Posted on 5/18/2003, 11:24:22 PM by The Other Harry
May 17, 2003
Schools rely on charity for survival
By DONNA JONES
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
SANTA CRUZ -- Linda Bottarini just might get a little more sleep after today.
For the past three months, the parent volunteer has worked about 20 hours a week -- many of them between the hours of 8 p.m., when she puts her children to bed, and 1 or 2 in the morning -- to organize an auction she hopes will raise $20,000 for Westlake Elementary School.
The auction is just one of several upcoming school benefits, and it comes in the wake of several others.
"It’s the Age of the Fund-raiser," Bottarini said.
Across the state, school districts are whacking budgets in response to state cutbacks. To many schools in the county, already struggling with lost revenue due to declining enrollment, the state fiscal crisis has dealt a crippling blow.
That has parents and others working overtime to raise cash for classroom supplies, coaches’ pay, art and music programs, even to save teachers’ jobs and keep schools open. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been raised in the county in the last few months, and efforts are under way to raise hundreds of thousands more.
Fund-raising by parents is nothing new. But Bottarini said its character has changed since her child entered kindergarten at Westlake five years ago. Then, parents raised cash to add landscaping to the campus or to buy extras. Now proceeds buy paper for the school copier and pay the maintenance contract to keep it running.
Westlake Principal Ken Miller said in the past four years his discretionary budget has dwindled from more than $40,000 a year to $13,000. Meanwhile, costs, such as paper and upkeep on aging copiers, continue to climb, and the pressure on parents to come up with cash has increased.
"You’re raising money so your kid’s school can function," Bottarini said.
On pace for burnout
For Ben Lomond resident Debbie Sanchez, current conditions carry a feeling of deja vu.
More than 10 years ago, a cash-poor San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District gutted sports, arts and music, and more to balance its budget.
Sanchez, as president of the San Lorenzo Valley Boosters Club, spearheaded an effort to raise roughly $90,000 to keep school athletics afloat. Though district trustees eventually restored funding, the Boosters still raise about $70,000 a year to support teams. But Sanchez, now vice president, didn’t expect she would be forced to raise money to pay for coaches again.
But after trustees slashed 20 percent from coaches’ salaries to keep next year’s budget in the black, the Boosters added another $30,000 to the yearly fund-raising goal.
"Here we go again," Sanchez said. "We’re not going to deny the kids programs. They’re an integral part of their education. Are we going to fund-raise? Yeah."
Sanchez couldn’t number the hours she’s put in for sports during the last dozen years. But she said she goes to a meeting at least one night a week.
"It’s not just me," she said. "A lot of people do that."
Bottarini agreed, and said it can lead to burnout. The five parents coordinating the Westlake auction each has put in about 20 hours a week for the past three months, and their work was augmented by parents working to collect auction items.
"If we don’t make $20,000, it’s not worth it," Bottarini said.
And the exhaustion of the economic challenge extends beyond parents.
"As a professional educator, I would like to spend most of my time on curriculum and instructional issues, not how are we going to keep programs alive," said Ken Thomas, principal of Scotts Valley High School and telethon organizer. "I’ve spent a good part of this year dealing with revenue issues."
Thomas believes the community will rally behind the telethon goal of $200,000 to help pay athletic coaches, band directors and club advisers at high schools and middle schools. Those programs are some of the best drop-out prevention money can buy, he said.
But Thomas worries about the impact of near constant appeals for money.
"In the last four weeks here in Scotts Valley, we’ve had a phone-a-thon, the education foundation’s Ice Cream Social this weekend, next week the telethon, Santa Cruz and San Lorenzo Valley have parcel taxes (on the June 3 ballot), and I don’t know about all the other individual activities schools are doing," Thomas said.
"It’s a question of how many times can you go to the well."
Competition
Most active fund-raisers recognize the pool of donors -- whether businesses contributing auction items or parents ponying up for paper and pencils -- is a limited resource. When money gets tight, questions arise about who gets to tap into it.
An undercurrent of tension flowed through the Soquel Union Elementary School District, for example, after two groups launched campaigns earlier this year.
One group of parents raised more than $70,000 to keep limits on class size in kindergarten through third grade. The other group is trying to keep Capitola Elementary School open. They secured $163,000 from the Capitola City Council, enough for next year. But the drive continues for the following year. Organizers have banked close to $20,000, and hope to increase the amount with a dance Friday.
Boulder Creek resident Jill Hitchman is spearheading one of the most ambitious campaigns, an effort to raise $400,000 annually for two years to keep Redwood Elementary School open.
San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District trustees, who voted to shutter the 12-year-old, nationally recognized school last month, will consider whether to give the go-ahead to Redwood parents Tuesday.
But concerns emerged about competition with campaigns to raise money for sports and arts programs and the district’s efforts to pass a $135 parcel tax, and Hitchman agreed to look outside the San Lorenzo Valley for contributions. To date, the Redwood group has collected close to $100,000.
