Janney PTA Guerrilla Tactics!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Per pupil funding is pretty comparable across schools. The variation comes mostly from enrollment and sped. Janney would also see a significant bump I bet if you weren’t using average salary (obvs salary tied to seniority doesn’t necessarily track with quality blah blah).

The crazy thing about that email is how openly it acknowledges that Janney is only nominally a public school, and that making it acceptable for rich kids means raising a ton of money every year.

Yeah. I am the PP that noted how much DC spends and feel sick by the comments about all the money going to SE and being "flushed" down the toilet ... or whatever. It's a weird pocket of privilege over there and I feel for the families just making ends meet to send their kids and being stuck surrounded by such attitudes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Per pupil funding is pretty comparable across schools. The variation comes mostly from enrollment and sped. Janney would also see a significant bump I bet if you weren’t using average salary (obvs salary tied to seniority doesn’t necessarily track with quality blah blah).

The crazy thing about that email is how openly it acknowledges that Janney is only nominally a public school, and that making it acceptable for rich kids means raising a ton of money every year.

Yeah. I am the PP that noted how much DC spends and feel sick by the comments about all the money going to SE and being "flushed" down the toilet ... or whatever. It's a weird pocket of privilege over there and I feel for the families just making ends meet to send their kids and being stuck surrounded by such attitudes.

I do not think those comments are from Janney parents, or at least not any that I know and definitely not a prevalent attitude. Please take everything on here with a grain of salt, it is an anonymous board, which is great for many purposes but you have no idea who is actually posting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Per pupil funding is pretty comparable across schools. The variation comes mostly from enrollment and sped. Janney would also see a significant bump I bet if you weren’t using average salary (obvs salary tied to seniority doesn’t necessarily track with quality blah blah).

The crazy thing about that email is how openly it acknowledges that Janney is only nominally a public school, and that making it acceptable for rich kids means raising a ton of money every year.

Not true at all.

At our kids' school (not Janney, but close) the school gets less than $10k per pupil.

At other schools SE they get over $18k per pupil (not to mention school palaces costing over $100m)

They get more because they need more in terms of academics and social, emotional support. If in 20-21 your school admitted 30-50% at-risk kids, your per pupil allocation would increase too. Is it really worth the trade off to you?

Of course they do. And the taxes paid by others in the city provides that extra money. But you don’t want those others to further subsidize DCPS by contributing to their own kids’ school.

+1.

Welcome to Absurdistan.

[Anonymous]

Just looked it up.

DCPS gives Janney, everything included, $10k per kid.

It gives CW Harris $19k per kid. And $15-18k per kid to a ton other of the "lowest-performing" schools.

Crazy world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just looked it up.

DCPS gives Janney, everything included, $10k per kid.

It gives CW Harris $19k per kid. And $15-18k per kid to a ton other of the "lowest-performing" schools.

Crazy world.

That seems right to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Per pupil funding is pretty comparable across schools. The variation comes mostly from enrollment and sped. Janney would also see a significant bump I bet if you weren’t using average salary (obvs salary tied to seniority doesn’t necessarily track with quality blah blah).

The crazy thing about that email is how openly it acknowledges that Janney is only nominally a public school, and that making it acceptable for rich kids means raising a ton of money every year.

Not true at all.

At our kids' school (not Janney, but close) the school gets less than $10k per pupil.

At other schools SE they get over $18k per pupil (not to mention school palaces costing over $100m)

They get more because they need more in terms of academics and social, emotional support. If in 20-21 your school admitted 30-50% at-risk kids, your per pupil allocation would increase too. Is it really worth the trade off to you?

Of course they do. And the taxes paid by others in the city provides that extra money. But you don’t want those others to further subsidize DCPS by contributing to their own kids’ school.

+1.

Welcome to Absurdistan.

It's true that people with more money pay more in taxes and kids with special needs get disproportionately more resources, but it's also true that private subsidization of schools like Janney incentivizes wealthy and powerful parents to resist overall school funding increases via higher taxes because they don't need that system to get their own kid's school to "adequate" and they are "already paying." Plus as pointed out before the inequities for general ed students created by the funding formula pale in comparison to the supplemental stuff from parents at some of these schools particularly for general ed students because so much of the bump in the per pupil is sped costs but general ed students at Janney get a ton of PTA-funded extras.

The real question imo is what will happen in some of the charter schools where you have a combination of very dedicated, powerful, and wealthy activist parents and a significant portion of students with more typical backgrounds/families. It's such an inefficient way to make schools imo but also seems more promising than the Janney PTA model given that there are so few low income Janney families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just looked it up.

DCPS gives Janney, everything included, $10k per kid.

