As a community organization, the Carson PTA has traditionally focused most of our efforts on building community, advocating for public education and increasing awareness. However, public education funding changes over the past three decades and increasing costs have created a funding crisis in our public schools. Colorado currently ranks 42nd out of 50 states, for per pupil funding. In some school districts across the state, schools have had to change to 4-day school weeks because of the lack of funding. Here in Denver Public Schools (DPS), we are considered the "lucky" ones because we still have a 5-day school week, and yet each year, our budgets get tighter and our administrators are left to make tough decisions around cutting staff and/or program offerings.
Ultimately, changes need to be made in our Statehouse to increase public education funding for all schools, not just in our community or in our District, but across our great state of Colorado.
But until then, as a community and as parents, we are left with a choice:
As a community and as an organization, the Carson PTA believes that it is important for us to do what we can to keep teachers in our classrooms and support our school's efforts. So, we have taken on this great task of raising significant funds each year to help support our school and its CSC-approved Unified Improvement Plan (UIP). We hope that you will join us in our efforts. We hope that you will choose to give.