Dear Members of the SMMUSD Board of Education:
I am a parent with children at Lincoln and at Franklin and have some comments
and questions regarding the current push to centralize PTA fundraising efforts:
1. Goals? Although an achievement gap exists within SMMUSD,
I haven’t yet seen the Board identify and articulate the perceived sources of
this gap. What specific tools and resources do you believe will help close this
gap (i.e., raise API and AYP scores at our under-performing schools), what do
these resources cost, and when/how will you measure their success if
implemented? I find it quite puzzling that you seek to put a policy in place
without determining the foregoing.
2. Legwork to Identify Inequities/Publicizing Site Budgets? What research have
you done to clearly identify & articulate any existing inequities in funding?
Have you compared Site budgets district-wide, line-by-line? Have you determined
whether available Site budget resources are being used effectively at each Site?
I do not understand why you are focusing on PTA budgets before making public and
reviewing Site budgets, as PTA budgets provide a mere fraction of the resources
given to each Site. The focus on PTA budgets before examining Site budgets is
akin to fiddling with your sail when your boat has a leak. The public expects
the Board to conduct a Site budget analysis and, additionally, demonstrate to
us where inequities, if any, are occurring within these budgets.
Possibly inequities may actually occur in favor of our Title I schools. Do you
not want the public to see that for some reason? For instance, Title I schools
may use their funds for, among other things:
• intervention programs/software (like Success Maker and Lexia),
• parent education programs and events
• reading labs
• counseling
• professional development
• community liaisons
• classroom supplies above a certain amount
• copy equipment and services
At Franklin, in contrast, we cannot use Site budget resources for the foregoing
and so our PTA has to raise over $60,000 annually just to cover these basics.
3. Per Student Spending Site-by-Site? In short, what is per student spending
by SMMUSD at each Site (taking into account all available resources, excluding
PTA funds)? Are there inequities in per student spending Site-to-Site?
4. Talking to the experts & other stakeholders: Have you met with principals
across SMMUSD to identify the tools and resources they have found to be most
effective at improving student performance? Have you facilitated consensus
among these Site leaders as to what best practices are? Again – please
communicate what best practices are, how much do they cost, and if implemented
where absent now, when/how will you measure their success? And have you
solicited input from teaching specialists, other administrators, and parents?
If not, why not?
5. Failure of the Equity Fund: It seems that you would not be pursuing a new
equitable funding strategy had the Equity Fund been a success. Do you believe
the Equity Fund has failed and should be dismantled? If so, what lessons can we
learn from its failure? How were Equity Funds spent Site-by-Site and why did
those expenditures not do more to close the achievement gap? When can PTAs cease
contributing to the Equity Fund?
6. Openness is the Key: Why have you not yet communicated directly about this
key issue to parents? Why did I have to find out about this in the Daily Press?
If you seek a buy-in from all your stakeholders, you must make this process open
from top to bottom. Open your discussions, publicize the issue(s) on the table,
open the Site budgets, discuss and publicize per student spending, review the
failures of the Equity Fund, work with your principals and other stakeholders,
and really take a new and fresh look at things so you can propose some very
targeted and specific goals that the whole SMMUSD community may rally around.
This would include immediately constituting a committee to take an active role
in shaping the goals and outcome of this process. The committee would include a
PTA representative from every school in the District. Once the goals and policy
are finalized, each PTA must be given a seat on the Financial Oversight
Committee or on a new Centralized Fundraising Committee to review where all
dollars raised and spent end up.
7. Timing and Process: Obviously, I believe the Board has a lot more homework
to do. Developing a policy in the absence of clearly articulated goals based on
thorough & appropriate research is an ineffective way to come up with a plan for
meaningful change.
As presently conducted, this is a hastily-conceived process, shrouded in
secrecy, & imbued with politics, which has had the effect of generating anxiety
& Board mistrust throughout SMMUSD (that is, among stakeholders who have become
aware of what is going on).
In addition, the process so far has had the extremely unfortunate effect of
pitting schools against each other, in the local media no less. After the great
teamwork and success of the SOS and Y/YY campaigns last year, the last thing you
should want to do is engage in a process that undermines the goodwill and team
spirit generated by those efforts. Tragically, the process you have directed to
date has been community-destroying, not community-building. As a voter,
taxpayer, and SMMUSD parent, I expected more from you.
8. Give Ms. Lyons a Break: Our new superintendent has been on the job for
barely 3 months and you have tasked her with developing a policy that has the
potential to tear SMMUSD apart. While you are busy doing your own homework,
give her reasonable and adequate time to do hers. The radical change you are
contemplating isn’t something that should be done rashly or in great haste. If
you continue to proceed in that fashion, your end product will lack the
integrity crucial to its success.
9. Impact on Parent Involvement: PTA fundraising isn’t just about raising
money, it is at least as much about forming community and the bonds within every
Site that contribute significantly to the success of that Site’s student
population. Restrictions on fundraising, therefore, can lead to a disaffected,
non-cohesive parent population, with more migration of committed families to
private schools. This would be a very negative, though hopefully unintended,
effect of a revised policy on fundraising.
In conclusion, the course you’ve set us upon needs a major correction. The
timetable for development of even a mere policy is inadequate in my view, as I
haven’t seen articulated any research or investigation to inform that policy.
Without publicizing the Site budgets and per student spending at each Site,
focusing on PTA budgets is a ludicrous exercise. Leave PTA budgets and
fundraising efforts alone until you’ve done your homework. Following that, only
an open, collaborative, thorough, and inclusive process will yield a workable
proposal with a chance of being embraced district-wide.
Are you willing to take the appropriate time (be it months, a year, or several
years) to engage in this process?
As a Santa Monica citizen, taxpayer, voter, and parent, I look forward to a
prompt response from you regarding all the issues raised in this letter. And I
would welcome the opportunity to discuss my thoughts on this crucial matter with
any of you by phone or in person.
Thanks,
Ann B. Hoover
Advocates for Malibu Public Schools 