to participate and children to excel. I love Evanston but the current school board is completely irresponsible, and the declining test scores and ranking show what their rhetoric has cost the children.
I was on the PTA equity Committee for its first 3 years. This committee actually began its work in 2016 although it had no formal name and no money was distributed at that time. There was a lot of discussion about the inequality between what the PTA's were capable of raising in the 18 schools. Rice was of particular concern. There was a lot of data gathered from the schools. A formula was developed. There was an initial distribution of funds. Nothing like the high numbers now.
And yes for all the reasons you outlined above, there was concern by many of us that this project was initiated by 2 school board members. Suni even used her District 65 email initially for this committee’s work.
I believed then and I do now believe that some equalizing across the PTA’s in district 65 is important. However, I have concerns that the current way this is being done is unsustainable.
I think that is kind of the point I was trying to get across. I am not opposed to the idea!!
The first few years there was some redistribution of funds, essentially all the schools's PTAs were ranked on how much money they raised per student and then the top fundraising schools gave an annual distribution that was split between the schools with fewest resources. That allowed individual PTAs to still raise directly for their needs or projects and budget for the next year knowing how much they brought in and how much they were putting into One Fund or getting from it since it was a set dispensation. The way that the pandemic was used to push through the new model was hugely uncomfortable -- and getting all the reserves in one huge chunk like that was never a sustainable way to plan for the future. Not to mention all the forward modeling was done based on what the schools were able to raise in the before, and none of the schools are currently raising near that level. And the PEP committee also sold the PTAs on the power of fundraising as one entity -- applying for grants and corporate donations. However, no one on PEP since has had the nonprofit or grant-writing background to do that -- especially not as a volunteer.
Finally, it was HUGELY an issue that it was led by two board members, as many school PTAs were in previous years raising PTA funds for improvement projects at their school that the Board wouldn't cover because it wasn't on the priority list. I.e., well-resourced schools were directly told, if you want X, you need to fundraise for it because your school has the capacity to do so. There was a big to-do when one school did exactly that for some playground improvements, doing a direct appeal and asking parents to tap their employers for matching gifts. PEP didn't have an answer for the how capital projects could be funded equitably and still doesn't, but it doesn't really mattter because One Fund is not raising at a level to be able to fund those types of projects anyway, nor should they really be the purview of PTAs.
I need to dig into the above more deeply, but I can share my experience being involved in fundraising at one elementary school when my kids were there. We raised about $25K-30K for a playground refurbishment. This was OUTSIDE what the PTA was raising for general operations. Part of what I raised was a $5K grant from Lowe's, so it wasn't just individual donations. Part was from a paddle raise at our big fundraising evening.
I believe the annual PTA budget was something near $72K. I don't recall what the reserves were exactly but I remember thinking that we could have just paid for the playground refurbishment outright w/ no fundraising.
My kids went on multiple field trips per year (partially subsidized by our parental fee), each teacher got a mini grant for their classroom, scholarships were available for after school clubs, etc. I would have to dig up my old paperwork to see the full list, but as you can imagine, $72K went a long way.
Meanwhile, less than a mile away is another elementary school in the district where my sister's kids went. This school's annual PTA budget was $20K. They struggled to meet their fundraising goals. There were scholarships for after school clubs, but you could only get one per year and I believe it was on a lottery basis. This school simply does not have the same fundraising base or parents who have enough free time to volunteer. Maybe "fundraising for other kids" is not motivational for some, but it is for me. I always gave to this school's PTA as well, and was financially secure enough to do so. I did this because other people's kids deserved the same "extras" my kids were getting just because they lived on the other side of the "line."
Thank you for this comment; I hope my article didn’t come off as overly pessimistic, I am actually generally in favor of a district-wide system. But it does come with different challenges.
I was and still am fully supportive of an equitable distribution of fundraising, especially in a district as financially segregated as Evanston.
