FAQs

What is the PTA Equity Project?

The PTA Equity Project (“PEP”) is the result of several years of highly collaborative work to analyze parent fundraising in our district and propose an intervention to ensure greater equity for our students. It began in December 2016 with the support of the Evanston/Skokie PTA Council, whose Racial Equity Statement supports District 65’s commitment to equity (as encompassed in its Racial and Educational Equity Statement and Board Policy 7:12) and “recognizes that all stakeholder groups must play an active role in increasing equity across our District.” The goal of PEP at its inception was to examine PTA policies, practices, and procedures to determine (1) what, if any, inequities actually exist and (2) what, if any, interventions could address those uncovered.

Who leads the PTA Equity Committee? How is leadership selected?

Initially, PEP was formed and co-facilitated by Suni Kartha and Biz Lindsay-Ryan. Suni is a former member of the District 65 School Board and Biz is a diversity and inclusion consultant who used to consult with the District on its school climate work and currently serves on the District 65 School Board. Suni and Biz were also both parents to District 65 students and have been actively involved in their PTAs. As such, they have been able to bring both a school-specific and districtwide perspective to Committee discussions. Although both have to served on the school board, and District administration has an interest in the outcome of this work as it relates to the District’s broader equity agenda, PEP is a grassroots, parent/caregiver-led effort, not a board or District initiative.

In 2018, as PEP rolled out its first intervention, Suni and Biz recognized that the leadership team for PEP needed to expand to include a wider array of voices as well as to establish a sustainable leadership model that could appropriately transition over time. Originally, the plan was for a leadership transition every 2 years (similar to the transitions that take place in PTAs and PTA Council, with “senior” leaders training “junior” leaders before transitioning out). But with the interruption of the pandemic emergency and the need to retain institutional knowledge through the rollout of the One Fund Initiative, the transition was pushed back. By the end of the 2020-21 school year, the Committee created a structure, members, and terms for future PEP leadership teams. Learn about PEP’s current nominating process here.

What is the PTA Equity Committee? How were members selected?

The PTA Equity Committee (“Committee”) includes at least one representative from every PTA in District 65. Committee representatives are appointed annually by each PTA’s executive board. To provide additional perspectives and information, the Committee also includes a principal representative, school board representatives, representatives who are teachers and social workers in the District, and representatives from PTA Council, Foundation 65, and the Joseph E. Hill Early Education Center. The Committee has been meeting monthly during the school year since January 2017. In addition, at the end of each school year, the Committee has designated specific work projects to be completed by smaller working groups of Committee members who volunteer additional time over the summer.

How does decision-making and voting work within PEP?

PEP is a highly collaborative endeavor. The Committee meets monthly during the school year to discuss issues, review data, and brainstorm solutions. Each representative on the Committee acts as a representative for their PTA, representing that PTA’s interests and perspectives and advocating on its behalf. Each representative on the Committee is expected to regularly communicate with their PTA executive teams regarding PEP discussions and bring forward any questions or concerns from their schools to share with the Committee. 

Decision-making in PEP works much like collaborative decision-making works in other organizations, including PTAs and PTA Council. An executive leadership team meets in between the monthly Committee meetings to plan agendas, begin fleshing out issues and ideas for Committee input, and initiate action on PEP’s behalf based on that input. Through robust discussion and data analysis, the Committee reaches consensus on how PEP will move forward and what recommendations will be made to PTAs and school communities. Prior to implementing any intervention that requires monetary transfers into or out of the PEP Fund, PEP takes a formal vote, with Committee members representing the voice of their PTA in those votes. We always ensure at least one month of lead time prior to any formal vote, to ensure that each representative has sufficient time to meet with their PTA exec team to discuss the topic to be voted on, get any outstanding questions answered, and determine how the representative should vote on behalf of their PTA.

Our PTA works so hard to fundraise specifically to help decrease inequity in our school. Why should we consider sharing our efforts with other schools?

We absolutely recognize and appreciate that PTAs have been instrumental in helping to address inequities within their school buildings and specifically to provide services and opportunities to their school’s free and reduced lunch (FRL) population. We think there could be great power in taking that collective energy and expertise to address inequities districtwide - to expand our thinking from “my school” to “my district.” 

As noted above, District 65 and PTA Council, reflecting the values of our community, have embraced an intentional lens toward educational equity - the idea that all students should get what they need to reach their full educational potential regardless of personal or social circumstances such as race, ethnic origin, gender, disability, or socioeconomic background. The reality, though, is that children get vastly different experiences at different schools, in large part because their PTAs differ so widely in ability to access donations and in-kind services from their larger school community.  When PTAs focus on remedying the issue inside only their own school building, they may unintentionally be exacerbating inequity within our larger community.  PEP provides a way for our actions to meet our intentions around increasing equity.  

Shouldn’t it be the District’s responsibility to make sure that resources are equitably allocated across schools? Why focus on PTA fundraising?

There is no question that the District needs to continue to be pushed, as part of its equity agenda, to ensure equitable allocation of resources. PEP’s focus has been on the enrichment and community-building opportunities that PTAs provide to students and families, not staff or high-level resource allocations that are the purview of the District. We understand that parent fundraising is just a part of the overall financial picture of a school; however, it is a piece that, given the District’s and PTA Council’s adopted equity statements, needs to be addressed in a collaborative and grassroots way.

In fact, inequities in PTA resources can actively undermine District equity efforts. The Committee’s analysis shows that the number and variety of enrichment opportunities that a PTA can provide does not necessarily follow the depth of need for those enrichments at each school. This exacerbates existing inequities and contributes to the widening of the opportunity gap.

What about Title One? Why do we need to support a shared fund if some schools get Title One funding?

Title One is part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and provides financial assistance to schools with high numbers or high percentages of children from low-income families. Prior to receiving Title One funding, school districts have to specify exactly how the funds will be used to support student achievement. Title One money generally cannot be used to cover the items typically found in a PTA budget, including, but not limited to, field trips, club scholarships, Camp Timberlee scholarships, artists in residence, family supports, etc.

In District 65, the primary use of Title One funds is for reading specialists. It is important to note, though, that District 65 provides reading specialists at all schools, whether or not they are Title One schools, based on need as evidenced by data. The only difference is the source of the funding for the reading specialist: some specialists in a Title One school are funded through Title One monies, while the specialists in other schools are funded by other D65 monies. The allocation of specialists is based on quantitative data so that all students get support regardless of their school.

A school’s Title One designation may also open up other programming to the school. For example, in District 65, all Title One schools and Kingsley participate in the Federal Breakfast program. This means that students who are on free and reduced lunch at those schools have access to a free breakfast program. In District 65 many, but not all, of the non-Title One schools partner with a community Books and Breakfast program that provides a breakfast, mentoring, and academic support program that is funded by community donations. There are additional programs that some Title One schools may be eligible for based on their population. Examples of this include Y.O.U. and community schools. However, these programs are provided to meet the specific needs at any individual school and are not provided universally to all Title One schools.

What was the pilot intervention that PEP initially implemented to address the inequities?

After canvassing models from other school districts (of which there were very few, and even fewer that were successful or lasting), the Committee developed an intervention to create the PEP Fund. PEP collected a portion of fundraising dollars from PTAs with the highest revenues, along with proceeds from some joint fundraising efforts, and reallocated to PTAs with lower overall revenues.

From the start, the Committee recognized that there are 2 schools in the District that serve very high needs populations - Park School, a self-contained therapeutic day program that serves students ages 3-21 who have severe cognitive disabilities, and Rice Education Center (“Rice”), a therapeutic day school program connected to the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Child + Family Center (a Children’s Home & Aid center). While Park has a PTA, its student and parent population (and, thus, its fundraising potential) is small. Rice does not have a PTA, and the vast majority of its student population receives FRL. Therefore, the Committee voted to provide a distribution to each of these schools off the top of the total PEP Fund.

A PTA’s fundraising capacity was determined based on that PTA’s actual budget, calculating a per student dollar amount based on the total dollars raised by that PTA. Using several years of PTA budgets, the Committee grouped PTAs into 3 categories of annual fundraising capacity*: those raising up to $70/student, those raising $71-$90/student, and those raising more than $90/student. The contribution amount requested from PTAs in this latter group was 12%-15% of their total income (with the actual percentage varying depending on the school’s FRL population). The distribution amount to PTAs was calculated with the intent of getting PTAs to a minimum of $70/student.

*These groups did not include the 3 district middle schools. The Committee’s analysis is that the fundraising disparities at the middle schools are not as wide and the student and school community needs are different than at elementary and magnet schools. Therefore, the Committee determined that PTA funds at the middle schools would be reallocated separately, but based on a similar formula as that used for the elementary and magnet school PTAs.

The pilot intervention is still relatively new and seems to be successful. Why not continue with it?

PEP’s mission is to proactively find ways to disrupt the inequities that arise for students, families, and educators because of fundraising disparities among District 65 PTAs. The pilot intervention implemented in 2018 and 2019 was an important step towards this goal, allowing students across the district improved access to before- and after-school enrichments, providing families with more opportunities to build community within their schools, and minimizing some educator out-of-pocket expenses for classroom needs.  But despite this initial success, the Committee knew that the pilot intervention was only a small step, one that achieved neither equality nor true equity.

Even accounting for the reallocation of fundraising dollars through the pilot intervention, the disparities in per student fundraising dollars among our PTAs remain significant. The Committee continued to be concerned that those fundraising dollars were not reaching the schools and students with the greatest needs. Although the Committee discussed options to annually increase the contribution amounts to the PEP Fund from PTAs with the highest revenues, it became clear that the administrative costs and volunteer time to implement such a system would be prohibitive. Thus, with feedback from PTA leadership, the Committee generated a plan to consolidate all PTA fundraising into a single fund, reallocated annually to PTAs based on an equitable formula factoring in school size and FRL population.  

What is the philosophy behind the One Fund Initiative?

Our Evanston/Skokie community takes great pride in our schools, our diversity, and our willingness to commit resources to addressing inequity. We assume each school will “take care of its own,” but the reality is that our current school attendance model intensifies inequity because it concentrates families with high access to disposable income together in some schools and families with little to no disposable income together in other schools. There is, of course, economic diversity within all of our schools, but in some buildings, more than 60% of students qualify for FRL while fewer than 20% do in others.  Over years of discussion and review of PTA budgets and data, the Committee has come to understand that often the PTAs with the smallest pool of disposable income to draw from have the greatest need to supplement funding for enrichment activities like after-school programming, field trips, yearbooks, and teacher support. PEP generally, and the One Fund Initiative specifically, aims to direct our community fundraising dollars to more equitably serve the students who need it most, regardless of the school they attend or the neighborhood in which they reside.

We recognize that the One Fund Initiative is a long-term, philosophical shift in how our community thinks about funding PTA activities in District 65. However, it is worth noting that we already think as one educational community when students go to Evanston Township High School, where we raise funds and hold events to foster wellness, connection, and school engagement to benefit students throughout our community. The One Fund Initiative expands this mindset into our K-8 community.

It is important to acknowledge that One Fund is not “One PTA.” While PEP aspires to equitably distribute fundraising dollars to PTAs, we continue to believe that each PTA is best positioned to decide how resources should be budgeted for their individual school community.

How would the One Fund Initiative work? How much money would be allocated to each PTA?

The Committee proposes that PTAs adopt a distribution formula that incorporates both equality and equity. For example, each PTA receives -- 

• a fixed dollar amount per student (the “Equality Allocation”); plus

• a variable dollar amount per student, with a weighted factor for the percentage of students who receive FRL in that school as compared to the percentage of students who receive FRL in the District (the “Equity Allocation”). So, for example, if the District percentage of students receiving FRL is 50%, and School A’s population of students receiving FRL is 75% while School B’s population of students receiving FRL is 25%, the calculation of the per student amount for the Equity Allocation would be multiplied by a weighted factor of 1.5 for School A and .5 for School B.

As with the pilot intervention, the Committee acknowledges the high needs population that Park School serves and recommends that the Park PTA receive a flat allocation of $5,000 in addition to funding it would receive per the distribution formula. The Committee also recognizes that, in addition to Rice, another school in our District without a PTA is the Joseph E Hill Early Childhood Center (“JEH”), which serves children ages 0-5. While these schools have other avenues of funding/support available to them, consultation with the principals of both schools and a teacher representative from JEH revealed that this funding does not cover things that PTAs would typically provide (for example, teacher appreciation activities). Therefore, the Committee recommends that each of these schools receive a flat allocation of $5,000 in lieu of the distribution formula.

