By Catherine Nichols
Superintendent of Glendora Unified School District

There is a sacred trust, a covenant, which local school districts maintain with parents, community members, and business people. Glendora Unified embraces that trust and has fulfilled our part of the covenant.

Glendora Unified School District is committed to preparing our students to meet the future with confidence.

The goal of education is to tap into the talents of each student and create an environment where they flourish, individually and collectively. Student academic success is part of the covenant we embrace.

During the last 5 years, the District increased its API test score 65 points; rising steadily from 786 to 851. All Schools in the District have an API over 800 and several have scored over 900.

The path to the future appears bright as we connect our students to their passions, providing multidimensional learning that is personalized.

Student success in academics, the arts, music and athletics are the focus of Glendora Unified. Glendora High School was among the top 5 percent of high schools in the nation named by Newsweek Magazine in both 2008 and 2009.

Success builds upon success and the positive results of hard work by teachers, administrators and support staff is apparent.

Of the nine comprehensive schools in Glendora Unified, six schools have become California Distinguished Schools and one school has been named a Title I Achieving School over the past five years.

California Business for Education Excellence and Just for the Kids named five schools in Glendora Unified for outstanding success in raising student academic achievement!

The Foundation for Glendora Unified Schools has donated more than $700,000 to the district over the past two years.

Glendora Unified School District has worked to preserve and nurture the dreams and aspirations of our students.

Until now, although battered by devastating cuts to education, Glendora Unified has persevered with a focus on our priorities: increased student achievement, closing the achievement gap and creating a 4-year college culture.

But California schools are at risk. There is only a very thin veneer that is keeping GUSD - and most school districts in the state - on track.

Each student, whether they are in the first grade or eleventh grade, has only one year to learn that particular curriculum, and we cannot let them down.

Through this devastating fiscal crisis, the worst since the Great Depression, we have feverishly sought to maintain programs, services and support to our students.

School districts statewide have cut funds for textbooks, reduced personnel, depleted reserves and closed schools.

Now the Governor has proposed additional cuts to education. My district of 7,000 students has 10 million dollars less this year, a 20 percent reduction in funds, to educate our students.

We have pulled the “infrastructure” of our school district apart to keep cuts as far away as possible from our precious students.

We have fulfilled our part of this covenant. We have tenaciously maintained high expectations for our students to close the achievement gap, increase student achievement and create a 4-year college culture, but we are on the precipice.

Education must once again become a priority for our state, not in lip service, but in resources. It is a shame and shameful that students in California receive less money per child than students in Mississippi or Alabama or Tennessee.

Do we want our students to have the same opportunities as students in New York or New Jersey? Will our students need to compete with these students? You bet they will. We must have the will and courage to regain the stature that California once enjoyed and more importantly provide necessary resources to our children.

A well-educated work force is critical to the economic success of our state and nation.

The degree of interdependence that exists because of the global economy, the technology that links people throughout the world and the outsourcing that is occurring to India and China should serve as a wake up call.

In order to maintain a competitive advantage, to maintain a high quality of life, we must reinvest in our schools.

Boldly and unequivocally I assert we, in Glendora Unified and in school districts throughout the state, have fulfilled our part of this sacred covenant.

The state has not done the same. We are feverishly trying to protect our students. We, the adults in this state, are responsible for, and contributors to, the continued neglect of the schools.

We also have the power, if we have the will and resolve, to demand school funding be restored to levels that students in California experienced when the state was truly golden and not tarnished.

Source: San Gabriel Valley Tribune

The Foundation for Glendora Unified Schools (FGUS) is working in cooperation with the district to address the current crisis in state educational funding. Last year, thanks to donations from the Glendora community, FGUS was able to raise $365,000 to help support the students of Glendora Unified in the current school year. The funds were used for programs, reinstating teacher positions, maintaining student/teacher ratios, and restoring the Security Resource Officer at all schools. FGUS is in the process of planning its 2009-2010 fundraising activities in order to assist the district in maintaining educational excellence.

