I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about but in our district (Caddo Parish School Board, Shreveport, Louisiana) there is the Alliance for Education (www.alliance4education.com
). Their goal is to improve the public schools in our parish. They have a big "Walk for Education" every year and the children go out and get pledges to raise money for it. My kids are in private school so I'm not too knowledgeable about it but I think this is what you're talking about. This was actually started by a very involved parent (a physician) and seems to be very successful. I don't think it affects the individual school's fundraising efforts, though.
Janna
I read an article on this a few years ago in PTO Today. I would love to have one here. The article I read said that most LEF's rely on corporation donations of thousands of dollars. That wouldn't work too well for my district. But I thought there could be other ways to do this. At the begining of the year I sent a letter to each of our PTO presidents (5 including me) and ask for a teacher rep and a parent rep to meet a couple of times per year. This would be done so we could share ideas about parental involvement, fundraising, etc. I had no response whatsoever. So maybe down the road we could get some of that going.
I've even been to a fundraiser aka silent auction for our district's foundation. I got the impression that this has been around for several years and does a lot of work in the disrtict, for district schools--not charter.
You know, I'm not even sure what the foundation does.
I wondered how many of you were in school districts that had formed an Educational Foundation. This seems to be a trend in our state since money raised by a foundation isn't counted in the same way as tax revenue (and thus doesn't have to be shared).
Two or three years ago, the district instructed elementary parent groups to forgo fundraising as a key initiative and focus on parent involvement, volunteerism, teacher appreciation. The schools assumed ownership of the major sales-type fundraisers. (Only two allowed per school, regardless who "owns" them.)
This year the educational foundation was finalized. It's primary purpose seems to be going after grants and other types of fundraising.
I haven't seen much difference in secondary school fundraising, since all those groups are primarily trying to support themselves.
