The Piedmont Education Foundation (PEF) presented the school board with a 2.68 million dollar check to supplement the district budget on Sept. 30.
The money will go to the PUSD endowment and both Tier I and II funding. Tier I includes core and ongoing programs, such as classes like jazz band or arts, and Tier II funding goes towards short term projects or programs.
The PEF raises about 8 percent of the approximately 36.9 million dollar PUSD budget, according to their website.
“We spend about 1,350 dollars per student, and what state funding would give [PUSD] is about 8.5 to 8.7 hundred dollars,” PUSD superintendent Randall Booker said. “Imagine if that is [the money] we had to live on in this district. It is a lot of money and programs we would not have.”
Approximately 38 percent of the district’s budget comes from local funding which includes the PEF, the Parents Club, the city parcel tax and support groups, like CHIME and PRAISE. Out of these, the city parcel tax for education contributes the most to the district funding, Booker said. The tax rate for 2013 to 2014 was $2,406 per parcel or piece of property for education, according to the district website.
“I think that the funding shows that people are really committed to education in this community,” said PEF fundraising and database manager Julia Burke. “They would not give this much money if they did not believe in the schools and great education.”
Local funding allows the district to fund many of the high school’s programs. Without it, the school would have a six period day instead of seven; the range of classes would be limited; and there would not be a full-time librarian, the chromebooks, or the Wellness Center. It also allows class sizes to be relatively low across the schools, in comparison to other districts, Booker said.
“If [state funding] is all we got, it would put us around 47 or 48 in the nation for per pupil spending,” Booker said. “I give this community tons of credit: they work really really hard and families sacrifice to do that, and yet it only puts us at the middle of the pack, [which] across the state of California, puts us pretty high.”
In 2010, PUSD was within the highest quartile for per pupil spending in California, being ranked 143 out of 943 districts surveyed, according to the Center of Investigative Reporting.
The PEF was founded 40 years ago, in 1975, with a goal of improving and creating innovative programs at the high school level, Burke said. At that time, school funding in California was high, so programs like the arts and drivers ed were already paid for by the state.
“The PEF has never gotten rid of the original goal to improve and create innovative programs,” Burke said. “The goal is dually trying to fill the gap while also trying to support and improve innovative programs.”
Senior Josh Martin, who came to Piedmont his junior year, said that PHS’s class selection and programs were similar to his public high school in Tennessee. Like PHS, his high school had a foundation to fund technology and staff development, called The West High School Foundation.
“One notable difference is that we had more honors and AP classes, as well as the International Baccalaureate program, because we had a lot more students,” Martin said.
The PEF, as well as many local support groups, receives most of its funding from direct donations. The majority of the donations are given during the fall Giving Campaign, which collects approximately two of the three million dollars that the PEF receives each year. Money is also raised through Dress Best for Less, an auction for the elementary schools, and sponsorships from businesses, but these make up a minority of the funds raised each year.
