Los Altos Educational Foundation celebrates 25 years of supporting LASD programs
By Katie Roper, Special to The Town Crier
 photos by joe hu/town crier The Los Altos Educational Foundation’s 25 years of fundraising has provided local children with continued music, technology and physical education instruction. |
Stephanie, a fifth-grader at Covington School in Los Altos, is terribly proud of her new viola and equally thrilled to bring it to her first day of instrumental music, said her mother Allyson Campa.
Andrew was enthralled last year when he dissected a lamb’s heart. “It was the first indication that he might be a doctor one day,” said his mother Suzanne.
Kindergarten teacher Pam Loebner said she started using her Step Up To Writing training the very day she returned to her classroom, instructing children as young as 5 in the art of creating a topic sentence.
None of these activities would be possible for children enrolled in Los Altos public schools without the support of the Los Altos Educational Foundation (LAEF), which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary with cocktails, commemorations and - of course - fundraising.
Operating independent of the Los Altos School District, the parent-run LAEF works with the district to identify a wish list of programs each year, ranging from music to science and additional kindergarten teachers. The foundation commits to pay salaries for the extra staff to support such programs districtwide. This year, LAEF has pledged to raise $1.7 million, a record amount. The district then hires the teachers while the foundation solicits contributions.
“We’re fortunate that Los Altos parents are so generous, and our volunteer fundraisers are so committed,” said Teresa Kersten, president of the foundation and mother of fifth-, sixth-, and eighth-graders at Almond School and Egan Junior High. “Every year, parents want the school district to provide enrichment programs, and every year the foundation stretches to pay for them, and every year the parents come through for us.”
Fortunately for children in the Los Altos School District, the foundation has never missed its goal, said Robyn Fay, an early LAEF board member and its first executive director.
In the early years, the goals were modest, with annual gifts of $40,000 that the district used to buy items such as new maps and globes.
“They weren’t sure the money would be coming in next year, so the district didn’t want to make a commitment to pay teachers’ salaries and then have to pull back,” Fay said.
As the foundation proved itself, however, the district agreed to take a risk and hire additional staff members to teach programs that had been cut due to insufficient state funding, like physical education and music. Today, LAEF funds the equivalent of 22.6 full-time staff, according to the Los Altos School District.
The need for educational foundations
In the 1960s, California’s public schools were among the best in the nation. Local communities collected property taxes and allocated them to schools as they saw fit. In the 1970s, however, a sea change hit the school financing structure.
First, the court case Serrano v. Priest declared local funding unfair due to massive differences in spending between rich and poor school districts. From then on, all property-tax money for schools went to the state, which divvied it out to local districts based on a complex formula.
“It devastated smaller districts like Los Altos,” said Dick Liewer, then principal at Blach Intermediate School and later assistant superintendent of the Los Altos district.
“We really wrote off adequacy, and we ended up with equalized mediocrity,” concluded Mike Kirst, a Stanford University education professor, in a scathing 2004 PBS documentary on California schools, “From First to Worst.”
Second, Proposition 13, a tax-cutting measure, eviscerated state funding for many programs, including public education.
With much less money coming from Sacramento, “the Los Altos school board did the responsible thing and cut programs perceived as ‘fringe,’ like art, music, aides and PE,” said Bert Loughmiller, an early LASD board member. “But that was unacceptable to many parents, so we started looking for a response.”
One response was the emergence of educational foundations. Menlo Park had the first in the area, Loughmiller said, “and we watched it for a year to see if it would work, or if it would be legally challenged because it was creating inequity again.”
Because there was no law against school districts accepting gifts, as long as the gift came from an independent foundation, Loughmiller and other parents like Terry Krivan and Duane Roberts began mobilizing and organizing.
The foundation’s beginnings in 1982 were on a pretty small scale, remembered Fay. Early board meetings took place around dining room tables, and board members collecting money from their friends and neighbors constituted fundraising. The tradition of the annual phone-a-thon reaching out to every parent in the district didn’t start until later. The foundation made its first gift to the Los Altos School District in 1983.
