Seattle Schools Community Forum: Back to the PTA Fundraising Sharing Discussion

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Back to the PTA Fundraising Sharing Discussion:

Back to the PTA Fundraising Sharing Discussion

We're revisiting this issue because it seems to be receiving more and more attention, both nationally and here in Seattle.  Again, this comes back to the question of equity which gets trickier because PTA is a private organization that encourages both kinds of parent engagement -  funding and volunteering in their child's public school.

I was reminded of this by a recent op-ed in the South Seattle Emerald.  Here's their headline which flips the idea of contributing money to your child's school on its ear:

Contributing to Inequity: White Parents Must Act to Change Seattle Public Schools’ Opportunity Gap
The piece was written by Hayden Bass and Vivian van Gelder who are parents of students in Seattle Public Schools.  Here's their basic premise:

White parents, then, are uniquely situated to challenge institutional racism in our education system – and conversely, to uphold the status quo by resisting the understanding that our system, as it is currently designed, does not distribute opportunity fairly.

So what to do?

A necessary first step is to educate ourselves about the historical and continuing factors driving our district’s shameful opportunity gap.

 These factors include poverty, redlining (which segregated the city), the way Seattle Schools Community Forum: Back to the PTA Fundraising Sharing Discussion: