What
Is The St. Helena Public School Foundation?
By
Susan French Arnold, Vision Magazine
What is the St. Helena Public Schools Foundation,
how does it receive funding, and where is the money spent?
Since its inception in 1982, the non-profit
St. Helena Public Schools Foundation has given out more than $1,400,000 in teacher
grants for equipment and materials for specific projects, and seed money for
innovative new programs. In 2005-2006 alone, $84,442 was distributed. Without
question, the Foundation plays an important role in enriching and enhancing
the quality of the educational environment at each of the four schools, from
primary through high school.
Donations come from parents and other community
members, local businesses and groups concerned about education. Each year, a
Sustaining Member Drive is held, with letters sent to families, businesses,
clubs and organizations in the district. Rotary International, one of the Foundation's
largest single supporters, contributes $25,000 annually from its Winter Ball.
Funds also come from the St. Helena Public Schools Foundation Endowment Trust
created in 1992 to provide a perpetual source of reliable revenue to fund long-term
programs.
The SH Public Schools Foundation was created
at a time, in the early 1980s, when the St. Helena public schools faced a financial
crisis. A group of concerned community members came together to create a foundation
that would help the schools keep existing programs and fund new ones.
Today, the SHPS Foundation is orchestrated
by eighteen volunteer board members who meet once a month throughout the school
year. Every board member serves on at least one, usually more, of the 17 committees.
The Nominating Committee looks for new board members who are passionate about
education and want to be part of the Foundation. Some of the board members have
been involved for more than 20 years.
Funds are granted directly to teachers for
classroom projects or materials the district would otherwise not be able to
provide. Maxi and Mini grants are funded in the fall and spring, with Special
Projects (requests of over $2,000) considered at any time. The Rubin Grant addresses
special education funding; the Joseph Phelps Grant helps children to attend
academic summer camps; the Swanson Grant enhances the school libraries; the
Robert Mondavi Family Art Grants are for students' summer art programs (both
music and visual); and the Soroptimist Summer Enrichment Grants are for summer
sports programs. Additional grants support teachers' requests to attend summer
workshops.
Where
the Money Goes
By Carolyn Younger
STAFF WRITER, St. Helena Star
St. Helena Public Schools Foundation has
played many roles during its 24 years of existence.
The foundation is currently among the backers of a student docu-drama on the
Revolutionary War, a supporter of a budding sister-schools relationship between
Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School and Nuriootpa High School in Southern Australia
and of a fifth grade Civil War shadow boxes project as well as the impetus behind
three fieldtrips taken by the St. Helena High School environmental sciences
class.
SHPSF grants have provided for the mundane - computer keyboard covers - and
the mysterious - electrophoresis equipment.
Youngsters have taken trips to the Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science, Oakland's
Chabot Science Center and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, made tamales, learned
about cash flow, investigated owl pellets, hatched eggs in an incubator, studied
bones, participated in the grueling Academic Decathlon and worked on a bio-diesel
fuel project.
Over the decades the foundation has acted as a funnel, directing more than $1,330
million in local donations to individual and group projects in St. Helena's
four public schools. Grants are available for the visual and performing arts,
technology, special education, field trips - classroom projects large and small.
There are mini grants, maxi grants, arts grants, Jonathan Rubin grants, special
project grants, technology grants, Cornerstone grants, Robert Mondavi Family
arts grants, summer teacher workshop grants , Swanson grants for school libraries,
Joseph Phelps grants for students wanting to attend summer academic camps, and
signature grants for projects already funded for three years but considered
deserving of additional funding.
The twice-yearly requests can vary from as little as $75 to as much as $2,000.
What they have in common is originality and educational value. Each applicant
is interviewed by a grants committee member who reports back to the committee.
A final determination is made at the following board meeting. When a project
is completed, teachers are required to evaluate its success or failure and discuss
possible ongoing plans.
Just about the only things SHPSF grants can not be used for are teachers' salaries,
district building projects, school maintenance, text books, transportation or
meals.
In the fall round of teacher-initiated requests, the foundation awarded nearly
$40,000. The money comes from a low-key annual sustaining members drive, the
Rotary Winter Ball, Soroptimist clubs and interest accrued by the St. Helena
Public Schools Foundation Endowment Trust, founded in 1992.
The grants encompass all curriculum areas and grade levels, according to foundation
board member Clare Kirkconnell Barr. "Field trips, visiting speakers, special
education, performing arts, teacher workshops, academic summer camps, books,
supplies, computer software, tutoring and homework help are but a few of the
programs and activities we fund."
And these, she added "are brought to life by the energy and creativity
of our teachers."
The one-page grant application form is possibly the most streamlined around
and more and more teachers are making requests, Barr said. "When I first
came on the board we were trying to get more high school teachers to apply.
Now we have a lot happening at that site. The foundation has played a large
part in enriching science and theater at the high school and the teachers at
all the schools are particularly dynamic right now."
A grant went to St. Helena High School instructor Tammie Heineman's environmental
sciences class for Acorn Soupe's watershed science program. Her students explored
Bothe State Park to learn about native plants and hike through the watershed,
as well as hiked the Huichica Wetlands in the Carneros region to study the habits
of the birds that stop there during their migration, and learned first-hand
about erosion control and soil enrichment at the White Barn property in St.
Helena.
Frank Mazzi's advanced placement history class has embarked on a film about
the Revolutionary War as seen through the eyes of a Lexington soldier. Students
are researching, writing the script, blocking out the storyboard for filming,
creating the background score and traveling to Truckee to film winter scenes.
Their historically accurate uniforms, purchased from a firm that provides equipment
for historic reenactments, were funded by a foundation grant. When the project
is finished, the costumes will be turned over to the high school's drama department.
Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School teachers Linda Rowland and Terry Messmer
used their grant money to purchase a eye-camera to record in real time RLS students
in the classroom. The images are relayed to a sister school in a wine region
in Southern Australia. Rowland set up the sister school program to include both
RLS and St. Helena High School.
Drama specialist Mary Fullerton used grant money to help with the purchase of
a portable lighting system for the budding theater department. Other grant money
has gone toward theater production and playwriting courses and student tickets
to Berkeley Repertory Theatre performances.
At the Primary School youngsters have gone to see a production of Rumpelstiltskin
at the Lincoln Theater, taken part in a Lawrence Hall of Science workshop, met
children's book writers during the Authors Festival and been wowed by the Wildcare
nature van, all thanks to fall foundation grant monies.
One of several grant requests by St. Helena Elementary School fifth-grade teacher
Judi Hudson helped cover the cost of photographs for shadow box displays that
served as the culmination of her students' Civil War study.
Another grant paid for a field trip to Angel Island where students dressed in
quasi-Union Army uniforms and learned about the soldiers stationed there in
the mid-1800s to protect San Francisco's water supply from possible attack by
the Confederacy.
"We are so incredibly lucky to have the public schools foundation,"
Hudson said.
The sentiment was echoed by boardmember Barr, but with a twist.
"It is a really good thing," said Barr, the foundation's high school
liaison. "I just love being a part of it."