Foundations are now commonplace in California. Susan Sweeney, executive director of the California Consortium of Educational Foundations, was hard-pressed to name a school district in the Bay Area that doesn’t have one.
“They all look very different and do very different things,” said Sweeney, who contrasted the San Jose Education Foundation, which funds health and school readiness initiatives and seeks grants from the federal government, with the primarily parent-funded LAEF.
“We’re such a diverse state, it is hard to have cookie-cutter programs,” she said.
Not all foundations have prospered, Sweeney said. However, the Los Altos Educational Foundation is generally considered to be one of the more successful. Fay, who retired as executive director last year, is now busier than ever, consulting for other communities that want to replicate it.
Key to success
What is the key to the foundation’s success? Looking back over the 25-year history, parents and district staff agree - parent and community involvement is the cornerstone.
“Support for education is strong here, and that means we’ve always had a dedicated, professional board of directors for LAEF as well as a high degree of community participation,” Fay said. “We’ve gotten gifts that are five $1 bills stuffed in an envelope, and that’s just as telling as the $25,000 gifts.”
Longtime Superintendent Marge Gratiot agreed.
“The impact of LAEF went beyond money; it gave parents a way to get involved with the district, and that encouraged a new generation of parent leaders and current and future (school) board members,” she said.
Community businesses also help, both by matching contributions from parent employees and by direct donations. Realtors, for instance, contributed more than $45,000 last year, according to Connie Miller, a local realtor and mother of a sixth-grader. Miller ran the Honor Roll of Realtors program for LAEF.
“My colleagues and I recognize that giving back to the schools of the neighborhoods that support us is simply the right thing to do,” Miller said.
Support from school district personnel was vital, too.
“The superintendents in our district were foresighted enough to buy into the program, and we found ways to draw in the principals as well,” Fay said.
Loughmiller recalled getting 100 percent of school staff members to contribute, even during the early days of the foundation. After the first year’s gift, the principals and district personnel threw a potluck supper to thank the LAEF board. (Gratiot - then principal of Santa Rita School - still remembers being asked to bring a tossed salad.)
“When I go talk to other districts, the parents all ask about how to do a phone-a-thon,” Fay said. “I don’t tell them until they have buy-in from district staff and a strong board in place, because it takes all that to make it happen.”
Equally important has been the contributions of Fay herself.
“The stability factor of having someone like Robyn, who has been there through the whole thing, is vital,” Liewer said. “She’s a valiant champion for kids.”
Shobana Gubbi, who this year replaced Fay as executive director, said she was “blown away by the well-oiled machine Robyn put in place.”
“We were way ahead of our time in having a paid staff position,” Fay said. “It really helped having someone responsible for holding volunteer people accountable.”
Success breeds success
“LAEF really was the catalyst that turned LASD from a poorly funded school district, offering a bare-bones program, into one of the most respected districts in the state,” Gratiot said. “Without LAEF and the subsequent parcel tax (which could not have happened without LAEF’s success), many parents would have deserted the public school system. Instead, they have stayed, and the district has become stronger and stronger with their help.”
As Kersten and her team of volunteers gear up for this year’s fundraising initiative, they can look back on a proud track record of success. They can also look forward, as LAEF launches a new program, the Leadership Circle, to recognize donors of $5,000 or more, and a new grant-making focus on teacher training.
There will be new challenges, too. The reopening of Bullis-Purissima School next year, for example, requires a major step up in money raised, just to ensure that the new school has the same programs as the existing ones. But Kersten said she’s confident that, with the ongoing support of parents, volunteers and the community, the foundation will meet its goals in the future.
“I’m always trying to provide for the children so many things that they deserve,” said LASD Superintendent Tim Justus, who added that his two prior districts did not have successful parent foundations until he started them. “It is great to have this one, that’s so strong.”
The Los Altos Educational Foundation welcomes individual and business donations. For more information, visit http://www.laefonline.org. Mail checks to LAEF, PO Box 98, Los Altos 94023, or drop them off in the office of any elementary or intermediate school in the Los Altos School District.
Katie Roper represents Covington School on the LAEF Board of Directors.
