This Elementary School Fundraiser is Going to Kick Ass!

Buena Vista Horace Mann, known as BVHM, is a public K-8 school in San Francisco that’s been through hell. Now they are jumping through the bureaucratic hoops once more, this time to throw Valencia’s biggest party.

SFUSD Problems

The school district continues to embarrass the hell out of anyone with a scrap of civic pride. The lumbering beast of bureaucracy is like an ancient farty dog that keeps breaking things and shitting the carpet. And cruel business majors who don’t deign to talk to other departments are making it worse by cutting the poor beast’s claws blindly, hurting our most vulnerable students in the process. Meanwhile schools like Buena Vista Horace Mann are serving as literal sanctuaries, opening the gym at night so their homeless families have a roof under which to rest their head.

PTA on Chopping Block

The pattern continues; Parent Teacher Associations are the next target of the Harrison Bergeron approach. Up to this point, PTAs have been able to partially or fully fund staff positions that the district has neither heart nor courage nor money to do. Things like garden teachers, art coordinators, bilingual instructors… These are all reasons kids actually come to school, even though they are very rarely considered core or allocated budget. Now PTAs have been told they won’t be able to fund positions. We spoke with Jenny Pritchett, the president of the PTA at Buena Vista Horace Mann, to find out more. 

What is a PTA?

Not every PTA is made up of millionaires. In fact, each PTA in our public school system is open to any parent or caregiver with a kid attending, and with the lottery enrollment system that means any parent in The City can volunteer. But the PTA fundraising conversation has been grossly oversimplified in the media. 

Parents will do anything for their kids. While those of us with children enrolled at a supposedly less “good” school may look on at the ___ of the world with a touch of envy, who can blame the parents for fundraising their little hearts out? Especially when affluent families historically shuffle their daughters and wives into the nonprofit and charity fundraising role as one of the few acceptable career paths. None of this is new, other than the district finding new ways to try and leash an old dog, tripping over themselves to get the different between inequality and inequity correct.

Past Problems

Pritchett’s school, BVHM, has dealt with lead in the water, arsenic in the soil, a kid getting shocked by an electrical wire, flooding (including this year), ceiling tiles falling in… Pritchett explains, “What keeps happening is the District and the Board of Education will not listen, parents will go to the media, something gets done, but in general it’s a double edged sword. It ends up being a lot of negative press coverage for BVHM.”

Pritchett explains, “The most important thing to me, what I’ve been inspired by in the face of all this new nonsense about PTA funds, is that people are jumping in left and right to help. What I’m hoping people get out of this story is how bright and resilient and strong this community is. Even now after everything, our response is to have a party.” 

How Do PTAs Help the District?

Like almost everything we write about, the city (in this case, SFUSD, which is governmental but not run directly by the City and County of San Francisco) relies on nonprofits to provide the services it otherwise “doesn’t have the money” to do. SFUSD “keeps the lights on,” a quite frankly terrible framing they abandoned faster than a kid at a lead-contaminated water fountain. PTAs make the house a home. They fundraise, throw events, find the gaps in their kids’ educational experience and ways to creatively fill them. 

At a school like BVHM, a little money can go a long way. Their PTA has raised just about $60,000 this year. Pritchett explains, “I don’t want to make it seem like we have nothing because that’s not the truth, but on the spectrum of SFUSD schools we’re on the low end. With our school in particular, I’m biased but we’re a really special school.” 

What Makes BVHM Special?

BVHM is a welcoming school, literally. “Newcomer families get sent to us throughout the year,” Pritchett says. This means the population might fluctuate, making headcount and state funding complicated. That’s why the vast majority of her PTA’s budget goes toward paying for two part-time staff, an arts education coordinator, Bill Armstrong, and a dance teacher, Jesus Cortes.

These artistic and cultural experiences have become such pillars of holistic education that the Learning Policy Institute featured them in a 2024 blog, stating:

“With their students’ needs in mind, BVHM weaves these various state and local strands of funding together and incorporates community partners to help provide unique systems of support and nurture the whole child.”

Not Easy, but Worth It

But it’s not easy. “Children sleep in our gym, get up in the morning, go to kindergarten, and then go back to sleep on the school site. Over time some more affluent families have either graduated because we’re K8, or they’ve moved to other schools because… maybe a difference in values?” Pritchett explains that this makes it a little harder to fundraise. “Our school community is one of the least able to make up shortfalls through family giving.” 