Pictured (left to right) school board President Mike Gautreau, board member Dr. Chuck Gomer, board Vice President Denice Delgado, Foundation President Mike Beckman, Foundation Vice President Laura Launchbaugh, Foundation member Phil Currie, board member Doris Blum, board clerk Doug Ferrell and Superintendent Dr. Catherine Nichols.

By Seema Mehta
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Foundations are nothing new, but they’re multiplying as huge budgets cuts loom. And beyond enrichment, their goals now are saving teacher positions and keeping class sizes down.

Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times High school students wash cars at Peninsula High School to raise money for the Peninsula Education Foundation’s Save Our Teachers Now campaign in Rolling Hills Estates Saturday, April 19, 2008.

South Orange County families are being urged to donate $400 per student to save the jobs of 266 teachers in the Capistrano Unified School District.

Parents at Long Beach’s Longfellow Elementary are among countless statewide who are launching fundraising foundations.

Bay Area parents launched a campaign featuring children standing in trash cans; the theme is “Public Education Is Too Valuable to Waste.”

A free public school education is guaranteed by the state Constitution to every California child. But as districts grapple with proposed state funding cuts that could cause the layoffs of thousands of teachers and inflate class sizes, parents are being asked to dig deeper into their pocketbooks to help.

“Public education is free, but an excellent public education is not free at this point,” said Janet Berry, president of the Davis Schools Foundation, which recently launched the Dollar-a-Day campaign, urging citizens of the city near Sacramento to donate $365 per child, grandchild or student acquaintance.

But “we never really imagined the magnitude of the problem, the budget cuts, would be this great.”

Educators must finalize their budgets for the next school year before Sacramento votes on the state’s spending plan. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget would cut about $4.8 billion in education funding this year and next. As a result, potential layoff notices have been issued to 20,000 teachers, librarians, nurses and others.

In addition to increasing class sizes, school districts across the state are considering closing schools, eliminating International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement courses and doing away with sports.

School districts have long trotted out worst-case scenarios in an effort to sway lawmakers before they vote on the budget; this year, however, educators and politicians say lean times are ahead.

Public school district fundraising foundations were first formed after voter approval in 1978 of Proposition 13, which limited property tax increases and dramatically reduced school finances. Those groups have long helped parents in affluent areas enrich their children’s public school educations in ways that include field trips, music classes and such expensive classroom equipment as digital cameras, scientific robots and laptops. Today, such groups are fighting to pay for the basics: teachers’ jobs, manageable class sizes, nurses.

“It’s gone beyond frills at this point,” said David Wagman, president of the Peninsula Education Foundation, which is asking Palos Verdes parents for $200 per child to save the jobs of 59 teachers. PTAs and students are also holding fundraisers.

Education officials acknowledge that these fundraising groups are more successful in wealthier areas, increasing the divide between the haves and the have-nots. And they can make financially strapped parents in affluent districts feel like second-class citizens.

Achievement gap

“Parents in well-to-do communities can raise significant sums of money to augment their local schools’ budgets, while schools in low-income neighborhoods fall further behind,” said state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell. “This is part of the reason that we have an achievement gap in California. We have an economic and moral imperative to close this gap.”

In the Anaheim City School District, four of every five students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, a poverty indicator. A district volunteer-led foundation raises about $50,000 annually through employee contributions and fundraisers to send all sixth-graders to overnight science camp in the San Bernardino Mountains.

The Anaheim parents are never asked to do more than volunteer for small fundraisers, such as bake sales or selling gift wrap or entertainment books.

“It’s not even a consideration to be able to ask them for money,” said district spokeswoman Suzi Brown. “When we look at what other districts are doing, they’ve got foundations that have paid staff. We don’t compete with that at all. We are in a completely different league.”

David Long, California’s education secretary, acknowledged the inequity but said money from nonprofit organizations and federal funds earmarked for poorer schools help level the playing field somewhat. However, he said the only way to fix the state’s finances is for the Legislature to approve Schwarzenegger’s budget stabilization act, which would put away surplus revenue during economic booms for use in leaner times.