How will the Equality Allocation be determined?

The Committee considered a number of potential options for the Equality Allocation. Through Jill Kidd, one of the Committee members representing the Kingsley PTA, the Committee was extremely fortunate to have the assistance of consultants from a global management consulting firm in developing and considering options for the One Fund Initiative’s distribution formula. These consultants, who were closely supervised by Jill, worked with a subgroup of Committee members to better understand District 65 and ensure that the models they created took into consideration our unique community. The consultants developed models that used the 2018-19 school year as a baseline, which, based on the data collected over several years, was determined to represent a typical fundraising year in our District. The models created help the Committee visualize how different Equality Allocations would play out in practice in a typical year, but it is important to recognize that the final distribution amounts under any model will depend on actual fundraising.

The Committee carefully reviewed 5 options for the Equality Allocation:*

1. Cover just PTA administrative expenses (from previous budgets, determined to be around $5000 for elementary schools and $3000 for middle schools);

2. Equal the minimum amount spent per student by a PTA in the 2018-19 school year ($50/student for elementary schools and $15/student for middle schools);

3. Provide each PTA with the minimum total amount spent by a PTA in the 2018-19 school year ($25,000 for elementary schools and $10,000 for middle schools);

4. Equal the target minimum amount per student as articulated for the pilot intervention ($70/student for elementary schools and $20/student for middle schools); or

5. Distribute all money equally, with no Equity Allocation.

The Committee recommends that PTAs move forward with the intervention described in Option 2 above. We believe that this option most accurately captures the minimum amount of funding that PTAs need to productively and meaningfully function in a school year while equitably directing community resources to schools serving some of our most marginalized populations. Put another way, the Committee believes, based on our years of studying PTA budgets and our districtwide community, that Option 2 will best ensure that all students can benefit equitably from the types of enrichments and programs that PTA provide, regardless of the school they attend.

*Using 2018-19 fundraising numbers, each of these options leaves a specific percentage of the total fundraising pot to be distributed under the Equity Allocation (45% for Option 2, 40% for Option 3, and 27% for Option 4). Under any of these options, the percentage distributed under the Equity Allocation may increase with increased fundraising but may not decrease in the event total fundraising is not sufficient to cover the anticipated baseline Equality Allocation.

Why not pursue equal funding for each student? Wouldn’t that be the most fair option?

The Committee is mindful that there are costs to successfully running a PTA that are not dependent on school size or population, which is why the Committee agrees that including an Equality Allocation in the One Fund Initiative is necessary. But equality is not enough. In order to help achieve the District’s and PTA Council’s vision for reducing the gap in opportunity to achieve, we must be focused on both inputs and outcomes. Equality assumes that equal inputs will result in equal outcomes, but equity recognizes that the playing field is not level and that we must adjust inputs accordingly in order to achieve equal outcomes. In the words of civil rights advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Treating different things the same can generate as much inequality as treating the same things differently.”

Why did the Committee recommending an Equality Allocation of $50/student when the pilot intervention’s goal was to get every PTA to a minimum of $70/student?

When the Committee developed and recommended the pilot intervention, we knew that we were advocating for a significant systems shift in how PTAs think of their role in the District. Even as we advocated for it, we knew that it was taking us a step towards equality, not equity.  At the time, the pilot intervention represented an achievable way to improve how things were currently operating in the District. 

Since then, as a Committee and as a community, we have invested in learning and understanding more about the difference between equality and equity, and our baseline understanding has shifted tremendously. We know that due to structural and institutional obstacles, providing everyone the same thing, or continuing to do things the same way, won’t lead to the outcomes our community demands.  We have an opportunity to problem solve as a District and use our collective resources in ways that match our values and allow us to truly embody the spirit of a community that values equity, diversity and inclusion in our daily lives, allowing everyone to reach their fullest potential.  We should take every action possible to dramatically impact the experience and outcomes of our most marginalized students.  Our Committee believes that our PTAs can and should be bold in our commitment to equity in our planning and execution of the One Fund Initiative.

Why doesn’t the Equity Allocation give weight to students who have McKinney Vento, refugee status, or other special needs?

