The Los Gatos Education Foundation (LGEF) is celebrating its 40th anniversary of raising funds to hire teachers and support programs at local schools.
The LGEF was formed in 1982, as were many other such organizations in California in the wake of Proposition 13, which limited property taxes, drastically cutting funding for public schools.
In the ensuing 40 years, LGEF has provided schools with more than $20 million, and currently raises approximately $1.7 million per year, up from the $100,000 raised in its first year by the founding LGEF board.
That board was made up of parents of school-age children, business owners and other community members, all hand-selected by then-Los Gatos Union School Superintendent Lee Walton. Money raised that first year largely went to hire art, music and PE teachers.
Founding board member Carol Musser was in charge of fundraising and volunteers. “It was without a doubt the most defining early-on positive volunteer learning experience I have ever had,” she says. “I had four children in Los Gatos schools, and since have had six grandchildren in the district. My two daughters, Kristi and Jill, are educators and now administrators in public school systems.”
Musser is particularly proud that one of the early projects the foundation helped fund was the first computer lab at Fisher Middle School.
Another founding LGEF board member was the late Tom O’Donnell, who served 20 years as a district trustee. Both of his daughters became teachers: Loretta O’Donnell currently teaches at Blossom Hill Elementary School.
“As a child of immigrants, he believed strongly in the value of education and the opportunities it provided,” she says of her father, “He envisioned the Los Gatos Education Foundation as a way of putting that belief into practice.
“My dad felt that in order for a community to be strong, its members must be willing to give back. Forty years later, as a teacher here in the district, I can see firsthand the huge impact that the LGEF has made on our schools.”
Other founding board members were John Baggerly, Shirley Cantu, Jennifer Dinapoli, Heidi Evers, Jack Faris, Kay Geoffroy, Bob Hucknell, Janet Jacobson, Maynard Orme, James E. Peckler, Louis Purcell and Elaine White.
Deborah Weinstein has seen the needs of students grow and change since she joined the foundation’s board in 2013, when her son was in kindergarten. She became executive director in 2014, when the board determined it needed to hire a professional manager instead of functioning as an all-volunteer organization.
Weinstein says LGEF has always united the district, parents, local businesses and the community at large in providing a high-level educational program.
When district voters approved the first parcel tax of $180 in 1990 to directly fund schools, LGEF shifted its model to be primarily funded by the parents of school-age children, who would directly benefit from those investments.
“Over the past 40 years, 95% of all school-age children who live in Los Gatos attend Los Gatos public schools, with only 5% choosing private or parochial,” she adds. “Families move to Los Gatos for the public schools and stay for generations. We have many multigenerational families in our schools, and multigenerational teaching staff.”
The foundation had already met its 2020-21 funding goals prior to the pandemic, and a five-year strategic plan to enhance the schools had just been approved, calling for adding more teachers for art, STEAM and foreign languages.
Mental health became a hot topic during the pandemic, so LGEF increased funding for mental health counselors in the schools, with the help of a partner grant from El Camino Health Foundation.
“We are actually ahead of plan because of our fundraising efforts,” says Weinstein. “We are thrilled that students have a new STEAM program launching this year, plus a second art teacher.”
The foundation is planning a 40th anniversary celebration on Saturday, Oct. 22, at the Los Gatos Town Plaza. For more information or to make a donation, visit https://www.onecommunitylg.org.
Source: www.mercurynews.com