“We do not want to continue to have these conversations” about cuts, he said. “It’s hurtful for the children of California.”

Meanwhile, more than 600 foundations across the state are raising money for public schools and districts, said Susan Sweeney, executive director of the California Consortium of Education Foundations. In recent months, she has seen an increase in the number of calls from parents interested in starting such groups.

Longfellow Elementary parents in Long Beach are among them. After learning of the potential state budget cuts, combined with the loss of some federal funding, parents decided to create the Longfellow Legacy Foundation.

Jim Zellerbach, a co-founder with two children at the school, said the group hopes to boost campus coffers by the 2009-10 school year, too late to stop anticipated cuts to the school nurse, librarian and other programs expected in the coming school year.

Longtime foundations are also stepping up their efforts. The Irvine Public Schools Foundation, which raises $3 million annually and has raffled off a house each year since 2004, is convinced that state cuts are only going to slice closer to the bone in coming years. To prepare, the group is launching a university-like fundraising effort this fall, complete with an endowment.

“The only way to take good districts and make them great is to do private fundraising. But it’s even more urgent now with the terrible budget cuts,” said Jerry Mandel, the foundation’s chief operating officer.

Even in rosier financial times, parents are bombarded with requests for money for proms and yearbooks, field trips and gym clothes. And they get fed up.

Jill Case, whose son is a senior at Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo, said she spends $100 to $200 at the start of each school year and writes frequent additional checks throughout the year. Case, who runs a nonprofit organization that helps disabled children and senior citizens, said she does not think she can afford to write a $400 check to the foundation of the school district, Capistrano Unified.

“There’s an assumption that everyone here is rich and what’s the big deal,” said Case, of Laguna Niguel. “But there are families that are struggling. That’s what bothers me the most. The truth is, I’ve been struggling too. You always come up with something for your kids. You don’t want them to feel left out. . . . That’s not the way it’s supposed to be in public schools.”

Those concerns are driving the second goal of foundations across the state: raising public awareness of how schools are funded in California. The state ranks 46th in the nation in per-pupil spending.

Schools in the Alameda Unified School District have reduced their budgets by $7.7 million in seven years. So when community members learned that the governor’s proposed budget would mean an additional $4.5 million in cuts next year, they placed a parcel tax for schools on the June ballot, their second in four years.

The proposal, which would expire in four years if approved, would create a $120 annual levy on residential properties and would charge businesses $120 to $9,500, depending on size.

Trash can campaign

To raise awareness, a parent who runs an ad agency created the “Step Up” campaign.

Students, teachers and coaches have perched inside trash cans around Alameda, with signs reading “Our students / teachers / coaches are too valuable to throw away.” Similar mottoes were placed on city garbage trucks, trash bins and T-shirts.

When Schwarzenegger attended a conference Wednesday at the Hornet, an aircraft carrier now docked in Alameda as a museum, 200 parents, students and teachers protested.

“There’s nothing like showing up when the governor’s there and sticking real kids and real teachers in trash cans,” said Brooke Briggance of the Alameda Education Foundation, “and saying, ‘You know what? This is what you’re doing.’ “

seema.mehta “at” latimes.com

By Sheryl Mee MacPhee
The Quarterly, Fall 2001

When I attendedpublic elementary school in the east San Gabriel Valley in the 1960’s and1970’s, there were may opportunities for us to learn more than just reading,writing and “rithmetic. Our school offered an active drama club and vocalchorus for all grades, and we were instructed in a wide array of performingarts, fine arts and music. Not only did we have a lot of fun, but we were also learningas well, about things like rhythm and tempo, public speaking and imagination,and although we didn’t realize it at the time, mathematics, critical thinking,communication and teamwork. As a parent, it is important to me now that mychildren be given the same opportunity for enrichment in their public schoolsin South Pasadena.

