Donating & Volunteering in OUSD
Archived Q&A and Reviews
Oakland public school: annual $ contribution?
March 2007
My child will be starting kindergarten this year at a public school in Oakland. I was wondering what are the expectations on parents as to how much money they should spend/donate to fundraising activities at their child's school (classroom supply funds, fundraisers, auctions, events, raffle tickets, walkathons, etc) annually. How much have people given in the past? The school is in the Oakland hills and like all public schools, I know they depend of additional parent contributions. Thank you. Public school mom
At Thornhill this year, it cost approx. $500 per student to cover the year's worth of programs covered by fundraising. This covers library/librarian, p.e. teacher, art, computers, music, school supplies, and more. It's sad that it adds up to so much that the state/district won't cover, but that's the case. No family has been ''squeezed'' to pay $500 for each student, but it is helpful (obviously) in order to cover the costs. Fortunately, there are many different fundraisers, some of which (like escrip and boxtops for education) don't cost parents anything. Welcome to the fray! Thornhill parent
My daughter is in first grade at a great Oakland Public School. We are a family of modest means in comparison to many families at the school, however, it seemed fair to me that we contribute as close to our ''fair share'' as possible.
PTA meetings tend to be open and their budgets are open, so take the number of dollars the PTA uses for the school any given year and divide by the number of students. Your fair share would be that number if you have one child attending the school. Double if you have two, etc.
Please know that what matters a lot in addition to the money is showing up and helping at school events. While I believe there are many caring parents we see roughly 20% of the families doing 80% of the work. Fan of our PTA