My kids' public magnet elementary school has always done this and includes your PTA membership with it! We love it. The community and the way the PTA and parents support the school is the number one reason we are at this school.
These are all great initiatives!! I feel like our PTA is great but I would also happily just give them the amount of money needed, especially if it would make things more equitable for other students. We are a Title 1 school.
Reducing my mental load is just icing on the cake!
The school district my daughter teaches has this sort of program. They purchase all the school supplies for K-12 based on teacher input. It is entirely funded by the local Stilliguamish Tribe. They also funded a splash pad at the local park and provided an immense amount of aid when the Oso slide happened back in 2014.
I love this idea. I was impressed when my son’s new school used a school supply company and we got to just order a box of everything the teacher requested, no shopping necessary. But then at back to school night I learned that there was a miscommunication and they had 2 different lists so a bunch of us were missing things, ugh. Hopefully ordering all supplies for the whole school in bulk with the administration involved would ensure teachers actually get what they wanted and all students get what they need. Yes please do share any proposal as I definitely plan to share this idea with our PTA
I’m thankful our school does supplies the same way plus a donation to the PTA included in the fee. They also have a suggested donation for centralized teacher gifts. However we still get random sign ups throughout the year for bringing in cups, plates and snacks for Halloween, Valentine’s Day, etc celebrations and I’d so much rather just give money! I don’t need to add another thing to my to do list and of course the mental load of these things falls mostly on moms. One other positive in my town is the rec department has partnered with the high school sports teams to offer low cost clinics on the days off from school, but they’re 3 hours max so doesn’t fill the whole childcare need.
this is brilliant and really hits home how we can both make life better for individuals and help the community overall, with one move. these things don't have to be oppositional!
Thank you for the NC update. Our school pta does provide school supplies in this way but not snacks, which I think is a good idea. (We do have universal free lunch which is amazing. I am in CA) There is a lot of parental and teacher tension in our school around “unhealthy” snacks/food policing which makes it difficult to organize around snacks.
that's interesting about the unhealthy snacks tensions. the universal snack program offers a lot of fresh fruit which is a major improvement so i think complaints are minimal.
Yes! 🙏🏻🙏🏻 to CA and universal lunch (and at our school, breakfast, too) for all. I am still trying to understand the financials of my sons’s elementary school. It’s a public charter. So it follows some of the school district’s systems (ie lunch), and the teachers are unionized, but it has a lot of flexibility in curriculum (it is a social-justice oriented, project-based school).
The school also provides all school supplies, which is more equitable, as Katherine’s article explains, and doesn’t feed into the “what to add to your Amazon prime day” list from influencers, which I can’t stand.
The PTA is active, some teachers use DonorsChoose for additional classroom items, but I’m bewildered by how things are funded (grants? I also think we’re a Title 1 school, but does that apply to charters? Per pupil attendance?)
Just sharing as I consider myself a fairly engaged local citizen, and yet, there’s so much I still need to learn about my kid’s school!
And sharing as a personal example of me being pleasantly wrong: I told myself I would NEVER go the charter school route (daughter of a proud unionized public school teacher) but the school offered location/aftercare convenience that made it hard to resist. And I’ve been floored by how open, supportive and excellent the school is.
Whoa! This was so long! Katherine, you really got me curious about important questions!!
school systems/politics are so complex you do really have to be proactive about educating yourself. Title 1 is a categorization that is a percentage of kids who are under a certain income level, and it's evaluated yearly. title 1 schools are eligible for additional federal funds. But I myself don't know how this works with public charters!
Title 1 is based on the percentage of low income students. They usually use the number of kids who qualify for free and reduced lunch to determine if a school is Title 1. So it totally is possible for a charter to be Title 1. And then, yes, you get more resources overall. It’s, also, possible that the school could stop being Title 1 if the population of students changes.
Yes!!! PS6 in Manhattan does the same for school supplies. No need to collect money for snacks because NYC DOE provides free food for all students regardless of income. It’s pretty amazing.
This article shows how a poorly performing school district in Maryland turned on the success by educating teachers in the cognitive science of learning. Their core ideas are the essence of "Finnish Lessons 3.0" the seminal book on how Finland turned their school system from bottom of the barrel to best in the world. In Maryland they show there's no reason we can't do it here too. Please check out Korbey's article. It provides real hope!
