By Alisa Arunamata
Town Crier Editorial Intern
As the first day of school looms closer, parents must begin feeding money into their children’s outstretched hands for school supplies, new clothes, and all the necessities that their children will need for another school year.
But the children are not the only ones holding out their hands to the parents for money. Back to school means back to fund raising for local foundations, parent associations and various campus groups.
What follows is a general overview of the fund-raisers parents can expect throughout the next school year and where all the money is spent at the public high schools, junior highs and elementary schools.
High schools
At Los Altos and Mountain View high schools, the MVLA High School Foundation puts on the major fund-raiser of the year in the fall. Before school begins, the foundation includes brochures in the back-to-school packets for students and parents to understand the purpose of the fund-raiser.
On Sept. 18 and 19, the foundation has a phone-a-thon with parent volunteers asking families to donate money.
This year, the foundation has decided to raise $210,000 towards paying for accredited tutors in tutorial centers, keeping the college and career counseling for students open, and extending library hours past school hours. The money will also be allotted for basic equipment such as textbooks and the upkeep of technology at both schools.
“We do our phone-a-thon and basically we pray that we obtain all the money. Luckily, we have never failed to reach our goal thanks to the generosity of the parents and local employers that match funds,” said Julia Rosenberg, president of the MVLA High School Foundation.
Besides the foundation, the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) at both high schools raises funds through membership. At the beginning of the school year, the association charges a fee for parents to join and in return the parents and students receive a free directory with the names, addresses and phone numbers of all the students at the school.
“The money from membership helps us to provide scholarships, speakers during our writing workshop, financial support for programs, counselors on campus and the monthly newsletter that goes out to students and parents,” said Ann Gaskell, former president of the PTA at Los Altos High School. “Our main goal with fund raising is to give everybody the chance to do everything.”
In addition to governing the school, the Associated Student Body (ASB) is a major fund-raising organization, raising between $80,000-$100,000 a year through the sale of parking permits, Eagle cards at Los Altos High School and a variety of other activities throughout the year. This money provides for class graduation and senior prom.
There are additional fund-raisers at the high schools that are geared towards supporting specific groups such as the Athletic Boosters for sports, the Band Boosters for music, and the performing art department. Mountain View High School holds a “Casino Night” for parents in order to raise funds for its music department and plans to hold a fall sports fund-raiser.
Junior highs and elementary schools
At the K-8 grade level in the Los Altos School District, the Los Altos Educational Foundation (LAEF) is the largest fund-raiser for the district schools. This fall, the foundation plans to raise a stunning $1.278 million, with a majority of the money coming from parents.
“It’s a huge effort and almost an 80 percent increase from last year,” said Robyn Fay, administrator for both the MVLA High School Foundation and LAEF. “Due to parent concern about class size, the foundation decided to raise more money to reduce classes from 27 students to about 20 per class.”
According to Fay, $535,000 is allocated solely for class size reduction.
LAEF holds a phone-a-thon for three nights in October and sends out literature on a weekly basis beginning with the back-to-school packets. Many of the parents contribute by the beginning of fall so the people being contacted by the phone-a-thon are those who have yet to contribute.
“We always want to try to raise enough money to maintain the current programs and the feeling of the board was that our community values and is willing to support the high quality educational programs we have,” said Raley Hanson, president of LAEF.
At Egan Intermediate School, the magazine drive has been a popular fund-raiser among the community for years. Students attempt to sell magazine subscriptions and win prizes by selling subscriptions. A percentage of the profit returns to the school to pay for programs and equipment.
At Blach Junior High School, the parents and students together decided that they wanted one and only one fund-raiser at the beginning of the year. So the junior high turned to the Direct Appeal. In the fall, parents are asked to make a check to the school of the designated amount and then there are no more fund-raisers for the remainder of the year.
“The Direct Appeal is very profitable because all the money collected from the checks is almost pure profit. The school spends very little money on this fund-raiser,” said Rosenberg, who was also the PTA president at Blach.
At the elementary schools, there are walkabouts, spell-a-thons, Halloween carnivals, and now e$crip. In the past, $crip, has raised $20,000 for the school through the use of gift certificates to a variety of stores bought by the PTA at a bargain price and sold at full price to parents. As e$crip, parents can now buy products online and support field trips, computer labs, and new programs.
The Walk-A-Bouts and spell-a-thons pull in a tremendous amount of money, almost $30,000, according to Tami Adam, the previous PTA president of Santa Rita School.
In addition, hot lunches are fund-raisers because all the proceeds go to the PTA, which then gives the money to the school to distribute.
“I can’t imagine schools without fund-raisers or parent support, at least at the K-8 level,” Gaskell said. “They lend so much support to enrich the lives of the students and allows all students to participate.”
