The first steps to create a fund-raising East Penn Education Foundation are being taken by East Penn School District.
The district is about to “test the waters” to see if there is sufficient local interest in creating such a foundation, said East Penn Superintendent Michael Schilder.
At least 20 business and community leaders in the district will be sought to serve on the foundation’s board of trustees, said Nicole Bloise, the district’s community liaison.
In the next week or two, she will put a notice on the district’s website to find those individuals, as well as sending it to the news media and posting it on email and Twitter.
Those interested in serving will be asked to complete personal biography forms and submit them to Bloise.
“I suggest we go out and try to find interested candidates to see if we have enough for this to succeed,” she recommended to the school board Monday night.
“I want to make sure we have the support in the community to make this foundation a success.”
No formal action was required by the school board for the district to proceed, but Bloise said the administration won’t move forward if the board does not want it to pursue creating a foundation.
“This is a great idea,” said board president Alan Earnshaw.
None of his colleagues disagreed.
“I’m all in favor of testing the waters, seeing if there is interest in the community,” said Earnshaw.
“If we can’t get a core of community members who are interested in participating in a foundation, it makes no sense to proceed. But hopefully there will be.”
The superintendent said members of the school board have expressed an interest in creating an East Penn Education Foundation, adding: “Frankly, we have not heard an interest expressed by members of the public; but perhaps because we haven’t asked or they are not aware of it.”
“Once I receive the personal biography forms, we will evaluate the interest in the community,” Bloise told the board.
“I will talk it over with Dr. Schilder and then see where we go from there and make you guys aware of the results —and how many interested community members we have.”
The amount of response she receives will determine what, if anything, happens next.
Blois said such a foundation should have 20 to 40 “motivated trustees” plus volunteers with specific skills who actively want to be involved in carrying out the foundation’s mission.
She said members of the foundation’s board would be “asked to spread the word and encourage giving in the community.”
She noted school districts across the state face numerous financial challenges, resulting in some making significant reductions in staffing or educational programs to balance their budgets.
An educational foundation can help overcome some of those financial challenges at East Penn, she said, by doing fund-raising that allows the district to foster more educational opportunities despite current cost constraints.
“Revenue generation through various fund-raising techniques can provide a dependable resource for financial support,” explained Blois. “Many times, foundations have one big fundraising event throughout the year.”
How much must be raised?
School board member Ziad Munson asked if Bloise could estimate the minimum amount of money that must be raised to make creating a foundation worth the effort.
She could not offer a specific amount, but said specific fund-raisers done by a foundation have to “go big” — and should not be done only if $1,000-$2,000 will be raised.
“You do want to raise as much as possible.”
She noted Parkland School District’s foundation holds an annual gala that raises $75,000 to $80,000.
Bloise explained some foundations offer scholarships to graduating seniors, while others help meet the district’s needs for building improvements, equipment and even professional development.
In response to another question from Munson, she explained funds raised by a foundation can directly support a school district’s initiatives or can be used to create an endowment, where only proceeds from that endowment are used.
District has final say
Schilder said a foundation can decide how it would like money to be spent, but added: “There has to be some approval process in terms of what the district wants and needs.”
For example, said the superintendent, a foundation might want to spend money to erect a large sign in front of a school building, but the administration and school board might not agree that is the best use for that cash.
The foundation’s job will be to help the district, agreed Bloise, not put money where the district feels it is not needed.
Board member Charles Ballard said the school board must accept any donation made to the school district and can always refuse a donation. “The board always has control over what we accept in terms of a donation.”
To succeed, said Bloise, a school district and its foundation should have an open and cooperative relationship “and still maintain the separation required for both to uphold their mission integrity.”
The nonprofit foundation would not be part of the school district, according to Bloise, but a partner to the district.
Schilder and Bloise said the foundation would meet in school district offices, but not receive financial support from East Penn. The superintendent added if the foundation wanted to do a fundraising event in the high school gym, it could do so.
Bloise said statistics show the most successful foundations have involvement by the district's superintendent and educational input from teachers and staff.
But she said any district representatives would only be non-voting members on the foundation’s board.
Ballard questioned why school board members serving on the foundation’s board of trustees would have to be non-voting members.
Ballard said he’s seen material for other educational foundations in the state but added he has none with restrictions that school board members can only be non-voting members of foundation boards.
Bloise promised to look into that for Ballard.
In response to another question from Ballard, she said getting interested people together to form a board of trustees is the first thing that has to be done in creating such a foundation. After that is completed, all the necessary legal documents to formally create the foundation will be submitted to the state.
Bloise later said East Penn is one of the few area districts that does not have its own educational foundation.
There are 6,000 such foundations, across the United States, according to the Power Point presentation she made to the school board, and about 125 in Pennsylvania.
She said the first educational foundations for public schools were created more than 20 years ago in California and are becoming more widespread in recent years.
“Private and parochial schools and colleges and universities have long realized the importance of maintaining a development office,” said Bloise.
“This strategy has remained a foreign concept to most public school districts.”
She said such foundations often are affiliated with alumni organizations.
Spending capital reserves
A need for more money in the school district became obvious when the superintendent gave his report to the board.
