Janney PTA raised $1.4 million in one year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This does look like sloppy reporting. At our school, we pay the HSA for every field trip. So if 100 students pay $10 each to the HSA to go to the Natural History Museum, it would appear that the HSA "raised" $1000. Then if you figure there are 7 grades and each grade goes on roughly 10 trips a year, it now looks like the HSA raised $70,000. But that is not fundraising, that's me paying for my kid to go on a field trip.

And im sure your hsa will cover the cost for kids who cannot pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont begrudge those schools. Title 1 schools may raise significantly less but they also get more govt dollars. Either way, the real heart of this is the commitment from parents. You could throw 1 mil at the worst performin elem in DC and I am not sure the test scores are going to jump all that much. It all comes down to what the parents are giving to the kids OUTSIDE of school unfortunately. And 1 million dollars isn't going to help that much.

This is the same argument as saying that political donations do not equal influence. If big donors—to schools or politicians—weren't getting a return on their investment, they wouldn't donate the money. You can argue about the degree to which they're getting a return, but saying the return is nonexistent is silly.

What a strange comparison. The PP is right that the money at a school's disposal has very little to do with the achievement gap. Besides, as others have pointed out, schools like Janney receive significantly less in public funds than schools serving a poorer population, so the parents have to make up for it.

A school with at risk students gets about $2,000 more per at risk student. Not that much actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A very misleading amount as I know for certain the PTA did not raise half, a third, a fourth that amount! This exorbitant amount includes the budget for enrichment and after school care operations. The actual money raised by PTA is way less tha $1.4million.

CAP's source for the Janney fundraising data is the Form 990 Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax. So if it wasn't $1.39M, then Janney PTA lied on its tax return.

The number includes the gross collected for aftercare and other after school programs that parents pay for which are organized by the PTA.

They didnt lie, rather the way the number is presented was intentionally misleading.

If Janney parents donated the money so the school could offer after-school, it's still fundraising. Without the money, there would be no after-school program (or at least not a program open to all students, or until 6pm, etc.) The money is used to operate, or at least heavily supplement, the after-school program. Why wouldn't it be counted as fundraising?

You may think that "fundraising" should only be considered the discretionary money that the PTA uses on "fun things" like field trips, but that's not how fundraising (or how tax-exempt organizations' financial reporting) works.

I pay for aftercare. Its a service received like babysitting. It is not counted as a donation. I do not take a tax deduction for it.

Other schools have an outside program run aftercare. The parents get the same service, but it is accounted for differently because it is not coordinated by the pta. My kids are not getting any additional benefits because it is organized by the pta..

You're describing a cost-neutral program. But the money taken in from parents by the PTA is still fundraising by the PTA. That is why it is reported as such on their tax forms. If you don't like how it's being perceived, then you should advocate to pay the provider directly in the future so as to not hit the Janney PTA books.

I dont care how its accounted for. Its just unfortunate that ignorant reporters and posters use the numbers to imply that the Janney kids are getting more than kids at schools with an outside aftercare.

[Anonymous]

So what? Wealthy people spend their money on their children. Have you noticed that some of them bypass the poors altogether by moving to the suburbs or going private?

THE OUTRAGE!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This does look like sloppy reporting. At our school, we pay the HSA for every field trip. So if 100 students pay $10 each to the HSA to go to the Natural History Museum, it would appear that the HSA "raised" $1000. Then if you figure there are 7 grades and each grade goes on roughly 10 trips a year, it now looks like the HSA raised $70,000. But that is not fundraising, that's me paying for my kid to go on a field trip.

If you didn't pay for the field trip, the field trip would not happen. That's fundraising. The fact that the amount of money raised is equal to the cost of the activity is irrelevant.

It is not fundraising to pay for the cost of a field trip. It is not fundraising for parents to PAY for aftercare for their child just because the HSA/PTA is a conduit for those funds to go to the private provider of aftercare services. The aftercare provider could just as easily accept the funds directly from parents who are paying for care and the HSA would never be involved, it would just be a parent paying for a service.

The HSA is used as a pass-through for the fund to then go directly to pay for the bus or Metro to take the kids to the museum. Would you call it fundraising if instead we paid the school directly for the field trip like when I was a kid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont begrudge those schools. Title 1 schools may raise significantly less but they also get more govt dollars. Either way, the real heart of this is the commitment from parents. You could throw 1 mil at the worst performin elem in DC and I am not sure the test scores are going to jump all that much. It all comes down to what the parents are giving to the kids OUTSIDE of school unfortunately. And 1 million dollars isn't going to help that much.

This is the same argument as saying that political donations do not equal influence. If big donors—to schools or politicians—weren't getting a return on their investment, they wouldn't donate the money. You can argue about the degree to which they're getting a return, but saying the return is nonexistent is silly.

What a strange comparison. The PP is right that the money at a school's disposal has very little to do with the achievement gap. Besides, as others have pointed out, schools like Janney receive significantly less in public funds than schools serving a poorer population, so the parents have to make up for it.

