It’s a tale of two elementary schools, both alike in several ways.

St. Anne Catholic Elementary School in Kitchener and St. Anne Catholic Elementary School in Cambridge both fall under the jurisdiction of the Waterloo Catholic District School Board.

They also share a name, a mission, and a sense of school spirit.

But there’s a stark difference in how much money each school takes in through fundraising.

In 2011, Kitchener’s St. Anne took in nearly $22,000 through fundraising, while Cambridge’s St. Anne brought in less than $2,000.

School board spokesperson John Shewchuk acknowledges that the discrepancy does lead to some difficulties.

"There's always a question of equity. A lot of it has to do with the demographic circumstances of schools,” he says.

Shewchuk notes that the median income in the Kitchener St. Anne’s neighbourhood is $12,000 higher than the median household income in the neighbourhood of the Cambridge St. Anne’s.

Number of students plays a role in fundraising totals too.

St. Ambrose Catholic Elementary School is located only two kilometres from Cambridge’s St. Anne.

The median household income is higher – though not as high as at Kitchener’s St. Anne – but because St. Ambrose has twice as many students, it was able to raise twice as much money as its neighbour school.

Situations where one school’s revenue total may appear significantly higher than most others can also be caused by the school receiving donated items with an unusually high value that year.

“That’s why you see, in some cases, very large totals when it’s not necessarily just parents forking over money out of their pockets for buying cookies or something,” he says.

At the Waterloo Region District School Board, officials say that their school raised more than $14 million last year, but they won’t make a school-by-school breakdown public.

The chair of the board’s parent involvement committee says there are efforts being made to level the fundraising playing field.

“The school board makes up for it to some extent by putting more money into lower-income school areas,” Angelica Allen tells CTV.

“Some schools will donate to another school, and there are foundations that target lower-income areas as well.”

An interview at Stewart Avenue Public School, which was able to raise more than $18,000 in one fundraising campaign, was called off after the school board was notified of the interview taking place.