My main concern is how this initiative suffered from the same problems that have negativity impacted other well-meaning district initiatives.
Basically, there is not really any plan to authentically bring all stakeholders along with the change, nor does there seem to be an interest on the part of the Board. Once the thing is decided, it happens, and no intention is paid to continuing to sell or explain the why to the entire district community.
My hunch is if the Board had made any effort to convene school communities - at the schools themselves - to not just launch, but continue explaining the work - they would have a) retained more families in their schools and b) not landed in a place where they have nearly zero social capital with a lot of families.
Its interesting; if you listen to the video of Biz and Suni, at one point they discuss considering alternative ways to accomplish PEP - things like sister schools, charitable structures, etc. They specifically call those out as being “white saviors” and weren’t even willing to consider the options. When you think the community and parents are all racist, why even bother including them?
The One Fund is a good idea, but they need to make changes to it. Bottomline, we are raising less money and that only hurts the children in the end. No one is opposed to helping struggling PTA's, but there needs to be a compromise. The new system has literally fractured the sense of the community with our local school. Fun events that were equitable and fun for all are all canceled. Parents don't feel connected anymore and it is very sad, and I am sure is one of the many factors contributing to declining enrollment.
At least at Willard the post One Fund impact was an almost immediate collapse of a visible school community that reinforced the role of the school in the broader fabric of the neighborhood.
And like most things these past few years it’s unclear if this initiative actually improved things for the intended stakeholders.
100% agree. There was a big pushback on the types of fundraisers that Willard PTA did in the past successfully (Fall Fest, Spring auction, buy-in parties, etc.) that were also big community events and initiatives that were tangible to raise money for -- e.g., the grounds project and outdoor track that never happened. This in conjunction with fewer school events generally as we came out of the pandemic, and it has been hard to rebuild that community. There are great people involved with the current PTA and the emphasis on continuing cultural events (Hispanic Heritage, African diaspora, etc.) is awesome, but it doesn't help that we've also lost a ton of families and our TWI program is under stress of being ended / moved to another school.
I was a parent in the district when the one Fund model was started and I wasn’t exactly against it, but I didn’t think it would be successful. I work in fundraising, and the PTA have to acknowledge that families have so much love for their own school … not the district as a whole. The PTAs that were successful was not because of fundraising efforts, per se, rather giving directly by parents who had capacity to give and host parties, etc.
I do disagree with your article in terms of the declining reserves as any type of measure, however. PTAs should not be stockpiling reserves. They should be using money raised to meet needs of our schools NOW, not held for a rainy day.
Bottom line, the amounts of money PTAs raise are almost irrelevant in terms of the overall spending in our district. I don’t know how you measure whether equity has improved, but providing scholarships for after school activities isn’t the needle on anything.
Completely fair point - I often complain about another local non-profit that piles away reserves that they then never use, Northwestern.
Endowment (like at NU) and reserves are also totally different. Legally, nonprofits can’t spend endowments other than the restricted purpose. Reserves are supposed to be for cash flow reasons…. Organizations need a little to weather downturns, but shouldn’t hoard them at the expense of current uses.
I realize they’re technically different, but abstractly they are piles of money being raised on the idea of supporting some future thing at the expense of the present.
$5k seems very low though. I gusss it depends on what is supported. We try to have 3 months of essential costs in our reserves, but we work differently as a fundraising org outside the PTA (different district). We support some contract work. Seems like it should hav been a %age formula.
The reserves are in six figures. Not $5k.
I’m not very close to the PTA’s so thanks for the information. I’ll certainly dive into the references when I can find the time.
My question… is it possible to disentangle the PTA model from the larger context of declining D65 performance? Ie. declining enrollment, declining scores, and I’ll politely say hugely polarized politics around the board and administration.
I’ll venture a guess that many that can afford to have pulled out altogether and their dollars are being invested elsewhere. Speaking for myself we’re actively applying to private schools and pinching pennies to help make it happen.