A school with at risk students gets about $2,000 more per at risk student. Not that much actually.

Plus subsidized aftercare and other activities . Which is why Janney numbers seem outsized.

[Anonymous]

Lot of money to spend when you have to move in a few years.

[Anonymous]

Why are people mad about this? It's probably cheaper to donate than to send their children to private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And if they'd returned calls from the Post they could have explained that.

Do you know that the post called? I heard one pta pres got an email only 2 hours before the deadline asking for comment. Not much lead time for a volunteer with a full time job. Its clear the reporter did not want facts to get in the way of a good story.

One of the things in the article that surprised me was that not one HSA/PTA returned the call from the Post. If they called everyone with such a short window I'm no longer surprised. These people are volunteers many with full time jobs

The system that they have in Oregon - where the schools that raise more money have to contribute to a community grant program to fund schools with less money - it would be interesting to see how that played here; I don't imagine it would go over very well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are people mad about this? It's probably cheaper to donate than to send their children to private schools.

Yup.

And DCPS is happy to allow this so it can continue to keep per pupil funding of WOTP schools very low.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And if they'd returned calls from the Post they could have explained that.

Do you know that the post called? I heard one pta pres got an email only 2 hours before the deadline asking for comment. Not much lead time for a volunteer with a full time job. Its clear the reporter did not want facts to get in the way of a good story.

One of the things in the article that surprised me was that not one HSA/PTA returned the call from the Post. If they called everyone with such a short window I'm no longer surprised. These people are volunteers many with full time jobs

The system that they have in Oregon - where the schools that raise more money have to contribute to a community grant program to fund schools with less money - it would be interesting to see how that played here; I don't imagine it would go over very well.

It's also the system in Ohio and many other places.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And if they'd returned calls from the Post they could have explained that.

Do you know that the post called? I heard one pta pres got an email only 2 hours before the deadline asking for comment. Not much lead time for a volunteer with a full time job. Its clear the reporter did not want facts to get in the way of a good story.

One of the things in the article that surprised me was that not one HSA/PTA returned the call from the Post. If they called everyone with such a short window I'm no longer surprised. These people are volunteers many with full time jobs

The system that they have in Oregon - where the schools that raise more money have to contribute to a community grant program to fund schools with less money - it would be interesting to see how that played here; I don't imagine it would go over very well.

I'm starting to see that this is the Post's MO in terms of all-things schools.

Hope Janney parents are furiously writing comments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This does look like sloppy reporting. At our school, we pay the HSA for every field trip. So if 100 students pay $10 each to the HSA to go to the Natural History Museum, it would appear that the HSA "raised" $1000. Then if you figure there are 7 grades and each grade goes on roughly 10 trips a year, it now looks like the HSA raised $70,000. But that is not fundraising, that's me paying for my kid to go on a field trip.

And im sure your hsa will cover the cost for kids who cannot pay.

NP here- I think I am at the same school as PP. They've never had to in recent memory. The field trip money gets paid out right to the school to pay for the trip. Again, it's not tax deductible and not considered a donation by the IRS or anyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This does look like sloppy reporting. At our school, we pay the HSA for every field trip. So if 100 students pay $10 each to the HSA to go to the Natural History Museum, it would appear that the HSA "raised" $1000. Then if you figure there are 7 grades and each grade goes on roughly 10 trips a year, it now looks like the HSA raised $70,000. But that is not fundraising, that's me paying for my kid to go on a field trip.

If you didn't pay for the field trip, the field trip would not happen. That's fundraising. The fact that the amount of money raised is equal to the cost of the activity is irrelevant.

It is not fundraising to pay for the cost of a field trip. It is not fundraising for parents to PAY for aftercare for their child just because the HSA/PTA is a conduit for those funds to go to the private provider of aftercare services. The aftercare provider could just as easily accept the funds directly from parents who are paying for care and the HSA would never be involved, it would just be a parent paying for a service.

The HSA is used as a pass-through for the fund to then go directly to pay for the bus or Metro to take the kids to the museum. Would you call it fundraising if instead we paid the school directly for the field trip like when I was a kid?

The question is whether the field trip would happen if the HSA weren't involved at all. The involvement of the HSA suggests that it wouldn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And if they'd returned calls from the Post they could have explained that.

Do you know that the post called? I heard one pta pres got an email only 2 hours before the deadline asking for comment. Not much lead time for a volunteer with a full time job. Its clear the reporter did not want facts to get in the way of a good story.

One of the things in the article that surprised me was that not one HSA/PTA returned the call from the Post. If they called everyone with such a short window I'm no longer surprised. These people are volunteers many with full time jobs

The system that they have in Oregon - where the schools that raise more money have to contribute to a community grant program to fund schools with less money - it would be interesting to see how that played here; I don't imagine it would go over very well.

I'm starting to see that this is the Post's MO in terms of all-things schools.

Hope Janney parents are furiously writing comments.

I hope they've got better things to do. The WashPo is garbage.