The Money Mom: City budget restoration could reap double benefits

Posted by Jennifer Freeman at 4:45 PM

At a recent Legislative Breakfast in District 3, a member of the state legislature explained that the city's representatives in Albany face challenges as they seek to restore education money to the state budget because of Mayor Bloomberg’s cuts to the city's education budget. The money in question at the moment is $193 million in education funding increases promised for next school year by Governor Eliot Spitzer as part of the settlement of the long-running Campaign for Fiscal Equity legal case.

Education funding comes from both city and state. Because of the way the city budget works, it was possible in the past for the city to use state education funding to close city budget gaps and not pass the education dollars on to schools. State legislators have tried to ensure that if they increase state education funds, the city will maintain its part of the funding; this is called “maintenance of effort.”

State legislators from other parts of New York may well ask why they should vote to restore funds for New York City schools when the mayor, far from showing “maintenance of effort,” is slashing hundreds of millions from the city’s education contribution.

What should parents do? Keep up pressure on Mayor Bloomberg to restore the $340 million he plans to slash from next year’s school budget. If pressure on the mayor is successful, our schools may reap a double bonus: restoration of state funds as well.

The Money Mom: Children design charity fundraiser

Posted by Jennifer Freeman at 11:31 AM

Recently I served as a judge on a panel considering the proposals of 5th graders for a fundraiser at their school. These kids combined a statistics and economics lesson with a writing assignment -- all for the purpose of raising money for charity.

The children surveyed schoolmates about what kind of fundraisers the community would prefer, analyzed the survey results, and then wrote persuasive essays, backed up by data, about why their proposal should be the one accepted over all the others. Options included a movie night, sports field day, a stuffed animal sale, and other things along those lines. The proposals were rendered anonymous by whiting out the authors’ names, and the panel of judges included parents, teachers, as well as kids from another class.

Later in the spring the kids will actually carry out the winning fundraiser and donate the proceeds to a charitable cause shown by the survey data to be one that the kids in the school care about a lot. Right now polar bears and global warming are the front-running causes. What a great piece of curriculum!

The Money Mom: A dime of one's own

Posted by Jennifer Freeman at 8:54 AM

When $100,000 is yanked out of your school's budget, every dime that your PTA has raised is more precious than ever. That dime is yours to spend, and no one can take it out of your bank account in the middle of the night. It represents the ability to control your school's destiny. So whatever fundraising efforts your PTA has planned for spring, remind your parents that the money they raise will be immune from city politics. This year, that will matter more than ever.

The Money Mom: The challenge of spending

Posted by Jennifer Freeman at 10:33 AM

It’s nearly halfway through the year. Have you spent at least half the money that your PTA has raised?

Raising money is not easy, but spending money well can be at least as big a challenge. You have to decide and then research exactly what you want to buy, work with teachers and principals to choose the purchases that work for them --whether new white boards or science books-- and then actually make the purchase. Sometimes you even have to lay out your own money and save the receipts to get reimbursed later. Spending takes follow-through and commitment. It's sometimes especially challenging, to get spending all the way into the classroom to improve a child’s learning experience. This money, whether spent on grow lights and plants, digital cameras, visiting poets, or field trips, is the most important money parents can raise.

Do you have a solid budget, a spending plan, or a spending committee to help with the legwork? Does your PTA have a working process for deciding how to spend your money? One source for ideas on how to spend money (and how to raise it) is PTO Today, a national organization that supports parent organizations in schools.

When you do spend money, document it. Tell parents in a newsletter what the PTA has accomplished. Post a photo of on your school's website, for example, of kids performing in a holiday show wearing PTA-funded costumes, and write a caption letting the community know who funded the show. There is a direct connection between spending money well and being able to raise more money. Donors --whether they are parents contributing to an annual fund or foundations supporting a special arts program-- will be impressed to know that you’ve been able to spend money in ways that really made a difference for your kids.

The Money Mom: The holiday spirit of giving

Posted by Jennifer Freeman at 1:35 PM

Next Thursday my child will play the trumpet in his winter holiday concert. After the music and singing, the class will gather for cider and cheese and crackers, to share a time together and give the teacher a little token of appreciation. The mom who arranged the gathering also asked parents to bring donations of food, if possible, for the nearby Yorkville Common Pantry, where, as in all food pantries in the country these days, food shortages threaten.

