|
Newly released data from the City’s Department of Education (DOE) indicate that the Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) at ten Lower Manhattan public schools raised almost $6.3 million in 2025. Five other local schools that serve lower-income students reported collecting no money at all.
The City’s Local Law 171 requires the DOE to collect and analyze metrics from PTAs at the 1,800-plus public schools throughout the five boroughs. Among Lower Manhattan elementary, middle, and high schools, the fundraising leader was Stuyvesant High School (in Battery Park City), which took in $2.03 million. Stuyvesant was followed by P.S./I.S. 276 (also located in Battery Park City), with income of $1.05 million.
The Spruce Street School (in the Seaport neighborhood) raised $849,000, trailed by P.S. 89 (in Battery Park City), with $750,000. P.S. 150 (Financial District) took in $625,000, while P.S. 234 (Tribeca) netted $588,000. The Lower Manhattan Community Middle School (the Financial District) raised $157,000, and Millennium High School (also in FiDi) secured $117,346 in donations. I.S. 289 (Battery Park City) took in $78,000, and the Peck Slip School (in the Seaport) received $53,000.
This fundraising success is a stark contrast to five other local schools that either didn’t report fundraising activity, or else reported that they had raised no money at all. These included a trio of schools that share a single building on Trinity Place, at Thames Street: the High School of Economics and Finance, the Leadership and Public Service High School, and the School Without Walls. Also reporting no PTA funds were the Harbor School (located on Governors Island) and Murry Bergtraum High School for Business Careers (located alongside the Brooklyn Bridge).
This divide is underscored by a DOE measure known as the Economic Need Index (ENI), which quantifies financial distress among students and their families (with a lower number denoting more financial security, and a higher number indicating less financial security). For the group of ten local schools that enjoyed relative success in PTA fundraising, the ENI ranged between 7.1 percent (at P.S. 234) and 49.3 at the Lower Manhattan Community Middle School, with an average score of 31.3 percent.
But for the group of five schools that reported raising no funds at all, this benchmark almost doubled: the ENI hovered between 56.2 percent (at the Harbor School) and 91.5 percent (at Murry Bergtraum High School), with an average score of 78.6.
Matthew Fenton
| 
