The fundraising campaign, Save Our Schools, will turn over the funds to the school district after Sunday.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
The ambitious 60-day Save Our Schools, or SOS, fundraising campaign, which will end this weekend, has raised more than $1.2 million in the past two months.
The campaign was initiated earlier this summer to help relieve the cuts of teachers, counselors and other staff from the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District due to the state budget crisis, which has severely reduced school district revenues.
Sponsors are pushing heavily for final commitments in the last days leading up to the grand finale celebration this weekend, at which time the final tally will be announced in time for the district to rehire educational staff for the coming school year. A celebration will take place at Santa Monica High School this Sunday.
Funds from the campaign will be allocated to one of three “buckets:” rehiring elementary school teachers, rehiring school counselors and secondary school teachers, and replacing staff for libraries and music programs districtwide.
SOS was conceived as a one-time, emergency effort to make up for some of the nearly $7 million worth of cuts the Board of Education was forced to make for this fiscal year, due to declining state revenues and the failure of parcel tax Measure A in May.
It was hoped the parcel tax measure would bring in enough funds to avoid some of the substantial layoffs the new budget restrictions demanded. But the school district let go of more than 60 employees in June, with the bulk of layoffs hitting elementary schools.
Rebecca Kennerly, chairperson of Community for Excellent Public Schools, has been instrumental in directing the campaign. She said that funds from SOS would be turned over to the district, where the Board of Education is expected to follow recommendations determined by district Superintendent Tim Cuneo and area principals.
“We’re thrilled with the response so far,” Kennerly said. “When Measure A failed, we knew we would have to put our heads together to come up with ideas because that measure would have only generated about $5 million and we need $7 million. But this is a good start.”
Kennerly acknowledged that the school district would have to make “some hard decisions” about how to allocate the funds since the amount raised falls short of the approximately $475 per student needed to match the funds Measure A would have raised.
And this effort only addresses funding needs for the 2010-11 school year.
“We know this is only a short-term solution,” Kennerly said. “Prop 13 (the 1978 California ballot initiative that limits property tax increases) has decimated contributions to local schools and we will have to find a way to make that up if we are to serve our children the way they deserve.”
One idea to make up funding for school district cuts comes from a half-cent sales tax measure that will appear on the City of Santa Monica’s November ballot. Half the revenue from the tax could be allocated to the school district, Superintendent Cuneo said. That amount would almost make up what was cut in the recent budget.
When asked what the Santa Monica-Malibu Education Foundation (spearheading the effort) would do if the sales tax measure failed to pass in November, Executive Director Linda Gross said, “The board has already voted to bring in a fundraising consultant to work with parents, local businesses and the community at large to discuss a sustainable fundraising model … We’ll find another way.”
Also, on Tuesday, President Obama signed into a law a $26 billion measure that is expected to save 160,000 teaching jobs nationwide, including 16,500 in California. When Cuneo was interviewed for this story, passage of the bill was still uncertain. He said SMMUSD officials were waiting to see if it passed before determining how much it could benefit the district.
The 20 percent slash in the district budget has been exceedingly painful, Cuneo said. The district had to let go of nearly 50 elementary and secondary school teachers and three full-time counselors, and has been forced to cut library hours due to staffing shortages.
The SOS campaign was designed to allow donors to designate specifically where they would like to see their donations applied. As of Tuesday afternoon before The Malibu Times went to print, $519,579 was donated to reduce elementary class sizes (by re-hiring teachers), $270,741was allocated for reducing secondary class sizes and rehiring school counselors, and $322,151 was designated for rehiring library staff and music teachers. Unallocated funds totaled $129,451.
Whereas large donors like the Malibu High School PTSA contributed $25,000 and upward, Kennerly said most donations represented “a lot of garage sales and lemonade stands,” with contributions of between tens and hundreds of dollars.
Wendy Sidley, president of Malibu High School’s PTSA, said she hopes that another $300,000 will be found before Sunday’s cut-off.
“Our choir teacher was pink-slipped, so the kids have been out there singing at Pavilions and manning lemonade booths,” Sidley said. “It’s really sad on one hand, but on the other, new groups of concerned neighbors have come out of the woodwork to donate.”
Kennerly said the district’s Financial Oversight Committee is “keeping mum” for the moment on who or how many teachers could be rehired, but that the funds should allow at least six elementary teachers to be rehired.
“Even if our efforts make a difference in only one child’s life, we’ve done our job,” Kennerly said.
The SOS celebration will takeplace this Sunday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Santa Monica High School’s Science Quad, which is located at 601 Pico Blvd. in Santa Monica. More information can be found online at savesantamonicamalibuschools.org
SOS Funds Raised as of Aug. 10
Total: $1,241,923
Funds Delegated:
Elementary schools: $519,579
Secondary school/Counselors: $270,741
Music/Library: $322,151
Unallocated: $129,451