'Tis the season for kids to experience the joy of giving. For much of the year we put on fundraisers to supplement our kids’ classroom and programming needs, but at this season we can bring a sense of holiday spirit to school by reaching out to others. Whether it’s a bake sale to benefit the Heifer Project, which provides live animals to supplement the livelihoods of families around the world, or food for a local food pantry, or a spare change collection for a local charity, school kids can learn from working together on a benefit that lets them reach out and give to others, bringing a real sense of meaning to the holiday season.

The Money Mom: Who will fund your grant?

Posted by Jennifer Freeman at 12:02 PM

In my last post I discussed how the first step to getting a grant is identifying what the biggest "grantable" needs are at your school. Once you’ve decided the priorities at your school, the next step in finding grant funding is identifying the funders who are right for your project.

What funding category does the project fit into? Is it Arts--a visiting playwright, poet or printmaker, a spring musical, trips to museums? Is it Literacy--visiting historical sites and then writing about them, or buying biographies for classroom libraries? Is your grant for a Capital Expense--permanent physical improvement to a space, like planting a garden or renovating a community room? Is it Environmental Stewardship--studying where city water comes from, or connecting science curriculum with local parks?

There are often different funding organizations to help schools in each of these categories, and it’s easier to find them if you know which category your grant fits into.

The Money Mom: The search for grants

Posted by Jennifer Freeman at 11:59 AM

The search for grants can be broken into four basic parts: needs assessment, funder research, grant writing, and implementation or spending the money. In this post, I'll explain the first component, needs assessment.

Needs assessment means deciding what are the biggest problems at your school that can be helped by grants. In some schools, this might be science kits or refurbishing a community room. In my school the principal was going deaf because the lunch room has no sound insulation, so we applied for money to install acoustic panels. Also, kids seemed to never go out on field trips, so we asked for money to send them on field trips to orchards and symphony halls. Some grants are for special programs like visiting artists or conflict resolution training.

One thing I have learned about program grants is they need to fit in a busy teacher’s day, so it’s best if they support the existing curriculum, or else bring in special experiences that will free up teachers’ time to work with small groups of kids. For instance, if children leave the classroom for a piano lesson a half-class at a time, the remaining half can be given their math lesson with more personal attention.

The four parts of the grant search can be delegated to different people working on the grants team: one can canvass parents and teachers for grant ideas, and others can do the internet research for grants. That job is good for people who can only do work on their own time, late at night when the kids have gone to bed.

The Money Mom: School fundraisers: Book fairs and more

Posted by Jennifer Freeman at 11:45 AM

Another parent, Shelidah Duprey, and I explained some fundraising fundamentals at a conference organized by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer on Saturday (thanks to Stringer, hundreds of parents got to hear some inspiring speakers talk about how the most important ingredient to school success is family members' constant love and involvement). In the fundraising panel, Shelida talked about school-based fundraisers like book fairs, raffles, bake sales, fall festivals, and skating parties that help her small elementary school raise about $17,000 each year.

These events, spaced throughout the year, take a fair amount of parent energy, but the time spent is paid back in community spirit that benefits the children in myriad ways. Shelidah mentioned that a lot of companies are happy to donate to school events if someone from a school is willing to take the time to call the general managers of stores or the corporate giving departments of corporations. Shelida’s school gets regular donations of drinks, coffee, donuts, ice cream, and more that parents can sell at events that benefit the children. All the money goes straight to the kids (if the DOE wants to know what parents want, it has only to look what successful schools do with their parent-raised funding) for programs like storytellers, violin and piano lessons, and field trips. In her school the older children get to go on two camping trips each year!

Schools can complement these kinds of fundraisers with corporate, foundation, and public sector grants -- the subjects of my next post.

The Money Mom: Community building as a funding plan

Posted by Jennifer Freeman at 10:39 PM

Tis the season for fall festivals, and my kids and I spent a few happy hours this weekend eating cotton candy and seeing old friends, watching rock band karaoke, and seeing if we still fit on the elementary school monkey bars. The parents did a fantastic job running the lollipop toss and cupcake decorating booths, painting faces, and manning a hamburger grill. Fall festivals don’t make all that much money compared with the effort parents put in to organize them; that's why some people call this type of fundraiser a “community-builder.”

Community-builders may not meet all a school's financial needs, but they make people feel closer, proud to be part of the school community. Actually, a bake sale or fall fest can be just as important as a big grant: the money a PTA earns can be spent entirely according to how parents perceive the weak spots, whereas grants usually must be spent on whatever the funder dictates.

