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FAQ's
What does the Coronado Schools Foundation do? If I volunteer, am I still expected to give financially? What is the STEAM Program, being funded by the Francis G. Harpst Legacy Gift? Can I make a donation to Islander Sports Foundation (ISF) or Coronado School of the Arts (CoSA) through the Coronado Schools Foundation? What does the Coronado Schools Foundation do? The Coronado Schools Foundation (CSF) is a nonprofit 501-c-3 community-based nonprofit that raises money to directly benefit the schools in the Coronado Unified School District (CUSD). Funds generated by CSF donors pays for programs (salaries, equipment and supplies) not mandated or funded by the state of California but ones our parents and dedicated educators consider necessary for a quality education. State funding for education in California is inadequate for many basic programs and insufficient to fund enrichment programs. Our school district receives less than $5,800 a year per student for ADA (average daily attendance), well below the national average. In the 1970’s, California was a leader in education spending, today it is near the bottom of the list. With the ongoing state budget crisis, supplemental funding is necessary to maintain San Diego County's top rated comprehensive, K-12, school district. CSF helps bridge the gap between what public funding (state and federal) provides and what is needed to provide a well-rounded, quality education for our children. Without donations through CSF, many academic and technology programs that parents’ value would be impacted or in some cases, simply disappear. CSF has returned well over $4.8 million dollars since 1982 and generated $633,000 in net revenue at the end of the 2010-11 fiscal year (projected as of June 30th).This record funding returns include an additional $200,000, thanks to the very generous Francis Goodrich Harpst Legacy Gift received in 2010, that will be used to fund STEAM, programs involving science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. We are most grateful to Mrs. Harpst. If you are a new donor to CSF, we ask you to donate a minimum of $200/child to the Partner in Education (PIE) campaign, more if you can afford to do so. Donations can be made over a six month time frame. Please consider becoming a Friend for Five ($5,000 commitment over five years while you are an active Friends for Five and most parents keep giving). Sending your child to a private school costs $18,000 to $30,000 per child. $200/child or a Friends for Five commitment of $1,000/year or just $83.33/month is a real value. Every gift matters. Give what you can. There are 3,100 children enrolled in Coronado’s academically excellent public schools. If every parent gave $200/child, our donations from the Partner In Education (PIE) campaign alone would annually generate $600,000; much needed funds that could not only provide program support but also add teachers to reduce class size. Instead, our PIE donations in the last fiscal year equaled $135,000. Our kids need need your support. Every dollar counts. Why do we need to provide supplemental funding for public schools, especially in a town that pays so much in property taxes to Sacramento? Since Prop 13 was passed, property taxes in almost all jurisdictions including Coronado do not stay within the community. Instead, all property taxes are allocated on a fair-share basis to cities and counties across the state. So, Coronado receives no more than other communities and in fact, often less funding, since the demographics of our students do not provide much in additional funding (like Title 1 funds). As a result, our schools receive the Average Daily Attendance (ADA) funding per student and little additional public funding to operate the schools. When your child misses a day of school for any reason, our schools do not receive funding (about $45/day). We have such beautiful school facilities. Why can’t these CDA funds be used for programs and to increase teacher salaries? Two very important decisions made by the city and people of Coronado have enabled the school district to construct first-class educational facilities. The first occurred when the city and school district established the Community Development Agency (CDA) in the 1980s and the second, when the school bond was passed in 1998. Additionally, the District receives funds from home expansion projects. Village Elementary School and the Blumenthal Sports Complex were constructed with CDA funds before 1998. With the passage of the bond, Coronado Unified School District was able to embark on a significant building program. That includes a new Middle School, a new Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) on 6th Street, a remodeled Silver Strand Elementary and Coronado High School, installed artificial field turf and track for Niedermeyer and Cutler Fields, built new tennis courts on D Avenue and a swimming pool on the campus of Coronado High School, a new facility for Palm Academy for Learning on D Avenue, a new Maintenance and Operations building at 7th Street, and a new District Office building at 201 6th Street. Our District is very thankful for the support our community has given to our facilities improvement program. By law, these funds cannot be used for operations or salaries, only to build and improve facilities. CSF relies on its volunteer Board of Directors to provide the vision for the future and professional staff oversight a well as “navy” of volunteers for the annual events. These key supporters not only give of their time but give to their ability financially to support the schools as well. Significant volunteer support + financial donations = CSF fundraising success = Much needed funds for our schools. Coronado’s public schools are academically top rated both in comparison to other public schools in San Diego County and well as across the state. If these schools rely only on inadequate and declining public funding, they will no longer be able to maintain the academic edge. Your financial support is critical to their continued success. How do Coronado’s public schools score on the statewide Academic Performance Index (API) tests? Coronado Unified School District is the top performing comprehensive unified (K-12) school district in San Diego County. The most recent test scores are:
School 2010 2009 Change
District 888 887 +1
Village 925 943 -18
Strand 898 883 +15
Coronado Middle 891 889 +2
Coronado High 861 850 +11 Palm Academy does not receive an API score due to the small student enrollment. It has alternative accountability measures and has met the achievement requirements as defined for small, alternative high schools. State and federal measures of student academic achievement are important. However, Coronado Unified School District teachers, parents and administrators also analyze the results of other measures to assure we are providing a rich and rigorous educational program that will allow our students to reach their full academic potential. The District Strategic Plan and each school site’s Strategic Plan has specific goals and action steps that are written, implemented and evaluated annually which contribute to tour students’ success as measured on the statewide assessment system. Coronado Schools Foundation provides block grant funds that enable these goals to be realized.