It gives CW Harris $19k per kid. And $15-18k per kid to a ton other of the "lowest-performing" schools.

Crazy world.

What's crazy is people who turn a blind eye to extreme, systemic poverty and repetitive trauma across generations, and then thinks it's unfair that kids who need more support services get it in order to succeed when your kids are doing fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just looked it up.

DCPS gives Janney, everything included, $10k per kid.

It gives CW Harris $19k per kid. And $15-18k per kid to a ton other of the "lowest-performing" schools.

Crazy world.

Do you realize that CW Harris hosts 3 specialized, self-contained classrooms for students with serious disabilities? That alone increases the funding per student because the adult/student ratios must be so much lower and in many cases special equipment is needed.

All of you who are triggered by schools serving high-needs children of all descriptions thinking that they are getting something your kids are entitled to make me ill.

If you can't be empathetic to those children and their families you could at least be thankful that your kids don't need those services and haven't experienced trauma and poverty. There but for the grace of god ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh, seems like a horrible school community. I'm sure there are many normal parents there, but it looks like they are not represented among the PTA decision-makers.

People put up with it to send their kids to the best elementary school in DC.

Oyster is better but go on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just looked it up.

DCPS gives Janney, everything included, $10k per kid.

It gives CW Harris $19k per kid. And $15-18k per kid to a ton other of the "lowest-performing" schools.

Crazy world.

Do you realize that CW Harris hosts 3 specialized, self-contained classrooms for students with serious disabilities? That alone increases the funding per student because the adult/student ratios must be so much lower and in many cases special equipment is needed.

All of you who are triggered by schools serving high-needs children of all descriptions thinking that they are getting something your kids are entitled to make me ill.

If you can't be empathetic to those children and their families you could at least be thankful that your kids don't need those services and haven't experienced trauma and poverty. There but for the grace of god ...

Yah, the enrollment+minimum numbers (the baseline) are $8,636 for Janney and $9187 for Harris. That's essentially even considering Harris is so much smaller but they both have basic admin structure. Harris has $5k "per pupil" SPED funding but that's obviously a misleading average considering the high needs kids they serve. They also get $2k/kid from Title and High Risk funding. But there are almost no high risk/title kids at Janney.

So (appreciating that this is kind of a silly exercise because kids experience a school not their "per pupil" number) general ed, non-low income kids at Harris and at Janney would get roughly the same per pupil funding, but only the kid at Janney would get the supplemental $1k+ from parent fundraising. Of course there are no or almost no general ed, non-low income kids at Harris and only a smattering of high risk kids at Janney.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Per pupil funding is pretty comparable across schools. The variation comes mostly from enrollment and sped. Janney would also see a significant bump I bet if you weren’t using average salary (obvs salary tied to seniority doesn’t necessarily track with quality blah blah).

The crazy thing about that email is how openly it acknowledges that Janney is only nominally a public school, and that making it acceptable for rich kids means raising a ton of money every year.

Not true at all.

At our kids' school (not Janney, but close) the school gets less than $10k per pupil.

At other schools SE they get over $18k per pupil (not to mention school palaces costing over $100m)

They get more because they need more in terms of academics and social, emotional support. If in 20-21 your school admitted 30-50% at-risk kids, your per pupil allocation would increase too. Is it really worth the trade off to you?

Of course they do. And the taxes paid by others in the city provides that extra money. But you don’t want those others to further subsidize DCPS by contributing to their own kids’ school.

+1.

Welcome to Absurdistan.

It's true that people with more money pay more in taxes and kids with special needs get disproportionately more resources, but it's also true that private subsidization of schools like Janney incentivizes wealthy and powerful parents to resist overall school funding increases via higher taxes because they don't need that system to get their own kid's school to "adequate" and they are "already paying." Plus as pointed out before the inequities for general ed students created by the funding formula pale in comparison to the supplemental stuff from parents at some of these schools particularly for general ed students because so much of the bump in the per pupil is sped costs but general ed students at Janney get a ton of PTA-funded extras.

The real question imo is what will happen in some of the charter schools where you have a combination of very dedicated, powerful, and wealthy activist parents and a significant portion of students with more typical backgrounds/families. It's such an inefficient way to make schools imo but also seems more promising than the Janney PTA model given that there are so few low income Janney families.

Who are these people who resist funding schools? How do you know this is true?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Per pupil funding is pretty comparable across schools. The variation comes mostly from enrollment and sped. Janney would also see a significant bump I bet if you weren’t using average salary (obvs salary tied to seniority doesn’t necessarily track with quality blah blah).

The crazy thing about that email is how openly it acknowledges that Janney is only nominally a public school, and that making it acceptable for rich kids means raising a ton of money every year.

Not true at all.

