In the Face of Multi-Million Dollar Deficits, School PTAs Do Its Share

It is something every school has and Stratford is no different. 

Usually spurred on by a Parent-Teacher Association but sometimes not, each school has a bevy of fundraising activities throughout the school year. 

Each represents an opportunity to put a little something extra into the school kitty and can be used to purchase or support any number of school-related activities including field trips, sports programs and/or the arts and more. 

In this era of tight finances, each small fundraising opportunity – no matter how small – can offset and most often complement a budget expenditure line item. 

On such fundraising activity occurs regularly at the Barnum Avenue Burger King where Franklin School PTA secretary Kathy Hogarth dutifully manned a small table in the dining room section on Wednesday evening collecting Burger King cash register receipts from customers. According to Burger King manager Conell Bogle, the popular hamburger joint gives a handful of local organizations including Franklin School 20% of an evening’s proceeds. “We like to support the community,” Bogle said Wednesday, between accepting orders from drive-up customers. 

In Stratford, the 2010-2011 school year is particularly difficult, as a looming decision by the Board of Education, which according to Superintendent of Schools Irene Cornish has its “back against the wall,” could include closing one or more elementary schools in a major reorganization that includes reconfiguring sixth graders from the elementary level to the middle schools next September. 

The Board of Education is facing a multi-million shortfall in its draft budget for next school year, Cornish admitted to several hundred parents and town officials on Monday, and drastic times call for drastic measures. 

But for Hogarth and hundreds of parents like her throughout the town, the talk of closing schools is difficult to accept, and flies in the face of the concept of having students attend schools in their own neighborhoods. 

Hogarth sat at her table gratefully accepting cash register receipts from customers and talked to Stratford Patch about the uncertainly and frustration parents have with the looming decision that has targeted four elementary schools for possible closure at the of the current school year, including her own Franklin Elementary where she has a 9-year-old son in 4th grade. 

The other three schools named by a school facilities consultant as possible closure candidates are Nichols, Wilcoxson and Lordship elementary schools, all four targeted in an effort to close a multi-million dollar projected shortfall in the superintendent’s proposed 2011-2012 schools budget. 

“It’s a no-brainer to get more businesses into town, to develop our shorefront” to get more tax dollars into Stratford to support such things as the concept of a “neighborhood” school, Hogarth said. Hogarth, a Stratford resident for nearly 15 years, points to the Army facility near the airport, the subject of development talks for many years, as one project that could and should be developed to support the town’s tax base. 

“We’re not doing enough to bring businesses to Stratford,” she lamented, as another customer dropped a small receipt into the bag on her table. “It is really sad to think that neighborhood schools where kids can walk to may be closed.” 

Hogarth is just one of a handful of parents who would sit at the table that evening. Originally scheduled for the 7 to 8 p.m. “shift,” another parent called in unable to make it for the 6 to 7 time period, so Hogarth was pulling a “double.” 

Franklin School sets up its table on the second Wednesday of every month and Burger King allows organizations to participate from September to May, she said. 

So what would be Franklin School’s take that night for its parents’ efforts? “We average about $150 a night,” she said. 

In an era when school boards ponder ways to save millions of dollars, it seems like a pittance.

But don’t tell that to the dedicated parents at every Stratford school, and of course, the beneficiaries, the school students where every dollar counts.