Kimball Elementary PTSAKimball Elementary PTSA
Planning session2021–22

Working Meeting — budget, advocacy, and Take Back PTA discussion

Agenda:

  • Community connection question: What’s a high and low from your spring break?

Expressions of appreciation for outgoing Treasurer Adi & Kimball Kitchen team (Charissa)

Color Brave Space (Charissa)

  • Budget overview (Michelle B)
  • Advocacy team update (Michelle B)
  • Take Back PTA pledge (Kelly)
  • Staff Appreciation Week (Charissa) (edited)
  • Expressions of appreciation for outgoing Treasurer Adi & Kimball Kitchen team (Charissa)
  • Color Brave Space (Charissa)
    • Focus on “Notice & Shift Racialized Power Dynamics” Norm: What power dynamics do you notice in our online gatherings (racialized or other)? What’s one way you can shift a power dynamic you are noticing for yourself?

Budget overview (Michelle B)

- Fundraising income is on track with what we proposed at the beginning of the year; includes Move-A-Thon, email campaigns, Kimball Kitchen, Art Walk/Spring Fling, Individual donations and AmazonSmile and Red Apple, Corporate Matching
- Expense budget is underspent; this includes teacher’s submitting receipts for reimbursement and other items the PTSA covers for staff/teachers; whatever is not spent will carry over in our reserves
    - Ideally, how would this expense budget be spent (in other words, why are we so under budget)? Some of it is pandemic related - it funds several events like field trips, 5th grade graduation camp, Chinese new year celebration, team gatherings, etc. It also funds staff appreciation. We expect more of this budget will be spent next school year.
- Reviewed 2022-2023 Proposed Income Budget for fundraising (not locked yet, but an early look at what campaigns/activities will carry over).
- In the next meeting, let’s review the status of PTSA spending against the budget so we know how we’re doing and what we’re putting the money toward - we can check in on the programs and where we expected to spend. And also look at our spending pre-2020 to cross check how we think we’ll spend next year (should things continue to move “back to normal”)
- Zoom chat notes:
- Two funding requests were noted: approximately $600 for safer soccer goals and 20–25 water bottles for students.

Advocacy team update (Michelle B)

- Talked to the RET (Racial Equity team) and they have similar goals as the advocacy team so working tougher on those goals - bringin advocacy efforts into the classroom and then to families. One example was encouraging the community to vote “pro” on certain bills/legislation or having community members testify more often for legislative sessions. Sam Fogg (Title 1 Schools/PTSA advocate lead) had the opp to visit classrooms to talk about advocacy and is willing to do this for Kimball (virtually). Would invite teachers to be a part of the education of their students and invite Sam to present. While we are near the end of the school year and teachers may not have time to do this in May/June, we want to make people aware of the opportunity and can choose to do this in the fall when the legislative session starts again.
- Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month** **in May - group of people working on activities for this

Take Back PTA pledge (Kelly)

- Take Back PTA resolution: [https://scptsa.org/takebackpta](https://scptsa.org/takebackpta)
- And the full text here: [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5be3d400b40b9da8de67dce2/t/5ca3c809f4e1fcc922d6a600/1554237450589/SCPTSA+Fundraising+and+Mission+Resolution+FINAL+April+2019.pdf](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5be3d400b40b9da8de67dce2/t/5ca3c809f4e1fcc922d6a600/1554237450589/SCPTSA+Fundraising+and+Mission+Resolution+FINAL+April+2019.pdf)
- This pledge has a recommended goal ratio of 3:1 (community building and advocacy efforts to every fundraising effort).
- We took a pause after the last meeting re: signing to make sure the broader conversation with our community happened before we signed it/made the pledge; We wanted to make sure a small group of us weren’t the only ones weighing in to make the decisions. However, getting input from all of the voices we’d like has been hard so how do we move forward in the right way. If we sign and it helps to make the PTSA more equitable in the long run, that would be a good thing.
- Hesitation around signing is less about not wanting to do it but that we, as a ‘underfunded’ school, are one of those taking the leads to sign and be advocates for this vs other schools who have an abundance of PTSA funding - it ends up being inequitable, esp in the short term.
- There is an informational meeting next week with Vivian (a lead advocate for this pledge) to get schools collaborating together to support district wide changes that would end up supporting more equitable fundraising and sharing.
- Do we know how we’d spend/use all of the equitable funds? Will it take time to figure it out? Yes, it will take time. But part of this is thinking about the amount of energy we put toward fundraising efforts vs other things like more advocacy and community support work.
- This is a hard decision to make because it has immediate and longer term impacts and we want to be able to support our school, teachers and students.
- The pledge is more focused on what the government SHOULD pay for and cover, and not rely on PTSAs to fund. But we, as a PTSA, believe we would/should still support things that are about building community, including events, appreciation, etc.

Staff Appreciation Week (Charissa) (edited)

- Group of Somali-speaking parents are taking point on a lunch for staff on Wed, May 11. This is our main event and PTSA will reimburse for the food. Sign-up for drinks and dessert is out via SignupGenius
- Parent Christine Boyll is getting quotes for a coffee cart for staff
- Charissa is pricing out Creamy Cone
- Another idea: flowers and cards for staff from students. Input on date for this? Probably later in the week

Treasurer Request (Tammy)

- We need a tax accountant to complete our 990. Our previous one has been unreachable. We’re currently late on this form.