But the arts andenrichment programs that were so commonplace in California public schools inthe 60’s are nonexistent in today’s education climate. In 1978, voters passed thelandmark property tax law Proposition 13, and the California state funddistribution for public schools changed. Gone were the nonessential andenrichment classes like music and art instruction at the elementary schools.Across the state, public school districts slashed music, art and bandcurriculums and field trips. As public schools struggled to provide studentswith a good education with substantially less state funds, it was back tobasics for the children …. reading, writing and ‘rithmetic only.

Bob weaver, currentlya member of the South Pasadena Board of Education, was a parent with twochildren in South Pasadena’s public schools in 1980, when he witnessed theforced elimination of the elementary schools’ vocal music curriculum. Weaverand a group of concerned parents quickly formed the South Pasadena EducationalFoundation (SPEF), a non-profit, volunteer fundraising group that would seek tofill the gaps in the educational budget produced by Proposition 13. Its firstyear, SPEF raised an impressive $35,000, and did what the state couldn’t:return the vocal music curriculum to the city’s elementary schools for the nextsix years.

South Pasadenaparents and residents weren’t the only visionaries when it came to theirschools’ future health. In 1978 and 1980, respectively, concerned parents in LaCañada Flintridge and San Marino were also forming non-profit groups to provideadditional funding to their school districts. Pasadena, a forerunner in thefoundation front, initiated their foundation in 1971 as a result of adistrict-expressed need for teacher small grants. These “local educationalfoundations” (LEFs) join approximately 400 additional California LEFs initiatedsince Proposition 13 passed. All of them share the same commitment: broadeningsupport for public education and local schools by raising funds fordistrict-wide use.

Since theirinception, the foundations have raised funds to support a myriad of academicprograms and materials, including additional teachers’ salaries, music and artseducation, teacher grants, foreign language instruction and high schoolmentoring/career programs. Many of the LEFs, including the groups in SouthPasadena and La Cañada, work “in partnership” with their local districtadministrators to determine where the funds are needed most.

In 1998, SPEF’s Boardof Directors and district administrators determined that the city’s threeelementary schools would greatly benefit from the addition of a permanentperforming arts and music curriculum and foreign language classes at the SouthPasadena Middle School. Educational research has consistently confirmed thatearly exposure to music, arts and foreign languages has a positive impact onall aspects of learning, providing multiple ways for students to exercise intellect.

The result was SPEF’sPALETTE Campaign, an acronym for “Performing Arts and Language ExpressionTeaching Through Enrichment.” Through a series of targeted fundraisers,including phone banks, mailers and their annual “Parti Gras – A Taste of southPasadena” event, SPEF volunteers raised the necessary funds to hire theteachers and support the curricula – now entering its fourth year. Earlier thisyear, SPEF added the South Pasadena High School to its funding initiative,developing a program specifically to expand class offerings in the music andarts, and enhancing its guidance counseling program. To fund all theseprograms, SPEF raised $320,000 this past year, and gave the largest gift totheir district in the foundation’s history.

Fully funding academicand enrichment curriculum so that they become the proprietary programs of theeducational foundation is also the focus of the La Cañada FlintridgeEducational Foundation (LCFEF). “Although we obtain suggestions from ourdistrict administrators for new items, our focus this year is on programs thatwe completely fund,” said LCFEF board member Char Adams. “We can’t just handoff the money and not see it working to our best interest,: said Adams. “Wehave to be accountable to our supporters.” Among the various programs thatLCFEF has continuously provided are K-12 fine arts, additional teacherssalaries, a high school college counselor and “Institutes for the 21^stCentury,” a business and professional mentoring program for high schoolstudents in grades 7-12. This past year, LCFEF gave their district $680,000 tofund these and other programs and curriculum.

In San Marino, theSan Marino Schools Foundation (SMSF) takes a different tack on raising fundsfor the $550,000 they give to support the city’s four public schools each year.According to SMSF Executive Director Colleen Fitzspatrick, SMSF gives donatedfunds to their district as an “unrestricted gift,” instead of targetingspecific programs, and leaves spending of the money entirely up to district administrators.”The people who established the foundation 21 years ago felt very strongly thatit was appropriate to have the school district and the school district and theschool board dictate how our funds are spent,” said Fitzpatrick. In addition totheir yearly $550,000 gift, SMSF also is conducting an ambitious capitalcampaign-raising $3 million in three years to fund furnishings and equipmentfor new classrooms. They are succeeding-nearly $1.5 million has been raised sofar, with two years remaining in the campaign.