The Equity Allocation takes into account the number of students who qualify for FRL.  The FRL number is a proxy for financial need at a school; it is not a perfect proxy. The Committee recognizes that the current metric does not successfully count families who are above the FRL line but below median income, nor does it count families who are far above the median income in our community.  However, the FRL is the best available metric which is 1) directly based on household income, 2) based on information consistently collected by District 65, and 3) readily available to PEP and the District 65 PTA community without any invasion of family privacy or additional burdens of data collection.  

Of course, the FRL number at each school is just one metric, and we recognize that there are students who may have other designations related to educational needs, such as qualifying for McKinney Vento (i.e, students who are experiencing homelessness), being part of a refugee resettlement program, or having an Individualized Educational Plan for students with disabilities.  These other designations are important for schools in meeting student needs, but to the extent that the Committee saw those needs reflected in PTA budgets, we concluded that using the FRL metric was sufficient to account for those additional needs.  

For example, the Committee discussed including an additional weighted factor for students who qualify for McKinney Vento status in the Equity Allocation but ultimately recommended against it based on the following considerations: 1)  All students receiving McKinney Vento designation are included in the FRL statistics for each school; 2) the Committee could not identify PTA activities for McKinney Vento students that were above and beyond the PTA activities for those same students as recipients of FRL generally; and 3) the unique needs of our McKinney-Vento students and their families are better addressed by community organizations that are specifically organized and trained to support those needs with the dignity and privacy that these families deserve. The Committee believes a similar analysis applies to other student designations that could potentially be considered.

How exactly would the One Fund Initiative be implemented?

In order to minimize the number of transactions, and to provide PTAs with sufficient time and information to set their annual budgets, the Committee proposes that all funds raised by PTAs in one school year should be collected into the PEP Fund by the end of that school year and run through the distribution formula so that the funds available can be communicated to each PTA over the summer and distributed prior to the start of the following school year. So, for example, over the summer of 2022, PEP communicated to PTAs their total distribution amount (Equality Allocation plus Equity Allocation) for the 2022-23 school year, calculated based on the total amount of funds raised during the 2021-22 school year. Each PTA would use that information to budget and plan activities for the 2022-23 school year, and all its fundraising activity in 2022-23 would go into the PEP Fund for distribution in the 2023-24 school year.

Of course, we recognize that there are details that we need to continue to work through with input from PTA leaders and treasurers to ensure that we are setting up a process that is workable and sustainable for our PTAs. For example,

1. This structure requires PTAs to set budgets for the upcoming school year over the summer (which some already do, but others try to start budget development in the spring of the prior school year). By what date over the summer would PTAs need to know their distribution amount for the year in order to develop their budgets?

2. When do PTAs begin incurring costs for the upcoming school year? By when would PTAs need a distribution in their accounts to cover start-of-year activities? Are there costs incurred over the summer months?

3. How will “total fundraising” for a PTA be defined? What are the “through costs” collected by PTAs that should not be included in this total (e.g., payments received for 3rd party enrichment providers)?

The Committee will continue to work diligently with each other, with PTA executive teams, and with relevant outside experts to answer these and other logistical questions.

Is it reasonable to expect that the total amount that PTAs have fundraised in past years will continue after the implementation of the One Fund Initiative? What if there is a loss of donations because parents/caregivers do not want to donate outside of their schools?

We cannot discount the possibility that some donors may donate less, or not at all, if they feel like their entire donation isn’t going directly to their school, but our experience is that the collective power and vision of PEP has attracted new donors and encouraged some people to donate more than they did to their own schools, where they did not always see the immediate need. For example, when the pilot initiative launched in 2018, PEP created a GoFundMe that was sent out to the community and very quickly exceeded its initial $5000 goal. PEP is committed to creating messaging support for all PTAs to encourage continued donations.

The Committee has also agreed that the One Fund Initiative must include a hybrid fundraising model that combines local fundraising by PTAs with centralized fundraising coordinated by PEP and PTA Council. For example, when the pilot intervention launched, PEP coordinated a districtwide Restaurant Week that was highly successful in raising money as well as increasing the profile of the PEP in the community. Our experience with our COVID-19 efforts (which centrally raised an additional $190,000 beyond the reserve amounts donated by PTAs) is that there are community organizations, as well as individuals who are not directly connected to a school or PTA, who would not have donated to any individual PTA but were compelled by the collective equitable vision and message of PEP to donate significant funds. In addition, we have had experienced grant writers on the Committee who have volunteered to explore grants and other opportunities that might be available to PEP. The Committee believes that these efforts, combined with the local fundraising efforts by our PTAs, will match and even exceed total fundraising amounts from past years.