At our kids' school (not Janney, but close) the school gets less than $10k per pupil.

At other schools SE they get over $18k per pupil (not to mention school palaces costing over $100m)

They get more because they need more in terms of academics and social, emotional support. If in 20-21 your school admitted 30-50% at-risk kids, your per pupil allocation would increase too. Is it really worth the trade off to you?

Of course they do. And the taxes paid by others in the city provides that extra money. But you don’t want those others to further subsidize DCPS by contributing to their own kids’ school.

+1.

Welcome to Absurdistan.

It's true that people with more money pay more in taxes and kids with special needs get disproportionately more resources, but it's also true that private subsidization of schools like Janney incentivizes wealthy and powerful parents to resist overall school funding increases via higher taxes because they don't need that system to get their own kid's school to "adequate" and they are "already paying." Plus as pointed out before the inequities for general ed students created by the funding formula pale in comparison to the supplemental stuff from parents at some of these schools particularly for general ed students because so much of the bump in the per pupil is sped costs but general ed students at Janney get a ton of PTA-funded extras.

The real question imo is what will happen in some of the charter schools where you have a combination of very dedicated, powerful, and wealthy activist parents and a significant portion of students with more typical backgrounds/families. It's such an inefficient way to make schools imo but also seems more promising than the Janney PTA model given that there are so few low income Janney families.

Who are these people who resist funding schools? How do you know this is true?

Okay well we figured out that non-at risk general ed kids at Janney get at least a $1k per pupil advantage over similar kids at Harris, right? (There aren't any at Harris but whatev). Suppose the city council proposed a tax increase to create a "Janney Minimum" funding stream to match whatever PTA funds and fees Janney charges for general ed, non-at risk kids in all other DCPS schools minus whatever their PTAs raise. Do you think that increase would have broad support in Ward 3?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Per pupil funding is pretty comparable across schools. The variation comes mostly from enrollment and sped. Janney would also see a significant bump I bet if you weren’t using average salary (obvs salary tied to seniority doesn’t necessarily track with quality blah blah).

The crazy thing about that email is how openly it acknowledges that Janney is only nominally a public school, and that making it acceptable for rich kids means raising a ton of money every year.

Not true at all.

At our kids' school (not Janney, but close) the school gets less than $10k per pupil.

At other schools SE they get over $18k per pupil (not to mention school palaces costing over $100m)

They get more because they need more in terms of academics and social, emotional support. If in 20-21 your school admitted 30-50% at-risk kids, your per pupil allocation would increase too. Is it really worth the trade off to you?

Of course they do. And the taxes paid by others in the city provides that extra money. But you don’t want those others to further subsidize DCPS by contributing to their own kids’ school.

+1.

Welcome to Absurdistan.

It's true that people with more money pay more in taxes and kids with special needs get disproportionately more resources, but it's also true that private subsidization of schools like Janney incentivizes wealthy and powerful parents to resist overall school funding increases via higher taxes because they don't need that system to get their own kid's school to "adequate" and they are "already paying." Plus as pointed out before the inequities for general ed students created by the funding formula pale in comparison to the supplemental stuff from parents at some of these schools particularly for general ed students because so much of the bump in the per pupil is sped costs but general ed students at Janney get a ton of PTA-funded extras.

The real question imo is what will happen in some of the charter schools where you have a combination of very dedicated, powerful, and wealthy activist parents and a significant portion of students with more typical backgrounds/families. It's such an inefficient way to make schools imo but also seems more promising than the Janney PTA model given that there are so few low income Janney families.

Who are these people who resist funding schools? How do you know this is true?

Okay well we figured out that non-at risk general ed kids at Janney get at least a $1k per pupil advantage over similar kids at Harris, right? (There aren't any at Harris but whatev). Suppose the city council proposed a tax increase to create a "Janney Minimum" funding stream to match whatever PTA funds and fees Janney charges for general ed, non-at risk kids in all other DCPS schools minus whatever their PTAs raise. Do you think that increase would have broad support in Ward 3?

To clarify, let's imagine that this minimum is based on a five year average at Janney with some sort of reasonable automatic increase, so the parents at Janney can stop fundraising and keep their average (+reasonable increase) via the fund but if they raise more funds, the average goes up, the tax goes up, and the funding level goes up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just looked it up.

DCPS gives Janney, everything included, $10k per kid.

It gives CW Harris $19k per kid. And $15-18k per kid to a ton other of the "lowest-performing" schools.

Crazy world.

Do you realize that CW Harris hosts 3 specialized, self-contained classrooms for students with serious disabilities? That alone increases the funding per student because the adult/student ratios must be so much lower and in many cases special equipment is needed.

All of you who are triggered by schools serving high-needs children of all descriptions thinking that they are getting something your kids are entitled to make me ill.