Smaller pots of money can be useful to schools in different ways from larger pots. With $100 from a bake sale you can buy a “writing center” with a nice collection of crayons and markers and paper. With $10,000 from a fall fest you can run a teacher grant program in a medium-sized school, helping teachers buy whatever they dream will improve the classroom: an area rug, books on tape, a grow light and plants, biographies, bright colored posters, printer ink, a digital camera to document class projects. This is found money, a treasure whose value is magnified for the effort that went into getting it.

The Money Mom: Are these grants for you?

Posted by Jennifer Freeman at 12:12 AM

If your school has a high needs population and you can think of something to buy that would improve teaching and learning, you stand a good chance of getting your idea funded.

The start of the school year is a time when education foundations send out notices asking people to apply for their grants. In the past week or so I’ve received at least three grant announcements from the family engagement office in my district. The NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education is looking to give away $1,000 worth of books to schools with 70% or more students eligible for free or reduced price lunch (deadline: 11/12). Lowe's, the home improvement store, offers a grant called Toolbox for Education, worth up to $5,000 for schools doing building or renovation projects, such as gardens and community rooms (10/12). The third grant notice that came my way was New York’s perennial Parents as Arts Partners, which funds programs aimed at getting parents and families involved in school arts education, such as visiting artists and art shows for parents mounted in school hallways (pre-application deadline: 10/19).

I will be submitting a proposal for the Lowe’s grant, for a small but important improvement that my principal would like to build. I won’t be applying for the other two this year because my children’s schools are not high-needs enough to be chosen. But especially if your school has 70 percent or more high needs children, small grants like these are a great way to fill gaps in your funding. Many are quite easy to apply for. The hardest part about the NEA book grant, for example, is getting someone to take the time to make a list of $1,000 worth of books that meet the school's needs.

The Money Mom: Want to brighten a kid's day? Try DonorsChoose.org

Posted by Jennifer Freeman at 8:47 AM

Do your teachers have great little ideas for projects and supplies that will improve their classroom? DonorsChoose.org makes it easy for teachers to ask for the little things that help brighten a kid's day: books, puzzles, digital cameras, art supplies. Anyone with just a little money to give can help children in a very concrete way, by going to the website and picking a specific project to fund. DonorsChoose.org started as a young Bronx high school teacher’s idea in 2000. In the last seven years, over 29,000 student projects have been funded with over $14 million in contributions, $4 million so far in 2007 alone, according to the organization's website. ABC News did a nice story recently and the New York Times published an article as well.

So encourage your teachers to list a project-- cooking, math, literacy, art, gardening, music--on Donorschoose.org. It’s easy! All they have to do is sign in and describe something they need that will directly benefit children. Check out the projects that need funding. It’s inspiring just to see the ideas of so many creative teachers. You can fund a project in somebody’s honor (holiday gift idea!), or even give a gift certificate that allows the recipient to choose which project to fund.

The Money Mom: School need money? Ask local electeds

Posted by Jennifer Freeman at 11:38 AM

I was recently elected to my local Community Education Council, but before that my usual role in my kid's schools for the past seven years has been grant writing. Insideschools thought that both grant writing and Community Education Councils would interest parents, so I will contribute entries on both subjects to this blog.

Some time over the summer, the New York State Department of Education sends out letters announcing special legislative grants. These grants are the means--usually a few thousand dollars or more--with which our state assembly members help schools to buy goods and services that are never easy to afford in a school budget of any size--science kits and field trips, extra music and art programs, murals, nonfiction books for classroom libraries.

City Council members and borough presidents sometimes have even bigger pieces of money to share, such as tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade your classroom’s computer system.

What does it take to get funds for your school from local electeds? Make a list of concrete things you could buy that would directly benefit a large number of children at your school. Your school principal should know about and support your request. Send a simple letter describing how you would spend the money you seek, and who it would benefit. The process may take a while: letters sent to state assembly members in January are funded with the state budget in the summer.

You’re even more likely to get your request funded if you get to know your elected officials personally. Invite them to speak at a PTA meeting or to attend school events such as pot luck dinners or fall fairs. Talk to them about issues that concern you and your school. Don’t be afraid: most local electeds are friendly people who enjoy getting to know their constituents, and public school parents are a good group to know.