Schilder said the administration plans to spend nearly $900,000 in capital reserve funds to make improvements throughout the district this year.
Much of that money will be used to replace some of the roofs at Emmaus High School.
Also in the high school, new security cameras will be installed to replace older cameras and a new UV system will be installed at the indoor pool to improve air quality.
Schilder said “very old carpeting” will be replaced with tile throughout Macungie Elementary School and paving work will be done at Shoemaker Elementary and Eyer Middle School.
He said masonry and other building repairs will be made throughout the district.
Estimates for each project were given to the school board but not made public.
“If we’re going to do any of this work this summer, we need to go out right now for bids and have an understanding of what it’s going to cost,” Schilder told the school board. “We will move ahead and start doing bids and get back to you with specific costs of these things.”
He later added: “If the costs come in higher than what we think, we may not be able to do all these things. You want to use your capital reserve, but you don’t want to exhaust it.”
Schilder said the district has $2.4 million in its capital reserve fund.
The administration has prepared a six-year list of other capital projects that need to be done in the district, including “some pretty big ticket items.”
To follow that six-year plan, said Schilder, “there will have to be some infusion of funds into the capital reserve. We certainly aren’t going to completely deplete our capital reserve funds. We have to find a way to replenish them.”
Schilder did not name that list of projects, which he called top priority needs for the district in the next six years.
Munson said the biggest ticket item on that list is converting the heating system at Eyer, which is estimated to cost almost $2 million.
The superintendent said those items also include replacing more roofs at the high school that “we need to start addressing but can’t possibly do all at once.”
He later added: “To do all the roofs at the high school eventually is $2.2 million.”
Young mathematicians recognized
The beginning of Monday night’s school board meeting was jammed with people, but not because of any controversy.
“We have a roomful of very fine mathematicians,” declared Schilder.
Nearly 30 fourth and fifth grade gifted students attending the board meeting — along with their proud parents — were participants in a “Math 24” tournament held Feb. 11 at the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit No. 21.
They competed against other kids from 19 different schools in 10 school districts.
Michael Wittland of Willow Lane Elementary School in East Penn was the overall winner of the entire competition.
Two other East Penn students, Indira Tatikola and Prince Patel, were among the four finalists with Wittland. All three were gold finalists.
Silver finalists from East Penn include Grace Minahan, Grabriel Krem, Pranav Ram and Laryssa White.
Bronze table winners were Jack Henriquez, Reanna Istrate, Luke Deschenes, Eleanor Creelman, Ben Urffer, Thomas Hartill and Carter Henninger.
Each one of the children who participated was called forward to receive a certificate and congratulations from Schilder, Earnshaw and Dr. Linda Pekarik, the district’s director of special education.
Snow days in East Penn calendar
In case you want to mark your calendar, the first day of school in East Penn’s 2015-16 school year will be Aug. 31.
A draft of the new school calendar was presented to the school board by assistant superintendent Kristen Campbell during Monday’s meeting.
She said the school district schedules 184 student days, four more than the minimum required by the state.
She explained East Penn’s tradition has been that students attend school for 182 days. “The district, in our calendar, automatically builds in two snow or inclement weather days on top of those 182 days.”
If those two snow days are not used, which has happened, the school year does not end two days earlier, said Campbell.
“That just means students in East Penn would attend school 184 days that year.”
If those two snow days are used, students attend for 182 days.
If more than two snow days are needed, the district will first use three scheduled holidays to make them up.
Campbell said those make-up days will include one day of “Presidents’ weekend” in February 2016 and the Thursday before and the Monday after Easter, which will be in late March next year.
If even more make-up days are needed, they will be added at the end of the school year in June 2016.
In the past six years, reported Campbell, the number of snow days in East Penn ranged from three in 2011-12 to 11 in 2013-14.
To build more than two snow days into the calendar, she said the district would have to increase the number of instructional days.
A few board members had another suggestion: clearly listing which dates will be used as snow days, if they are needed, and in what order.
The superintendent was receptive to that idea, but said he would want to give parents at least a one-week notice when saying students have to attend school on a day they thought they would have off.
Munson and board member Ken Bacher recommended changing the emphasis, from calling days off potential holidays to calling them potential snow make-up days.
“Maybe people would be more in tune with the expectation that some of these at least are probably going to be used as snow days,” said Bacher.
Given the make-up days history provided by Campbell, Munson said school probably will be in session for most of those scheduled days off.
“This calendar should be realistic, not aspirational,” said Munson. “We should make our calendar match our best guess for what we’re going to do.”
The board voted to table approval of the draft calendar so the administration can clarify snow day/make-up day language.
Retiring employee recognized
During the meeting, the superintendent praised Karen Kemp, who is retiring in May as a confidential secretary in the district’s business office.
Schilder said Kemp has worked for the school district for more than 40 years. He called her a “very valued, loyal and wonderful employee.”
He said she was hired as a secretary in the business office in November 1972 and later was promoted to confidential secretary.
Kemp also attended elementary, junior high and high school in East Penn. “She has been part of the district since she was five years old,” said Schilder.