CSF conducts an annual Partners in Education (PIE) appeal at the beginning of each school year to raise money for grants to the schools and sends a similar appeal during the year to Community Members. Many businesses support the Business Partners in Education program, with their ads featured in the combined Directory, given out to each family that joins the school parent teacher organization at the start of the school year. The Foundation also hosts two major fundraisers each year:
CSF solicits corporate and foundation donations directly through matching gift programs as well as business partnerships for the two main fundraisers. What is the STEAM Program, being funded by the Francis G. Harpst Legacy Gift? In 2010, CSF received its first major legacy gift of $3.8M from the estate of longtime Coronadan, Mrs. Frances Goodrich Harpst. Combining these funds with the CSF endowment (10% of the annual net income over many years) of just over $1M, provides a corpus of $5M to benefit our schools. CSF is setting up a separate Endowment Board to manage these funds wisely to ensure funds will be available on an annual basis in perpetuity. Four percent of the corpus will be returned annually, with a blessing of $200,000 additional dollars being returned to CUSD for the 2011-12 school year. You probably have heard of STEM - Science, Technoloog, Engineering and Mathametics. CUSD administrators have worked with their site teams and asked CSF to fund STEAM - adding the "arts" to STEM to ensure a focus in each of these areas will be available to all students, K-12. As an example, CHS launched a Robotics Club in 2009-10 which led to piloting an engineering program in 2010-11. Over 110 students enrolled this first year! As CHS Principal Karl Mueller aptly said, "Students speak with their feet and we design programs accordingly." As a result, with STEAM funding, every school site will have a Robotics Club in 2011-12 and math and science courses with ties to engineering. Programs like Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) at the elementary school sites will now be funded through STEAM, rather than the patchwork of funding from a viariety of sources (including CSF) in the past. More to follow as the STEAM program develops this school year. Why do we need both CSF and Parent Teacher Groups at each school? Both the Foundation and Parent Teacher Groups are critical to the quality of education in our community and work together to support the schools. In the spring of 2007, the Foundation and parent teacher group leaders forged a Parent Leadership Council (PLC) that meets bi-monthly with the CUSD Superintendent to coordinate fundraising efforts and ensure our school and classroom needs are being met. We like to summarize the roles by saying, "CSF provides big ticket items like doc-u-cams and the parent teacher group buys the light bulb to keep the technology working. CSF and the Parent Teacher Organization at each site are two pieces of the funding puzzle, with the parent teacher group providing teacher hospitality, acting as a primary communicaiton link for the school, and providing direct classrooom support. School Parent Teacher Groups fund classroom and office supplies, instructional materials, computers and printers, field trips, school beautification, cultural arts and other school-specific needs. By virtue of their charters, Parent Teacher Groups are not intended to pay salaries. In Coronado, the Parent Teacher Groups work with CSF to raise the funds to maintain programs that we believe are crucial for our students. Parent Teacher Group presidents are invited to attend all CSF board meetings to provide input from each school on CSF decisions. Benefits of this partnership include:
How are Parent Teacher Group efforts changing as a result of this partnership? Parent teacher groups, especially at the elementary levels, are gradually returning to having social events for the purpose of building community, instead of major fundraising initiatives to pay for salaries. How does the CSF Block Grant process work? CSF projects its year-end fundraising totals after the Telethon and make fiscal year-end projections for June 30th. Schools are notified as soon as possible, no later than April 30th, as to their block grant amount for the following school year as well as Technology Resource Teacher (TRT) funding. This replaces a more hurried autumn grant calendar when Block Grants were awarded prior to forging this partnership with the Parent Teacher Groups and gaining the support of teachers in all grade levels at each campus. The Foundation Board felt the autumn calendar occurred too late in the school-year planning cycle to achieve the maximum potential benefits from CSF funds and school site administrators and teachers agreed. Who makes the Block Grant decisions at each school campus? During Site Strategic Planning Meetings held each February, these school-site committees, consisting of parents, students, teachers and administrators review current site needs and possible funding sources; these groups make recommendations as to which funding sources would be appropriate to reach site strategic planning goals.
