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Portland Schools Foundation reports revenue growth; pilots arts partnership and expands basic-needs supports
Summary
The Portland Public Schools Foundation reported growth in net assets and detailed pilot arts partnerships for 2025–26 plus basic-needs programs including rental assistance, a food-stability grant pilot, vision-van funding and athletic gear support.
Andrea Weisman Summers, executive director of the Portland Public Schools Foundation, told the school board on Oct. 14 that the foundation ended the most recent fiscal year with an increase in net assets of $908,000 and continues to grow revenue.
Weisman Summers said the foundation maintained approximately 80% of expenditures as direct program investments and that an external audit found no material weaknesses. She said the foundation is not printing the annual report this year but provided a PDF to the board.
On programming, the foundation described a pilot year for a PPS Arts Partnership. Participating projects this year include Casco Bay High School ninth-graders working with The Telling Room on poetry and visual arts; Lincoln Middle School working with Portland Ovation’s artist in schools; Jean R. Rowe fifth graders working with the Portland Museum of Art and photographer Jared Lank; and Side by Side engagements at East End, Lyseth and Ocean Avenue elementary schools. Deering High School’s art department was finalizing a proposal intended to work with a Penobscot Nation artist identified in the presentation as Firefly.
The foundation said it will allocate $1,000 to each district music, visual and performing arts teacher this year to purchase supplies, buy a new light board for Deering High School’s auditorium, purchase lighting/projection equipment for Portland High School (about $35,000), and buy new stage curtains for the three middle schools. The foundation also plans to provide new music stands districtwide.
Weisman Summers described several basic-needs programs the foundation is supporting:
- A Families in Crisis fund with approximately $5,000 per month for rental and utility assistance; foundation staff said that the fund can be depleted quickly and that this month requests exhausted the month’s allocation on Oct. 1. Decisions on awards are routed through multilingual staff and social work staff.
- A $10,000 food-stability grant pool (grants up to $1,500) administered by a steering committee convened by the Cumberland County Food Security Council; applications are under review.
- Funding to continue mobile vision services with Greater Portland Health (vision vans) so students can get prescriptions and glasses.
- The Ed Feeney Athletics Fund, which purchases sneakers and other basic athletic gear for students who need them; referrals can come from any district staff member.
Weisman Summers said the foundation received 141 individual donations totaling $1,088,000 (including an anonymous $1,000,000 gift, with part designated for music and the arts), plus corporate and foundation gifts and in-kind donations listed in a quarterly acknowledgments section.
Board members asked about plans to scale support if federal or state funding cuts increase need; the foundation said it will contract with Capital Campaign Pro to conduct a feasibility study for a potential larger campaign (the firm will estimate an appropriate target). The foundation said the study would inform a possible multi-million-dollar campaign to grow reserves for basic-needs support and programming.
Vice Chair Bondo and others thanked the foundation for the $1,000 per arts teacher support and for the basic-needs funds. Foundation staff identified Maureen Clancy and Melissa McStay as the district staff who triage Families in Crisis requests and Tina Vitu as coordinating vision-van visits with Greater Portland Health.
