At Scotts Valley High, a school eight miles north of Santa Cruz, the track is made of dirt.
At Roy Cloud Elementary, which sits in the lush Emerald Hills neighborhood of Redwood City, that donation request is $750 per student — money that pays for the school’s garden science program, social-emotional learning initiatives, musical theater classes and more. And at many others, parents are asked for whatever they can give, from El Cerrito High’s pay-what-you-can suggestion to Dublin High’s dollar-a-day annual ask.
The answer lies in the way California pays for public education, and how different policies and rising costs have changed funding formulas over time. In 1978, Proposition 13 capped local property tax rates and shrunk funding for public schools. Personnel costs have skyrocketed; today,on public school students goes to health, benefit and pension costs for staff, according to an analysis from the Public Policy Institute of California .
Because of that, parent-teacher organizations and education funds — nonprofits set up to channel money toward specific school districts — have stepped in across the state. They pay for the salaries of librarians, music and art teachers; school supplies, technology and school counselors. And the more funds they receive, the more the opportunities at a school can multiply.
Librarian Paizley Spencer, right, works with students in the Love Elementary School library on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023, in Alameda, Calif. The Parent-Teacher Association at the school has funded books, desks, and carpets for the library. “The reason we ask for so much is because of how much we actually fund for the students,” said Alison Oldford, the president of Roy Cloud Elementary’s parent-teacher organization in Redwood City.
“We know that there is a huge difference in the amount of resources that parents can contribute to their schools,” said Sara Alexander, the executive director of the Redwood City Education Foundation. “On one end, we have schools that can easily raise $800,000 annually to bridge the gap between what the school district provides and what their students need. And on the other end, we have schools with no PTO at all — which means there are zero dollars coming in beyond what the district can give.
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Source: Newsweek - 🏆 468. / 52 Read more »