The ol’ apple on the teacher’s desk is poisoned for the Park City School District if you consider:
- Utah ranks last among all the states in funding public schools. Yep, 50th. First in several measures of economic performance and outlook. More miserly than Mississippi when it comes to the kids and their education.
- Park City has a great property tax base, obviously. Too bad 96% of the revenue for the schools goes straight out of town to other school districts in Utah.
These facts lay at the core of the message Park City Education Foundation board member Hoby Darling delivered along with the usual hopes and dreams to a roomful of dressed-up donors Saturday night at the Montage for the annual Red Apple Gala.
“Here’s the reality,” he said. “The Legislature of the state of Utah does not have the same dreams for your kids in how they apportion dollars as you do.”
Technically, Idaho may have fallen a few dollars below Utah in state funding per student this year in the race for the bottom, according to the Census Bureau, but the point remained. And besides, he was priming the pump for the evening to come.
Over dinner, auctioneer John Curley, an American doppelganger of the singer Sting, brought his own music and unique staccato, dance moves and even some singing to tease the dollars out attendees sympathetic to the stakes and with the dollars do something about that.
He danced, he slashed the air, he talked a mile a minute as sweat from the lights and his effort beaded and then glistened on his face and the bids rose, big numbers on the backs of the programs, back and forth between tables, his hand outstretched, signaling he knew there was more, so bring it.
The prizes started with a fire engine ride to school for the winner’s kids. In an apparent audible, Curley raised that to two rides for equal bidders, while two firefighters behind him nodded in agreement. After the veritable parade of prizes that followed came the straight-up commitments, raise your programs, the big numbers facing the auctioneer and assistant at a podium.
Then Curley announced the promise of an anonymous matching $50,000 if the room could reach $150,000. A little extra nudging followed — in part a joking threat to lock the doors and play Nickelback songs until the 300 or so attendees relented — and that job got done, putting the live auction’s take at a little over $200,000.
Not everyone at the party was wealthy by any means, just as the board of the foundation is a mix of education professionals, people whose hearts for volunteering go deeper than their pockets, and Park City’s economic elite.
Put together, the silent and live auctions, ticket sales and all add to programs fit to kids’ academic dreams, a boost for plenty of families whose educational aspirations for their children would remain well out of reach, and backfill to what the state denies in basic investment, including for art education.
The foundation lined up six students and two teachers on the stage to put faces to its eight key initiatives, from the foundation’s website:
- “Preschool: Raise the odds for success. Lower the cost of preschool.
- Elementary Visual Arts: Keep art in the picture.
- Afterschool: Quality afterschool programs (K-9th) that work for working parents.
- Educator and Student Wellness: Wellness is an essential subject.
- Real World Learning: Putting STEAM to work.
- Classroom and Express Grants: Power a teacher. Launch a student.
- Innovation Lab: Education ideas for the future from those who know best: educator voice in education.
- Bright Futures: A college degree for first-generation students.”
The mention of Bright Futures had board member and middle-school teacher Rebeca Gonzales, who grew up in Park City, yelping, high-fiving and wiping tears from her eyes while a friend fanned her with a program. She’s the board chair of the Bright Futures initiative, and giving first generation students a boost toward college runs very close to her heart and personal experience.
The foundation brings in about $2 million each year, supplementing the school district’s total projected revenue of nearly $150 million in 2024-25, by around $1.5 million annually through the foundation’s programs, according to district budget documents.
The shiny, sweet part of the apple is that the “party with a purpose,” as Darling coined it, alone raises $400,000-$500,000 each year, all told, nearly half of that Saturday night in a flurry.