Why is the One Fund Initiative beginning in the middle of the school year? What does it mean to begin the One Fund Initiative in January 2021? What does the 2020-21 school year look like?

In the spring of 2019, when the Committee collectively determined that the appropriate next step for PEP was the One Fund Initiative, we developed a timeline by which the Committee would develop the strategy and logistics for the One Fund Initiative during the 2019-20 school year, communicate that strategy and planning to the broader community during the 2020-21 school year, and, if there was consensus from our PTAs to do so, implement the One Fund Initiative beginning in the 2021-22 school year. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted all of this planning, and the Committee unanimously agreed to temporarily divert the focus of the PEP and the PEP Fund towards supporting those in our community hardest hit by the school and economic closures required to support public health.

In May of 2020, knowing that school and PTA activities for the upcoming school year were completely up in the air, PEP along with PTA Council convened a meeting with the Committee and PTA executive teams (both incoming and outgoing). The purpose was to discuss how PTAs were thinking about and planning for the upcoming school year and to shape PEP’s planning around the One Fund Initiative. At the conclusion of that meeting, there was consensus that PEP should spend the summer focused on 2 things:

1. a fall implementation plan to ensure that all PTAs would have the funds necessary to start the school year; and

2. a plan to implement the One Fund Initiative in January 2021 rather than wait until fall of 2022.

PEP recognized that the 2020-21 school year may be the most unusual that any PTA ever experiences. Perhaps this disruption of our “typical” activities makes this the perfect time to make a long-term visionary transition to One Fund. 

To support the transition to One Fund, the PEP Committee proposes that PTAs use Fall 2020 to fundraise for the 2020-21 year.  It is expected that costs related to activities during this school year will be substantially reduced because of the pandemic.  The Committee created the Return to School Guide and is already collaborating with all District 65 PTAs to ensure a successful launch, a creative approach to enrichment and community-building, and access to funding necessary to engage in PTA activities this year.  

In January 2021, all fundraising efforts and energy will be directed toward One Fund. PEP recognizes that relying on 5 months of PTA fundraising to raise enough for the entire 2021-22 school year is unreasonable, particularly given that the effects of the pandemic are ongoing and uncertain. For the transition year, PEP commits to taking an even stronger role in providing messaging support for PTAs and in coordinating centralized fundraising to sufficiently fund the PEP Fund for the 2021-22 school year.  The Committee believes that the One Fund Initiative, formed with the explicit goal to remedy inequities across District 65, will be a significant draw to large or institutional donors who previously may have been uninterested in funding a single school PTA, especially as we all try to rebuild after this pandemic year.

Will PTAs still be able to hold funds in reserves?

We recognize and are grateful that PTAs that have historically held funds in reserves very generously donated the majority of those reserves to PEP’s COVID-19 relief efforts. We also acknowledge that not every PTA has historically been able to maintain any fund reserves, and that even among PTAs that do have reserves, the amount of reserves has varied widely.

PEP is soliciting volunteers from among the Committee and PTA executive teams to form a working group to further study this issue. Specifically, the working group will make a recommendation on what, if any, reserve amount should be held by every District 65 PTA. PEP wants to ensure a plan that meets the financial management concerns of our PTAs consistently across all schools and welcomes input from PTAs on what they believe is needed for all PTAs moving forward.

What about capital projects?

As noted above, the Committee’s analysis included capital expenditures as a significant source of inequity among PTAs worth addressing. The consultants who helped develop the One Fund model options also developed options for the Committee to consider for capital fundraising. These options have been shared with PTA executive teams; however, we do not intend to come to any consensus on these options until later in the school year. The types of capital projects that PTAs fundraise for are “extras” (like playground equipment) rather than life/safety projects that the District funds. That said, even PTA-sponsored capital projects require additional support and resources from District administration, and we know that given the disruptions to education caused by the pandemic, no such capital projects can be planned for this year. Therefore, we believe that a plan for capital projects can be finalized after the launch of the One Fund Initiative in January.