And with this administration, it’s more critical than ever to have a local safety net. BVHM is not only providing academics, but housing, food, clothing, tax help, translation help, deportation defense help and Know Your Rights workshops. It’s a lot for a school to manage, but the PTA is there to help. Sadly, they (like the rest of the PTAs) are still waiting for SFUSD to officially state whether they’ll be allowed to fund staff.  

The Future is… Unclear

Pritchett’s principal suspects they’ll be able to pay for the temporary arts and dance teachers because they are contractors and the PTA has paid for them for 15 and 17 years respectively. “The issue is that the PTA has reached out three times to the district to confirm that with them so that we can have it in writing…” Pritchett explains that the budget is supposed to be done in April. It can be pushed to May if necessary, but there’s a lack of clarity from the district that is causing additional chaos for families. 

The system is unequal. Of course it is. This writer is of the strong opinion, given my doctorate in education and nearly a decade of being a union leader and public school teacher, that ANY school can be a quote-unquote good school if the community is dedicated and invests their time in it. But where we are now includes tired teachers, a played-out parent advocacy group that gets 99% of the media airtime, affluent parents who are looking for any excuse to abandon their local school and climb the long waitlists for private, and a district seemingly intent on pinning down and torturing anyone left who gives a damn about the kids. 

Good Schools

Regardless of personal opinions, BVHM is objectively a good school because of the care they show for their students. “They are the most forward about the fact that they are building social justice leaders,” explains Pritchett. “There are trans flags in the kindergarten hallway. Everything that goes out to the community is in English and Spanish [in gender neutral].” Even though she had to do interviews online due to the Pandemic, it was obvious that this was the right school for her family. “There were these signs all the way across the board that they are going to care about every single kid and they are not going to be middle-of-the-road about any of that.” 

The only thing middle-of-the-road is the party Pritchett’s helping plan, which will take place in the middle of the Valencia streetscape between 23rd and 24th on Saturday, April 26th from noon to 5pm.

How does PTA fundraising work?

Each PTA is a separate 501(c)3. They all have to have their own elected representatives, regular meetings, and an annual budget. 

Could the PTAs combine or get redistributed? Incredibly unlikely. When we talk about a million dollars over at _ and zero dollars at another school, we can’t just rob Peter to pay Paul. Even if Peter might really deserve to be robbed (which, again; who can blame Peter for wanting to fundraise his lil heart out?). The fundraising parties themselves aren’t the bad thing. 

“What I’m concerned about,” Pritchett explains, “is that the school district is doing something that is equal but not equitable. They’re giving every school in the district the same rule about how they can spend their site specific funds. The difference is that the kids that go to that school that provide art or music resources, those kids can pay for private lessons. At our school, if we can’t pay for our arts enrichment coordinator or our dance teacher, our kids are left with nothing.” 

So why can’t the district just confiscate the money and give it to schools who need it more? “Nobody can come in and take any PTA money and independently decide what to do with it. For something like that to work, every school would have to opt into it,” Pritchett explains. “I think it’s a great idea. I think it won’t happen because it would mean that the higher grossing schools would have to give up a lot. I would be pleasantly surprised if they were willing to do that.”

“I like my kid a lot. I love my kid the most. But I don’t think that my kid is more important and deserves more than any other kid in his class. Or any other kid in the district.”

Who Does the Fundraiser Fund?

As long as the District clarifies and allows PTAs to support their local schools through paying for staffing, Pritchett’s street party will raise additional money to pay for two phenomenal teachers. 

Jesus Cortes is the BVHM dance teacher and the artistic director of Cuicacalli Dance School and Company. Pritchett describes the way that Cortes offers the kids who came from a similar background as him a chance to connect with themselves. “It’s almost like a wraparound service, where they are seen for their whole experience through the arts and culture programming.”  And Bob Armstrong, the arts education coordinator at BVHM, is a pillar in the community. He’s been in the arts community for decades in San Francisco. Pritchett explains that Armstrong makes sure kids have access to the local arts scene including SF Jazz and Yerba Buena field trips. 

“I don’t know what I was thinking, planning a street festival,” Pritchett admits. “However, I’m so looking forward to this. The live entertainment is our student mariachi band with special guest Cuicacalli, Danza Zitlali, which is an Aztec dance performance with the big beautiful feathers, one of our parents is a professional DJ, and salsa lessons at the end. And we got our alcohol license! Everyone has said yes! People are going to be able to walk around on Valencia Street between 23rd and 24th drinking a Paloma or Sangria or beer and listening to live music and eating this delicious food.” 

Necessary disclosure: This writer is a member of the PTA at her kids’ school. No, it’s not one of the millionaire ones. 

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