But to raise thesenecessary funds, LEFs are shying away from the traditional bake sales andraffle tickets. South Pasadena, La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena all holdfestive community-wide fundraisers, complete with dinner, auctions and music,that provide residents and parents an opportunity to socialize and support thefoundations’ programs. San Marino prefers to utilize direct mail and brochures,and contacts individuals and businesses directly for contributions. Theirsummer “Concerts in the Park” series at Lacy Park is not so much a fundraiser,but a “friend-raiser,” used to build community awareness of their foundations,according to SMSF”s Fitzpatrick. Additional fundraising tactics for thenon-profits include jog-a-thons, summer school class offerings, newsletters andintensive phone banks.

“So much ofwhat goes on in a community is tied to the health and vitality of its schools,”says SPEF Co-President Michele Downing. “Part of our mission statement is toinvolve our community in our activities and fundraising so they become investedin the programs that SPEF funds.”

And LEFs have nodifficulty asking local businesses to participate and “become invested” in theschools as well. Indeed, perusing a list of business donors to LEFs reads likea local business directory-retail stores, doctors, professionals, andcorporations large and small. Adds SPEF Co-President Jerry Markle, “We rely onour local businesses for on-going support, but also count on the larger banks,supermarkets and corporations to ensure we meet our annual goal. They are avital part of our community.” The Pasadena Educational Foundation has been verysuccessful obtaining donations from local businesses, with large amountsreceived from Avery Dennison, Bank of America and Parsons Corporation.

This community-widefundraising is crucial to the individual districts when you consider that theupscale middle class communities of South Pasadena, San Marino and La Cañadareceive less per pupil in state funding than the state average. As LCFEFmentions in their annual report, “While the community of La Cañada Flintridgemay be considered affluent as measured by the value of its residentialproperty, our schools are seriously under financed.” Therefore, LEFs feel it’svital to ask all residents of the city to support the public schools, whetherthey have children in them or not.

The support thedistricts receive in terms of donated funds, volunteers and communitycommitment is quantitative as well. According to the API (Academic PerformanceIndex), all three of the high schools are ranked in the top 10 percent of allCalifornia public high schools in 2000. LCFEF’s annual report also states thatthe three high schools are ranked in the top 50 (out of 800) public highschools in California, based on the 1999 API (California Department ofEducation data).

But for all thesuccess the foundations have had in raising funds throughout the years, theystill face hurdles. For SPEF, that challenge is to inform the entire communityabout the long-term impact their donations have on the public schools. “We’dlike to inform our parents and community about SPEF and the programs weprovide, ultimately increasing our donor base,” said Downing.

In La CañadaFlintridge, LCFEF Co-president Rose Chan also hopes to reach out to her entirecommunity and get more people supportive of their foundation. “We take our goodeducation for granted,” said Chan. “Our goal is to communicate that our firstpriority is our schools, and we hope to convince people to continue to give asthey previously have.”

From kindergarten totwelfth grade, educational foundations offer public school districts a plethoraof enhancements. Whether raising funds for arts and music programs, languagearts, technology or high school career counseling, the foundations fill anecessary gap in school funding and the school districts would not be assuccessful without them.

Public school parentswho grew up in the 60s and 70s experienced a very different education than theones our children have now. Intensive instruction in music, drama, fine artsand other non-core curricula were all commonplace in California public schoolsthirty years age. These education essentials, plus all the other learningingredients that existed in pre-Proposition 13 public education, are a vitalpart of our children’s learning experience, and what parents want and expecttoday for their children. Educational Foundations ar our way of ensuring thatthe education our children receive will be as well rounded and all encompassingas the education we remember from our youth.