Yes, it is. The PTA fundraising is really a non-issue in terms of overall resources for the district,. The district budget in more than $100million….
I don't think that your fifth footnote is definitively correct. The drop in the PTA fundraising mirrors the precipitous decline in enrollment, and it seems logical fewer kids=fewer parents=less PTA fundraising.
However, there is a good chance the same high dollar donors are the ones who switched their kids to private school (as other stories have shown, the number of school age children in Evanston increased during the drop in d65), it just isn't provable due to confounding factors.
Yes, it is a chicken and egg problem. Money is down because enrollment is down, but is enrollment down because families feel less connected to their schools?
Perhaps Tom just doesn’t need an Econ student, but a sociologist to do an exit study on people who left.
If you know any, have them call me! I think this subject makes a very good paper
I think thats a fair argument
This may be anecdotal but as a PTA member I also feel like there has also been a shift away from the willingness of community members to get involved with PTAs since the return from COVID lockdowns.
Our school has experienced a dramatic decrease in community members who are willing to donate their time and energy to PTA activities. I know that volunteering in this way is not for everyone but I find it hard to believe that this decrease in both manpower and money is solely because they dislike the PTA funding model (which IMO most people don't give a hoot about) or the current board.
Thankfully we still have a small but dedicated group of volunteers who work hard to make school events great, though.
You may find this hard to believe, but people are more motivated to give and volunteer when the benefits are significant and tangible.
I am not sure why this would be surprising, but my concern about my kids' school exceeds that of my concern of the other schools in the district.
I have zero interaction with neighborhoods and the schools on the other side of town. If I am giving money to strangers, I would rather give it to a Syrian or Sudanese relief agency than to the PTA equity fund.
We have this same issue in my district and I was talking to a mom friend in a whole different state and they are seeing the same. I think it is a national trend. I also think it is impacted by a higher %age of a specific type of parent going private post-COVID, impacting the volunteer base.
I do not understand the public school system. I attended a religious school for which my parents paid no tuition. It was funded by the tithes of the church community. Fundraising made sense there. After all, it was supported by the church. My children attend D65 and I cannot understand the additional fees and the need for a PTA. Unpopular opinion here I know, but levy enough tax to support the schools and please elect people who understand what it means to be a fiduciary.
So, while I don't support communism, the inefficiencies of democracy are incredibly irritating to my ND brain. Furthermore, I can't find a strong enough adjective for how frustrating it is to me that people don't understand that the best solutions would be found if those with opposing viewpoints worked together to find a solution. The extremities of both sides could be mitigated. Of course, it requires that everyone involved agree that everyone involved acts with good intent. And everyone involved understands that perfect is the enemy of better. I spend almost every day of my life accepting the least objectionable option in situations based on the way my brain works. Honestly. I wish everyone had to do that.
Bear with me, I have have lots of thoughts and this is going to be a long one.
I volunteered on the executive board of a north Evanston elementary school for years. I remember when the PEP idea first came about. As others have said, the idea of an equitable distribution of funds for all PTAs is one that many people can get behind and as others have said, the way it was implemented is an issue.
The problems with PEP are multi-pronged. Again, as others have stated, having two school board members work on this was problematic to say the least. I got the distinct impression that all Biz and Suni wanted the north Evanston schools to do was to shut up and write a check. When members of the exec board brought up questions on the funding model as it related to McKinney Vento students in one of the many zoom meetings about PEP prior to the vote, they were brushed off by Suni. These were two Black women. Our executive board wrote a letter expressing concerns over how the women were treated in this meeting and we received some communications back from the committee, one person called us racist and the Black members of the executive board tokens. If you are on any of the social media sites where D65 is discussed, you can probably guess who that was.
Prior to the vote, it was rumored that Biz stated "I just need 2 of the North side schools to vote yes and then all of them will."
