There has been some amount of public debate and 'blog' conversation in recent months about the reality of private sources of funding subsidizing individual school budgets in the Seattle Public Schools.  Since one source of these private funds is parent raised money, both local PTA grants and parent groups in schools that do not have a PTA, it seemed important that the Seattle Council PTSA ensure that the dialogue is enriched with the facts around this issue.  In the attached document, 2005-2006 Funding by School, the Grant Services Office in the Seattle Public Schools has provided the facts.  This document was developed at the request of the School Board and was made available to the Seattle Council PTSA upon request.  The document outlines by funding source where each school's budget comes from.  We are making the matrix available to you to enable you to draw your own conclusions based on these facts, and have some engaging dialogue around this topic.  The following are some points of background for your discussions:

-The Washington State PTA discourages the use of PTA generated funds to subsidize basic education.

-Sources of private funds are not just PTA, nor are they a majority of those funds.  Most of our Seattle Public Schools without PTAs also receive private funds from their parents to enrich those individual school's budget.  Additionally, there are other sources of private funding that impact on a building by building basis.  These are mostly private foundation dollars that were granted to achieve specific objectives in a specific school.

-The practice of parent fundraising to subsidize their local school building budget started as a result of a change in the Weighted Student Formula (WSF) shortly after 2000-01 school year.  Then Superintendent Olchefske clearly stated that if parents didn't like the budget allocated to their schools, they were welcome to find private sources to backfill the money lost to schools with greater need.  In the years since then, the practice of parent funding subsidies to our public schools has grown but no evidence exists to demonstrate that the grants have ever resulted in recouping money lost due to changes in WSF reallocations.

The Seattle Council PTSA encourages the ongoing debate and we view it as a healthy and positive dialogue.  We further believe that this issue is a symptom and not the problem that requires resolution.  As a community, we need to work shoulder-to-shoulder and make clear to our leaders in Olympia that we need appropriate levels of funding for public education in the State of Washington to ensure success for all children.  Let's not let this issue divide us.  Please join us for several upcoming events focused on this topic!

Additional information regarding the data included in the 2005-2006 Funding by School:
. This data was created by the Grant Services Department within the Seattle Public Schools.  It represents their best representation of the sources of funds.  Many are summarized because the department manages over 15,000 individual grants per year and to identify each of them would be prohibitive.  The data is clearly labeled draft, so understand that it may change as they refine the information.
. There are footnotes at the bottom of page 2 that clarify what information is represented by the columns.  Please read those foot notes carefully.  Though it states that all PTA or parent group grants are in the Self Help column and this is mostly correct, it does not cover all of these grants. The column labeled 'Other Grants' also contains PTA or parent group money that has been in an account at the Alliance for Education.
. The column labeled 'PTA or Parent Group' indicates schools with PTAs only.  In most instances, the remaining schools have active and  supportive parent groups that are not affiliated with PTA. 

. The 'Self Help' funds are dollars that carry over and are not required to be spent each year.  It has been verified that in one elementary school sampled, the majority of the dollars have accumulated over several years and have not been spent.  So, for example,  the dollars shown may be the very same dollars from the previous year that went unspent.

. The Families & Education Levy dollars are excluded from this analysis.