Letter to the editor: Roosevelt High School PTSA responds to KUOW PTA article
Dear KUOW,
You recently published an article titled “Here’s why rich Seattle schools can afford extra teachers and fancy gadgets,” that contained several misleading statements with regard to Roosevelt High School. This letter is an attempt to set the record straight.
[Read the story: Here's why rich Seattle schools can afford extra teachers and fancy gadgets ]
First, your figures for Roosevelt High School’s assets may not be correct, and are definitely misleading when reported as a whole, rather than by source. The Roosevelt High School Foundation has amassed an endowment of $2 million (including investment growth) over the last 14 years. Over that time it has distributed $650,000 to the school, and is now granting $90,000 per year. The Roosevelt High School PTSA has a budget of under $20,000 this year. The Foundation and the PTSA are completely separate entities - the PTSA has no say in how Foundation funds are spent, and vice versa. While your article says, “The schools fundraising groups have nearly $3 million in assets,” the title of one of your graphics is “What each Seattle PTA has in assets and income,” leading readers to incorrectly believe at a glance that $3 million represents RHS PTSA assets.
Second, while your graphics, when explored carefully, do show that Roosevelt High School assets aren’t used to pay for staff, the article’s title and initial focus on Roosevelt High School, subsequently followed by broad brush statements, implicates Roosevelt in using PTA funds for staff hiring. In fact, the RHS PTSA and the RHS Foundation have explicitly rejected using funds for hiring staff. Furthermore, the Washington State PTA, with which RHS PTSA and many other Seattle area PTSAs are affiliated, under Resolution 4.13 specifically “advises affiliated PTAs to use their resources to enhance every student’s educational experience through funding of programs and activities outside of the regular school program rather than by providing resources for additional staff during the school day.”
Third, your article makes clear that Title I schools receive federal funds for extra staff to meet the needs of their students and “level the playing field.” However, this statement dismisses the fact that there are students with financial, family, and special education needs and hardships in Roosevelt High School. Although these students are in the minority, they still need extra assistance from qualified staff - assistance that is not provided by either federal, state, PTA, or Foundation funds. So, our school needs to be creative to find ways to provide these students the assistance they need to succeed.
Finally, since your article puts Roosevelt High School front and center in the PTA funding debate, it would have been appropriate to contact our PTSA for comments and clarifications. As far as we know, no one on our Board was ever contacted by KUOW. Had we been contacted, we would have been happy to make the clarifications above known to you. We also would have let you know that the Roosevelt PTSA is currently having discussions on how best to use its funds and influence to promote equity for all RHS and Seattle public school students.
Sincerely,
Roosevelt High School PTSA Board
Natalya Yudkovsky, RHS PTSA Legislative Chair
Laura Wolff, RHS PTSA President
Elida Moran, RHS PTSA Vice-President
Sonja Tarrago, RHS PTSA Secretary
Jacqui Kramer, RHS PTSA VP of Communications
Rachel McCracken, RHS PTSA Treasurer
Monica Mace, RHS PTSA VP of Class Funds
Editor response: This story examined how much parent groups fundraise and what they pay for at Seattle public schools. Some raise money through foundations, others through PTAs and booster clubs. The article by Isolde Raftery noted throughout that Roosevelt High School’s total assets (raised by parents and alumni) come from these groups, not just the PTSA. To omit the foundation or booster clubs would be misleading, as Roosevelt uses the foundation as the primary fundraising vehicle.