Then, once CSF notifies the school sites in April as to the dollar amount of Program Funding (Block Grant and TRT) available for the next school year, the Block Grant Committee comprised of the faculty members, support staff and administrators who serve on the Site’s Strategic Planning Committee, convenes and puts together a proposed Block Grant Spending Plan. How is this process more transparent than previous processes for Program Funding? Every element of this process – Site Strategic Plans, block grant applications and presentations, and the CSF block grant award schedule – is open to inspection and participation by community members How will this ensure that donations fund the highest academic priorities of all students? By definition, the Site Strategic Plans offer the most researched, thoughtful and reviewed analyses of the academic needs and priorities of our schools. The foundation board believes the disciplines built into this planning process will result in better and higher uses of community donations for schools and in greater academic preparation and achievement by Coronado students How do I know the District is using CSF grants for their intended purpose? CSF does not write a blank check to the District. Instead, CSF makes a commitment to fund certain positions and programs based on the recommendations of the Block Grant Committee at each site and a vote of the CSF board. These grants, and their costs, are detailed on the web site and will be detailed in our first annual report, coming fall 2011. In addition, each site provides both a written update mid-year regarding the block grant funding as well as an update regarding money spent and any challenges encountered. Can I make a donation to Islander Sports Foundation (ISF) or Coronado School of the Arts (CoSA) through the Coronado Schools Foundation? Since there are separate foundations within the CUSD supporting sports (ISF) and CoSA, CSF is not able to accept donations earmarked for these nonprofit organizations. Per the IRS, this is considered and inter-agency transaction and is not allowed. Accordingly, if you would like to donate to either of these organizations, please do so directly. Give generously to CSF. With the generous Harpst Legacy gift received in 2010, CSF now returns over $600,000 per year in Program Funding to maintain the programs parents and educators value but that are not funded by the state. CSF ask parents, whatever their means, to give what they can to ensure quality education for their children. Get involved. Contact your school’s Parent Teacher Group president or CSF representative and offer to help with the annual appeal at your school. Attend a CSF board meeting (generally held the second Thursday of the month) and learn more about our work. Volunteer to help at an event like the fall Benefit Auction or spring Telethon and join us at the final “Welcome Back to School” concert in the park each fall in September. If you are a donor, encourage your friends to join you in supporting CSF. Yes. The Coronado Schools Foundation is a California nonprofit, public benefit, corporation. It is a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The federal tax ID number for the foundation (EIN) is 94-274-5484. All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Why does CSF print a list of donors’ names? Can I give anonymously? There is no Foundation without donors. EVERY donor makes a difference, and each gift deserves to be acknowledged. We publicly thank annual appeal donors twice a year, at the conclusion of the annual appeal (the honor roll) and in the CSF Annual Report. These publications usually report giving by levels. During the campaign, school sites may acknowledge the families who have participated in the annual appeal to encourage others to give. These flyers identify donors, but not the size of their gift. You can give anonymously to CSF by noting it on your donation form or in the “comments” box on the online form. We will honor your request. We like to thank our donors by name because we believe it honors their gift, and establishes them as leaders in the community. Many people new to the District, or to CSF, give because they are prompted not by us, but by you. Seeing your name on a public acknowledgement tells the people who know and respect you that you have lent your support to our efforts. That usually means more than all the letters we can write.
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