Needy Schools Turn to Parents for Funding

Public schools across the country, hurt by state- and local-government cutbacks, are tapping an alternative source of cash: Mom and Dad. Parent groups and local nonprofit organizations have long raised money for activities like class trips, school dances and after-school clubs. But many parents say they now are shelling out for core curricular items that were once publicly funded — from classroom supplies to teachers’ salaries.

This fall, a parent group in Columbia, S.C., bought 100 dictionaries for a middle-school teacher who had requested them. In Kentucky, the Middletown Elementary School parent-teacher association has been discussing helping to pay the salary of a teacher aide whose job might get cut. And in Sunrise, Fla., the Sawgrass Elementary School PTA is kicking in $3,000 for news magazines that the district used to buy for classroom use. The group also is considering eliminating funding for specialized after-school clubs to free up money for classroom study programs reports the Wall Street Journal.

Hours helping teachers or students go a long way.”There’s no question that PTAs are having to reprioritize,” says Michael Ryan, president of the Sawgrass Elementary PTA. “It couldn’t come at a worse time for us in many respects since fund raising is so difficult because of the broad economic issues.”

Sawgrass Elementary is part of the Broward County Public School District, the sixth-largest in the country, which is expecting a $100 million reduction in state funding for the 2009-2010 academic year, according to district superintendent James Notter. That amount would be twice the size of the budget cut of just two years ago, he says.

Many school districts are facing similar cuts as governments run up deficits. Some 41 states are projecting midyear budget shortfalls this fiscal year, compared with just seven states a year ago, according to a survey by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit research group. If current trends continue, combined state deficits for next fiscal year will be around $145 billion, compared with the $89 billion shortfall estimated for the current fiscal year, the center calculates.

The Iowa City Community School District, which serves 11,000 students, won’t be receiving $783,000 from the state it had already budgeted for this school year, says superintendent Lane Plugge. School officials expect to tap reserves from local property-tax revenues to continue providing programs and services in coming months.

Also digging deeper is the Iowa City Community School District Foundation, a nonprofit that traditionally supports non-core student enrichment programs. Now, the group is seeing a big uptick in requests from teachers for books to supplement library collections and computer gear that the district typically used to fund, says Jacki Brennan, the foundation’s executive director. Last year, the foundation was able to come through with half of the funds for $130,000 in requests from teachers for supplies and core programs. This year, “I anticipate lots more requests, way more than we can fund,” Ms. Brennan says.

Read more here: Needy Schools Turn to Parents for Funding