If you can't be empathetic to those children and their families you could at least be thankful that your kids don't need those services and haven't experienced trauma and poverty. There but for the grace of god ...

Yah, the enrollment+minimum numbers (the baseline) are $8,636 for Janney and $9187 for Harris. That's essentially even considering Harris is so much smaller but they both have basic admin structure. Harris has $5k "per pupil" SPED funding but that's obviously a misleading average considering the high needs kids they serve. They also get $2k/kid from Title and High Risk funding. But there are almost no high risk/title kids at Janney.

So (appreciating that this is kind of a silly exercise because kids experience a school not their "per pupil" number) general ed, non-low income kids at Harris and at Janney would get roughly the same per pupil funding, but only the kid at Janney would get the supplemental $1k+ from parent fundraising. Of course there are no or almost no general ed, non-low income kids at Harris and only a smattering of high risk kids at Janney.

So it's perfectly fine for base per pupil funding at Harris to be $550 greater than Janney, but if Janney parents donate so that the per pupil amount at Janney ends up $450 greater than Harris that is wrong, wrong, wrong!

First, the PTA contribution at Janney is likely meaningfully less than $1000/pupil (not my school; I'm guessing based on what I know based of my kids' school). Remember that a significant number of people -- appropriately -- don't donate or donate less than whatever is asked.

Second, there is not a movement to reduce school funding in DC. PTA contributions are not in conflict with tax paying. And if there are any grumblings are school funding, it's from people who don't use the public schools, not the public-school-using, PTA-donating parents.

Third, is money really DCPS's biggest deficiency? How the money gets spent may be questionable, but the overall budget is not skimpy. Arguably, DC should be spending more outside of the schools to support needy families with problems that now get dumped on the schools.

Fourth, do you really think that if Janney PTA raised no money, that that would somehow benefit the Harris students? The most likely outcome is that the Janney parents would be lobbying for equalizing the base per pupil funding, which would only hurt the Harris students.

Fifth, if the donor parents didn't contribute to their PTA, they would still likely spend that money on their kids. The benefits just wouldn't be shared by their schoolmates.

I get the frustration with social and economic inequities. But this is a weird focus for addressing the inequities in our society. There are so many more-substantive issues with truly negative consequences rather than hyped-up, theoretical ones. I just don't see any benefit to discouraging people from adding money to the public school pie.

And, yeah, I would have been turned off by the shaming fundraising letter too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Per pupil funding is pretty comparable across schools. The variation comes mostly from enrollment and sped. Janney would also see a significant bump I bet if you weren’t using average salary (obvs salary tied to seniority doesn’t necessarily track with quality blah blah).

The crazy thing about that email is how openly it acknowledges that Janney is only nominally a public school, and that making it acceptable for rich kids means raising a ton of money every year.

Not true at all.

At our kids' school (not Janney, but close) the school gets less than $10k per pupil.

At other schools SE they get over $18k per pupil (not to mention school palaces costing over $100m)

They get more because they need more in terms of academics and social, emotional support. If in 20-21 your school admitted 30-50% at-risk kids, your per pupil allocation would increase too. Is it really worth the trade off to you?

Of course they do. And the taxes paid by others in the city provides that extra money. But you don’t want those others to further subsidize DCPS by contributing to their own kids’ school.

+1.

Welcome to Absurdistan.

It's true that people with more money pay more in taxes and kids with special needs get disproportionately more resources, but it's also true that private subsidization of schools like Janney incentivizes wealthy and powerful parents to resist overall school funding increases via higher taxes because they don't need that system to get their own kid's school to "adequate" and they are "already paying." Plus as pointed out before the inequities for general ed students created by the funding formula pale in comparison to the supplemental stuff from parents at some of these schools particularly for general ed students because so much of the bump in the per pupil is sped costs but general ed students at Janney get a ton of PTA-funded extras.

The real question imo is what will happen in some of the charter schools where you have a combination of very dedicated, powerful, and wealthy activist parents and a significant portion of students with more typical backgrounds/families. It's such an inefficient way to make schools imo but also seems more promising than the Janney PTA model given that there are so few low income Janney families.

Who are these people who resist funding schools? How do you know this is true?

Okay well we figured out that non-at risk general ed kids at Janney get at least a $1k per pupil advantage over similar kids at Harris, right? (There aren't any at Harris but whatev). Suppose the city council proposed a tax increase to create a "Janney Minimum" funding stream to match whatever PTA funds and fees Janney charges for general ed, non-at risk kids in all other DCPS schools minus whatever their PTAs raise. Do you think that increase would have broad support in Ward 3?

So are you withdrawing your BS assertion about support for school funding?