"It’s been challenging trying to go outside the community for these donations," said Hitchman who hopes to secure corporate contributions.
Another way
While most of the fund-raising has the urgency of an ambulance heading to a car wreck, some locals are calmly pursuing long-term solutions. San Lorenzo Valley residents, led by school Trustee Susan Weber, have been working for nine months to establish an education foundation.
Weber said the idea is for the foundation to award annual grants for academic projects, though it will need $60,000 in seed money before it doles out any funds.
Santa Cruz City Schools is exploring a foundation, too.
Scotts Valley Education Foundation has been around for 20 years, but the fiscal crisis has pushed it into high gear. This year’s goal of $100,000 is more than double what it has raised annually in the past. The foundation is about three-fourths of the way there, said President Marshall Wolf.
The foundation aims to coordinate all fund-raising for the Scotts Valley Unified School District, but donors can specify where they want their money to go, Wolf said.
As the school year winds down, the fund-raising frenzy likely will drop off. But the break may be as brief as summer vacation. Scotts Valley High’s principal Thomas has worked in education since the mid-1960s, and he said the state’s public school system seems to face a crisis about every 12 to 13 years. First there was Proposition 13, which capped property taxes, then the 1991 recession, he said.
"Here it is again," Thomas said. "Is there light at the end of the tunnel? ... I can’t tell you."
Contact Donna Jones at djones@santa-cruz.com.School benefits
WHAT: Westlake Elementary School Aloha Carnival and Auction.
WHEN: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
WHERE: 1000 High St., Santa Cruz.
GOAL: $20,000.
WHAT: Scotts Valley Education Foundation’s Ice Cream Social and Auction.
WHEN: Noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
WHERE: Skypark, north of the Kings Village shopping center on Mount Hermon Road, Scotts Valley.
WHAT: Sports and Arts Telethon for Live Oak, Santa Cruz, San Lorenzo Valley and Scotts Valley middle schools and high schools.
WHEN: 5-10 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday.
WHERE: KRUZ, Channel 4.
GOAL: $200,000.
WHAT: Save Capitola Elementary School picnic and dance.
WHEN: 5-8 p.m. Friday.
WHERE: Jade Street Park, 4400 Jade St., Capitola.
TICKETS: $4 individual; $15 family.
Imo, the jury is in on this one. The public schools do not work and they cannot be made to work. They've been given chance after chance and dollar after dollar, and they've constantly failed. Time's up.
Lots of stuff falls under the education umbrella that didn't in the past. I was amazed last fall when the school staff at our elementary school was introduced at back to school night. In addition to the expected array of classroom teachers and the principal, there was a second group of staff and aides that looked as large as the group of teachers. These were all the support personnel for music, art, phys ed, reading, speech, gifted support, and a vast variety of special needs. They also include cafeteria workers, playground aides and office staff.
When we were kids, most of the school staff were classroom teachers. We walked home for lunch, and many special needs students didn't go to school with us. Times have changed
Support staff in schools seems to have ballooned in response to many government initiatives. Children with learning problems receive special support where in the past, they might have just fallen progressively further behind. Severely disabled children didn't come to our neighborhood school; I don't know where they went. Now they come to school with the rest of the kids. It's expensive. Many special needs students are profoundly disabled kids with ratios of 2 or 3 students per adult or even less. That adds up to a lot of staff, especially with autusim rates apparently rising.Somehow, it was paid for in the past, but probably not out of the public school budgets. Students whose needs are too severe to be met in public schools are sometimes sent to private schools with tuition paid out of the public education budget.
There is definitely waste in the public shools. There are unscrupulous suppliers who overcharge for supplies and careless (or corrupt) administrators who fail to engage in competitive bidding. There are too many bureaucrats and some ineffective teachers and administrators. Some programs really are luxuries rather than necessities, but we may not all agree on which ones are luxuries. Even if we eliminated all waste, we'd still have school budgets that are far larger that those of a generation earlier. The schools have changed in what they are asked to accomplish - rightly or wrongly. The definition of our schools' role in society is one which could stand some honest debate among the citizens.
I can't tell you that.
I also can't tell you why Latin, French, and German used to be taught in high schools, but they no longer are.
You sound like you're really pissed off at the public school system.
I'm glad to hear that that. So am I.
They don't lay off anyone. They give them cost-of-living raises.
Or rather, slaves. The article reads like a description of rats on an exercise wheel. No paper for the kids? Does the principal bring his own? I doubt it. And I wonder what the student/counselor ratio is these days. When I was in high school, we had one guidance counselor for 2000 students. Everybody knew her and she knew everybody. Nobody wanted to go to her office.
There is a Biblical principle evident here:
He who loves money shall not be satisfied with money and he who loves abundance won't be satisfied with increase.
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