School Foundation Strives for More than Just Basics

South Pasadena Educational Foundation Board President Dr. Ruby Kalra knows tough times.  Her parents moved to Illinois from India when she was 3 1/2.  "My family came with nothing," she recalls.  "They came here so their kids could receive a good education, and we did, and since then public education has been a theme of my life."

It is a theme from which the pediatric oncologist and mother of three will surely draw as she, her 36-member board and dozens of volunteers steer the South Pasadena Education Foundation through a tough recession in which even upper-middle-class communities such as South Pasadena have seen home foreclosures and dwindling paychecks. 

Although SPEF has filled financial gaps in local public education since 1980, the recession and the state budget crisis have forced SPEF to re-evaluate how best to fulfill its mission of providing what Kalra calls "educational excellence that covers more than just the basics." 

Whereas SPEF once provided restricted funding for specific programs--including instruction in arts and foreign languages--the foundation has for the last three years given most of the approximately $500,000 it raises annually as an unrestricted gift to the South Pasadena Unified School District. 

It seems hard to do otherwise, explains Kalra, when "in the last two years," as a result of state budget cuts, "over $4 million have been cut out of a $30 million budget."  This is especially true, she adds, "when 90% of that budget is committed to salaries." 

The nonprofit's shift from providing restricted to unrestricted funds, however, also reflects what members of the South Pasadena educational community call a commitment to building trust between the school board, administrators, teachers, groups like SPEF and the PTA and parents and students.  Kalra calls unrestricted funds "a matter of trust, of knowing that the district knows its needs very well." 

Dr. Steve Seaford, SPUSD Assistant Superintendent of Instructional Services, echoes this emphasis on trust, noting that "SPEF is a great example of how a community and its public schools can work together to make a positive difference in kids' lives. To paraphrase [Martin Luther King] Jr., we really are caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Our civic, business and cultural future depends on the kinds of relationships exemplified by the SPEF/SPUSD partnership."

For some community members, however, trust is a hard sell in a time when district superintendents have been short-lived and financial management has been scrutinized. Expressing concern about SPEF's unrestricted gifts, a parent who preferred to remain anonymous due to her involvement in school affairs said, "It's hard to donate money that you don't think will be spent wisely." She added, however, that she feels more optimistic giving to SPEF now that there is a new superintendent–Dr. Joel Shapiro–and business manager–Dr. Scott S. Price. 

Reservations aside, building trust via partnership has definitely helped SPEF–and the district--weather the economic crisis.  Worried that tough economic times could potentially cut into their annual fund-raising by as much as one fifth for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, SPEF committed to raising $400,000 for the 2010-2011 school year.  When SPEF managed to raise $500,000–a more customary benchmark for the group–it partnered with the PTAs of the three district elementary schools to fund an artist-in-residence program and with the South Pasadena High School Band Booster Club to fund the Assistant Band Director's position. It also agreed to fund two periods of visual arts at the middle school.

Although aided, in part, by a series of successful grant programs written by board members and the SPEF-funded summer school, which generally raises about $200,000 annually for the group, Kalra says that SPEF's fund-raising success comes also from community members who continue to give to SPEF despite their own economic challenges. 

She notes that, because of well-publicized budget cuts, individuals have become more aware of the challenges facing public education.  "They realize that if they don't step in, they will see the tangible effects of budget cuts."  And if that happens, tough times will definitely get tougher.