NYC PTA funding inequities: See how much your school’s PTA raises

“Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox. New York City’s public school system has long been defined by inequities of concentrated wealth and poverty, and nowhere is that more pronounced than in parent-teacher association fundraising. Of the money PTAs raised last year, the top 30 schools, or just 2.5% of them, raised nearly half of the total amount of the 1,540 schools included in recently released Education Department data for the 2024-25 school year. Meanwhile, roughly 390 PTAs — about a third of the schools — reported no income last year, suggesting their parent-teacher associations are inactive or struggling. Another 330 PTAs appear to have failed to report anything to the Education Department. Though schools are mandated to have PTAs, some may not have the capacity to sustain such groups. PTA money can fund enrichment, not core classroom teachers, and is often used to bolster things like the arts or fund teaching assistants. When a school can use PTA money to cover these costs, it could free their school up to pay more for core classroom teachers. That could, in turn, make a school more desirable, said Carolyn Abott , a Baruch College assistant professor of political science who has been researching PTAs. It could create a snowball effect, she said, attracting families to a particular school zone and potentially even pushing up housing prices. “And you are pulling those politically and community active families away from schools that are already sort of resource-deprived, which again, exacerbates the situation,” Abott said. Noah Strote, a parent of a fourth grader at P.S. 199, an affluent school on the Upper West Side in Manhattan’s District 3, said the funding disparities can show up in different ways, from the number of air conditioners or bathroom supplies to the quantity of enrichment programs. “They can also fund all the little things that add up, such as teacher and staff appreciation events with food and drink and gifts, that help create a culture where those people want to stay year after year,” Strote wrote in an email. “It’s obviously not the only factor contributing to outcomes for children, but it’s definitely not an insignificant one.” P.S. 199, which is typically a high-rolling PTA, failed to report any data to the Education Department, revealing some of the shortcomings of the public data. The data, which is self-reported, appeared to have some errors and inaccuracies. (For example, P.S. 60 in Woodhaven, Queens, was among the top 10 for reported income, reportedly bringing in more than $2 million. But looking at the school’s full balance, that appeared to be a decimal error, and the school likely only brought in about $20,000.) Drilling down on the data Fourteen schools brought in more than $1 million each, led by P.S. 29, an elementary school in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill; New Explorations into Science, Technology and Math, a K-12 gifted and talented school on the Lower East Side; and P.S. 8, or The Emily Warren Roebling School, an elementary school in Brooklyn Heights. Another 14 schools raised more than $500,000. Looking at the data on the district level reveals another set of extremes. PTAs in Manhattan’s District 2, which includes such affluent areas as the Upper East Side, Greenwich Village, and TriBeCa, brought in the most money, with nearly $18 million in total income. That was 600 times greater than what PTAs raised in District 23, which spans Brooklyn’s high-poverty neighborhoods of Ocean Hill/Brownsville. PTAs in District 23, which is also one of the city’s smallest districts, brought in about $29,000. Because school funding formulas send more money to schools with higher-need students, more affluent schools tend to spend less per pupil — an argument that some PTA fundraiser powerhouses point out. P.S. 29, for instance, spent $17,310 per pupil last year, compared to P.S. 150 in District 23, which spent $46,198 per pupil, according to public data. About 4% of the school’s funding, or $154,000, came from federal dollars given to schools with more than 60% student poverty. Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull said the city recognizes that PTA fundraising varied “significantly” across school communities and reiterated that the city’s funding formula aims to allocate additional resources to schools serving kids with the greatest needs. “We remain committed to ensuring equitable access to resources through the funding streams we directly control,” she said. With executive boards turning over each year, newly minted PTA members might not know what they’re getting into and lack training and the understanding of the PTA’s role, said Antonia Martinelli, the PTA Link coordinator at Appleseed , which helps fill the “information gap” for PTAs. Though the rules governing PTAs make it clear they can supplement, rather than supplant, school budgets, PTAs can change their schools’ ability to hire more teachers, Martinelli echoed. “Now they’re inadvertently impacting the academic outcomes of the students,” she said. Martinelli also raised concerns about the end balance of the city’s PTAs, which totaled about $46.5 million. “PTAs are supposed to target their fundraising to a specific goal,” she said. “They are not supposed to be running quasi endowments.” Efforts to bolster PTA fundraising PTAs raise money in various ways: direct appeals, bake sales, or carnivals, galas, and other events. Some schools raise money by organizing after-school programs, like P.S. 20, in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, which raised more than $1.16 million last year, putting the school in the top 10 citywide. About 85% of the PTA’s income came from P.S. 20’s “wildly successful” after-school program serving kids from prekindergarten through fifth grade, said PTA co-president Sarah Durand McGuigan. At P.S. 20, it covers an art teacher, pays for a gardening and beekeeping program, and helps fund arts residencies, Durand McGuigan said. It helped the school build a library as well as facility upgrades. It pays for full- and part-time school assistants working in the cafeteria, office, and hallways. It also covers the costs of teacher professional development training. P.S. 20, which had nearly 700 students, sits in District 13, a racially and socioeconomically diverse district that schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels previously oversaw as superintendent. And while it’s not among the most affluent like some of the other elementary schools in the top 10, with just 38% of students from low-income families, the school is still among the top 100 schools in the city with the smallest share of students in poverty. Citywide, about 75% of students come from low-income families. The school community is aware of the different needs of families, offering scholarships to the after-school program, for instance, and the PTA jumped into action last year when public food assistance was going to be restricted, raising about $10,000 for grocery gift cards to families in need, Durand McGuigan said. “The haves and the have nots in the New York City public school system are huge,” she said. “We have people living in $3 million brownstones, and we have people in public housing.” The PTA at Arts & Letters 305 United, also in District 13, was among the top 30 fundraisers, bringing in more than $546,000 last year. It used the money to support tutoring, school trips, stepping-up ceremonies, enrichment teachers, and for many community-building events, said LaMeane Isaac, PTA president at the Bedford-Stuyvesant school where Samuels had led a merger between a popular affluent school and an under-enrolled one serving more low-income families. The school’s PTA also helped provide about $2,000 in seed money for a districtwide fund bringing together families, local businesses, and community organizations to support 28 under-resourced schools across the district that lacked PTA funding. “We are willing to help and commit towards supporting other schools who may not be as financially fortunate as we are,” Isaac said. “If we can be helpful and supportive to other schools, everyone wins, right?” Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org .

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