(You can look for my writing on special education in America at Substack Kathleen Cawley)
I was the PTCO president for 2 years and I was shocked to learn that most fundraising efforts only bring in 20% of profit. I tried moving us to more direct donations and was met with pushback that it was impolite to just ask for the amount of money needed. I also suggested paying for school supplies for all kids and I was met with the same pushback, that it would be too hard.
I am no longer PTCO president or associated with the PTCO at all.
PTAs and all volunteer organizations can have difficult and entrenched cultures that are resistant to change, and they burn out volunteers who give a lot, get frustrated, and then don't want to be involved. I'm sorry you had such a negative experience. one positive is that leadership and parents do turnover so sometimes you just have to wait a year or two and try again with an idea.
You're right about waiting it out. A friend that I recruited to the PTCO board turned out to be someone I could not actually work with, so I decided to step away in hopes that I could at least regain our friendship. Time will tell. I was able to step away from the PTCO because we live in a wealthy school district where the things provided by the PTCO are icing on the cake, rather than actual needs. And the PTCO in our district has no involvement with academics. There are other groups for that, and I've joined them.
My time on the PTCO wasn't wasted, though. I learned so much about leading a non-profit, all-volunteer organization. And I learned so much about how the school system in our district works. And fundraising! I learned so much about fundraising.
My kids' public magnet elementary school has always done this and includes your PTA membership with it! We love it. The community and the way the PTA and parents support the school is the number one reason we are at this school.
I love that idea of including the membership with it. We do this for school supplies but I think I’ll pass along this tidbit to the president.
These are all great initiatives!! I feel like our PTA is great but I would also happily just give them the amount of money needed, especially if it would make things more equitable for other students. We are a Title 1 school.
Reducing my mental load is just icing on the cake!
send this to them and see if it inspires!
The school district my daughter teaches has this sort of program. They purchase all the school supplies for K-12 based on teacher input. It is entirely funded by the local Stilliguamish Tribe. They also funded a splash pad at the local park and provided an immense amount of aid when the Oso slide happened back in 2014.
I love this idea. I was impressed when my son’s new school used a school supply company and we got to just order a box of everything the teacher requested, no shopping necessary. But then at back to school night I learned that there was a miscommunication and they had 2 different lists so a bunch of us were missing things, ugh. Hopefully ordering all supplies for the whole school in bulk with the administration involved would ensure teachers actually get what they wanted and all students get what they need. Yes please do share any proposal as I definitely plan to share this idea with our PTA
here's more details on snacks for all: https://thedoubleshift.substack.com/p/how-to-bring-universal-snack-program
awesome lisa!
I’m thankful our school does supplies the same way plus a donation to the PTA included in the fee. They also have a suggested donation for centralized teacher gifts. However we still get random sign ups throughout the year for bringing in cups, plates and snacks for Halloween, Valentine’s Day, etc celebrations and I’d so much rather just give money! I don’t need to add another thing to my to do list and of course the mental load of these things falls mostly on moms. One other positive in my town is the rec department has partnered with the high school sports teams to offer low cost clinics on the days off from school, but they’re 3 hours max so doesn’t fill the whole childcare need.
i love the rec partnership. it's at least a start in trying to fill a very big need.
Totally, it’s a step in the right direction
Do you know if they have a write up of this somewhere? Maybe the proposal they used? Would love to share this idea with our school.
working on it, stay tuned
here's how snacks for all works: https://thedoubleshift.substack.com/p/how-to-bring-universal-snack-program
this is brilliant and really hits home how we can both make life better for individuals and help the community overall, with one move. these things don't have to be oppositional!
also, sending love (and money) to NC.
thank you on both fronts. i really feel like this a such a positive example that I hope inspires other schools.
Thank you for the NC update. Our school pta does provide school supplies in this way but not snacks, which I think is a good idea. (We do have universal free lunch which is amazing. I am in CA) There is a lot of parental and teacher tension in our school around “unhealthy” snacks/food policing which makes it difficult to organize around snacks.
that's interesting about the unhealthy snacks tensions. the universal snack program offers a lot of fresh fruit which is a major improvement so i think complaints are minimal.
I love that your pta did a calculation that shows it saves families money to do it this way. That’s smart!
i agree! definitely takes makes writing the check even easier for me!
more on snacks here: https://thedoubleshift.substack.com/p/how-to-bring-universal-snack-program
Yes! 🙏🏻🙏🏻 to CA and universal lunch (and at our school, breakfast, too) for all. I am still trying to understand the financials of my sons’s elementary school. It’s a public charter. So it follows some of the school district’s systems (ie lunch), and the teachers are unionized, but it has a lot of flexibility in curriculum (it is a social-justice oriented, project-based school).
The school also provides all school supplies, which is more equitable, as Katherine’s article explains, and doesn’t feed into the “what to add to your Amazon prime day” list from influencers, which I can’t stand.
The PTA is active, some teachers use DonorsChoose for additional classroom items, but I’m bewildered by how things are funded (grants? I also think we’re a Title 1 school, but does that apply to charters? Per pupil attendance?)
Just sharing as I consider myself a fairly engaged local citizen, and yet, there’s so much I still need to learn about my kid’s school!
And sharing as a personal example of me being pleasantly wrong: I told myself I would NEVER go the charter school route (daughter of a proud unionized public school teacher) but the school offered location/aftercare convenience that made it hard to resist. And I’ve been floored by how open, supportive and excellent the school is.
Whoa! This was so long! Katherine, you really got me curious about important questions!!
school systems/politics are so complex you do really have to be proactive about educating yourself. Title 1 is a categorization that is a percentage of kids who are under a certain income level, and it's evaluated yearly. title 1 schools are eligible for additional federal funds. But I myself don't know how this works with public charters!
Title 1 is based on the percentage of low income students. They usually use the number of kids who qualify for free and reduced lunch to determine if a school is Title 1. So it totally is possible for a charter to be Title 1. And then, yes, you get more resources overall. It’s, also, possible that the school could stop being Title 1 if the population of students changes.
Our school has a flat fee of $40 for school supplies, which they then buy in bulk. It’s absolutely the best thing.
Yes!!! PS6 in Manhattan does the same for school supplies. No need to collect money for snacks because NYC DOE provides free food for all students regardless of income. It’s pretty amazing.
Amazing
Hi,
Here's as truly genius idea that every school district in America should try. It's detailed in:
What happens when a 48K school district commits to the science of learning? Holly Korbey, The74, 9/23/2024 -
https://www.the74million.org/article/what-happens-when-a-48k-student-district-commits-to-the-science-of-
This article shows how a poorly performing school district in Maryland turned on the success by educating teachers in the cognitive science of learning. Their core ideas are the essence of "Finnish Lessons 3.0" the seminal book on how Finland turned their school system from bottom of the barrel to best in the world. In Maryland they show there's no reason we can't do it here too. Please check out Korbey's article. It provides real hope!
(You can look for my writing on special education in America at Substack Kathleen Cawley)
I was the PTCO president for 2 years and I was shocked to learn that most fundraising efforts only bring in 20% of profit. I tried moving us to more direct donations and was met with pushback that it was impolite to just ask for the amount of money needed. I also suggested paying for school supplies for all kids and I was met with the same pushback, that it would be too hard.
I am no longer PTCO president or associated with the PTCO at all.
PTAs and all volunteer organizations can have difficult and entrenched cultures that are resistant to change, and they burn out volunteers who give a lot, get frustrated, and then don't want to be involved. I'm sorry you had such a negative experience. one positive is that leadership and parents do turnover so sometimes you just have to wait a year or two and try again with an idea.
You're right about waiting it out. A friend that I recruited to the PTCO board turned out to be someone I could not actually work with, so I decided to step away in hopes that I could at least regain our friendship. Time will tell. I was able to step away from the PTCO because we live in a wealthy school district where the things provided by the PTCO are icing on the cake, rather than actual needs. And the PTCO in our district has no involvement with academics. There are other groups for that, and I've joined them.
My time on the PTCO wasn't wasted, though. I learned so much about leading a non-profit, all-volunteer organization. And I learned so much about how the school system in our district works. And fundraising! I learned so much about fundraising.