Who will be responsible for collecting, maintaining, and distributing the PEP Fund?

The PEP Fund is maintained by the Evanston Community Foundation (“ECF”), a tax-exempt, autonomous philanthropic institution that, with equity at the center of its mission, houses a variety of funds that support our community. The PEP Fund is held by ECF through a formal agreement with the PTA Council. All decisions about how and when funds should be collected and disbursed are made by the Committee, in accordance with Illinois PTA rules and IRS non-profit regulations.

Why isn’t PEP a 501(c)(3) organization?

Early on in the process, the Committee contemplated whether PEP should formally pursue designation as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Ultimately, the Committee decided not to, primarily because the annual expense and filing requirements seemed duplicative given that we are close partners with PTA Council, which is already a 501(c)(3) organization. Additionally, ECF agreed to house the PEP Fund, including managing any audit and tax requirements, at minimal cost to PEP. The Committee believes that this is the most efficient option to ensure that PEP’s time and fundraising energy could be spent where it is needed most. As PEP and the One Fund Initiative continues, the Committee will reconsider this decision as necessary.

What are the next steps for the One Fund Initiative? Is my PTA required to participate?

PEP is a grassroots, collaborative initiative by design. At each step in the Committee’s efforts to improve equity across our school community, all District 65 PTA’s have had representatives on the Committee, have been consulted, have given input, and have chosen to approve moving forward.  The One Fund Initiative is a culmination of that collaborative work over several years.  Throughout the next several months, the Committee plans to share information via virtual town halls, answer questions, and collect input about the proposal. Just as all PTAs have chosen to participate in the pilot intervention and in PEP’s COVID-19 relief efforts, we believe that we can reach consensus across all PTAs on the collaboratively developed One Fund Initiative.

On the following dates, the Committee held formal votes, with each PEP rep voting on behalf of their PTA, after consultation with their PTA exec teams, on the following topics:

• October 8, 2020 vote on options - While the Committee strongly recommends moving forward with Option 2 for the Equity Allocation described above, we acknowledge that PTA leadership teams are asking for more input on this. This vote decided which of the 5 options to develop for further communication to the broader PTA community. It was not a vote on participation in the One Fund Initiative.

• November 12, 2020 vote on reserves amount - As described above, PEP was working to convene a subcommittee to review this topic and issue a recommendation for PEP and PTA leadership teams to consider. This vote decided what reserves amount for each PTA should be included as part of the One Fund Initiative.

• December 3, 2020 vote on One Fund Initiative - This vote decided whether your PTA will participate in the One Fund Initiative.

How long are PTAs being asked to commit to the One Fund Initiative?

 PTAs are being asked to commit to the One Fund Initiative through the 2023-24 school year. The One Fund Initiative is a philosophical rethinking of how District 65 PTAs approach fundraising and equitable allocation of resources. We believe this initial commitment length allows sufficient time for PEP and our PTAs to gather enough data to fully  understand the impact of the One Fund Initiative on our PTAs and our students before collectively deciding whether this is the right long-term systemic change for our community. We also believe it will be helpful to PTAs, particularly after this COVID-19 impacted school year and the budget uncertainties it presented, to have a fixed time frame through which they will develop budgets under the One Fund system.  Additionally, the longer initial commitment allows PEP and PTAs to invest time and resources on collecting data and thoroughly analyzing the impacts of the One Fund Initiative rather than on the time- and resource-intensive undertaking of preparing each PTA community for the voting process.

What metrics will be used to monitor the One Fund Initiative?

The PEP Committee spent significant time discussing this prior to the rollout of the pilot intervention. We determined then that we would not monitor how each PTA spends their allocation of the PEP Fund primarily because, from an equity perspective, there are significant concerns about requiring PTAs with deep needs to account to higher-resourced PTAs. Our lens is that every PTA has always made the best decisions for their school communities with the resources they have, and we have no reason to expect this will not continue to be the case under the One Fund model. We recognize the importance of sharing the impact of the One Fund Initiative and will continue to highlight anecdotes of how the One Fund model is benefitting our district and students via PEP’s web site and other communications.