Let's not forget that not only did PEP request almost all of each PTA's reserves during the pandemic, they also went to other organizations like the Evanston Baseball and Softball Association and asked for them to donate reserve money as well. I would love to see which organizations gave donations. I would love to see a full financials on how that money was spent even more.
Now we're in the 2021-22 school year. Each school has a fundraising goal to hit. The numbers they based it on were from 2018-19 school year. You know, when people could get together in person and none of us had any thoughts of a worldwide pandemic. There was no way any school could have met those numbers because the events that raised the most money were the ones where people came to events. So right away, PEP is operating on flawed numbers.
So, you have a school district who doesn't have school in person. Your school (like my kids') discouraged any kind of in-person meet ups for the kids, even if they were held outside. You have a school district who treats parents as pariahs who shouldn't be on school grounds once school is back open. How are families supposed to feel connected to their school? And if you don't know other families or feel connected in any way, why are you going to donate money?
Let's add in that some school board members and school administrators have portrayed some fundraising as racist. Before the pandemic some yearly events were discontinued at my kids' school because of the principal. A sitting school board member said that instead of having people pay to attend a fundraiser, you shouldn't charge admission and you should provide free childcare to remove barriers for some families to attend. We tried that. The families this was geared to didn't come. Less money was raised. There is a difference between a school event that is open for everyone to attend and a fundraiser where the goal is to raise funds. Some people lose sight of that.
The same group of people volunteer for most of the activities at my kids' school. Some of those families pulled their kids out of the district to private school, some of those families' kids graduated from elementary school. Since there were no in-person school fundraising events, there was no opportunity to bring in new families to learn the ropes and take over. Additionally there has been such high principal turnover, that institutional knowledge is lost as well.
I'm interested to see how PEP is going to work once schools start being closed. Thankfully my kids will be out of D65 by then.
That very last part is an interesting one -- schools starting to be closed, as well as the new one opening in the fifth ward, because this is all going to result in a lot of kids/families' association with a particular school and community. I'd imagine if the current model continued, an even further reduced portion of donations to some school's PTAs are going to wind up distributed to that school. Everyone loses there. People who have more means to donate feel even less inclined to do so, which hurts the district as a whole and erodes parents' sense of feeling connected and invested in the school their kids attend.
Like so much in this district, the intention here is sound. As a parent of two former d65 students at different elementary/middle schools and as a former d65 teacher, I agree the disparity in PTA fundraising across the district has historically been embarrassing and inequitable. And also, like so much in this district, asking that all stakeholders have a voice and asking for accountability gets pushback. Whether labeled white saviors or worse for daring to question authority, we're (voters, parents, staff, etc.) are supposed to just "trust" the process because the intentions are good. Look where that's landed us.
I dislike the comparisons to communism here, I think it’s disingenuous and meant to be a scary word. Communism as an economic philosophy revolves around workers owning the means of production. This isn’t a business, there is no “capital” or means of production, it’s simply how donated community funds are distributed.
Whether those funds are being distributed and spent appropriately is a valid discussion, as are the continued conflicts of interest of board members, but I dislike the utilization of red scare language in the process when it’s not even applicable.
I think people (myself included) were speaking colloquially about redistribution not necessary doing red scare stuff, but your point is taken!!
Well, on a very simple level, communism is about individuals working hard and their efforts don’t go to themselves, it goes to everyone, regardless of how hard the others worked to get it. After a while, you stop working so hard because what good does it do you? That’s human nature. People work hard at goals that benefit them. If you take away the benefit, you might still get the work, but it won’t be to the same level. We are not talking about government takeover of utilities here, but I think the analogy is sound, if still a bit tongue in cheek. I honestly don’t believe any reference to Communism brings up red fear here in Evanston. Despite elected officials desperate to take more and more money away from us and give it to whatever they think is unfair or deserves it more, (really- we should pay an Amazon delivery tax??) this town is mainly funded by people who live very much so with capitalist beliefs.