Four lines of income
| Source | Amount (as reported) |
|---|---|
| Walk-a-thon | ~$83,000 |
| Holiday cookie dough drive | ~$3,000 |
| Other income and donations | ~$7,000 |
| Total | $93,000 |
On our arithmetic the walk supplied about 89% of the year's income.1 The cookie dough drive, the kind of product sale many PTAs still run, brought in under 4%. The report also says the PTA "raised $86k (minus expenses) in 2 major fundraisers."
What the PTA spent
The report doesn't tie spending to the walk specifically. It lists what the PTA as a whole paid for: about $19,000 on assemblies (a Sky Dome planetarium for grades 2–5, the San Francisco Opera for the lower grades), about $18,000 on teacher, staff, music and recess supplies, about $11,000 on field trips including a fourth-grade trip to Sacramento "with subsidized bus transportation," about $4,000 on Family STEM Night and a $5,000 donation to BCE.1 Total expenses were $106,000, which the PTA puts at "roughly $304 per student."
Read against the income table, the picture is simple: most of what Franklin children experience beyond the classroom basics, from the planetarium dome to the bus to Sacramento, comes from one afternoon of laps.
$304 spent, $305 asked
When the next walk-a-thon came around, the PTA's page gave families a "recommended fundraising goal: $305 per student."2 The PTA doesn't draw the connection, but the ask sits a dollar away from what it reported spending per child. Whether planned or not, it gives parents a reason for the number. "Please raise $300" invites the question why; "it costs about $305 a year per student" answers it. The fundraising calculator lets you see how a per-student ask plays out at different participation rates.
Finding your own per-student number
Franklin's ask can be copied with three figures from your own books: what the programs cost, what the walk itself costs, and how many students you have. Take a hypothetical school of 300 students whose PTA plans $60,000 of programs and expects $5,000 in walk costs for shirts, prizes and printing. The walk needs to gross $65,000, which is about $217 per student.
That number assumes every child raises money, and none does. If three in four students bring in donations, the same $65,000 needs about $289 from each of them. Put the full-enrollment figure on the flyer, since it's the honest cost per child, and plan the budget on the participation-adjusted one. If last year's walk didn't reach that level, either the program list or the goal has to change before kickoff, not after. The budget calculator totals the walk's own costs, and the fundraising calculator above tests different participation rates.
Where the numbers don't add up
Spending ($106,000) ran ahead of income ($93,000), and the report shows about $33,000 carried in from the previous year's balance. It also shows $33,000 carried forward. By our arithmetic, $93,000 plus $33,000 minus $106,000 leaves about $20,000, not $33,000, so the published figures don't reconcile, perhaps because of rounding or items we can't see. The report's title says 2025–2026, but its figures read like a completed year. And it doesn't separate the walk's own costs (shirts, prizes, fees) from program spending, so the walk's net isn't knowable from it.
None of that makes the report less useful. A family reading it knows what the walk is for. If you publish your own, the fix for Franklin's gap is one line: starting balance, plus income, minus spending, equals ending balance. List the walk's own costs separately from the programs it pays for, so the walk's net is visible.
Ninety minutes on a Friday
The walk itself is compact. The 2026 event ran "Friday, October 16, from 1:00–2:30 PM," and "each grade will have its own time on the course to run or walk as many laps as possible!" Families watch from outside: "Only registered volunteers & staff may enter the Student Zone."2 A closed course keeps the lap count clean and the schedule tight. To lay out grade slots like these for your own enrollment, use the schedule builder.
Sources
- Franklin Elementary PTA, Annual Report 2025–2026 (accessed October 19, 2026).
- Franklin Elementary PTA, Walk-a-thon 2026 (accessed October 19, 2026).