Southwest and Washburn High School Foundations Could Slightly Cushion Budget Shortfalls

Alumni-run foundations at Washburn and Southwest High Schools are preserving some premium programming and recruiting volunteers, activities that will slightly blunt—but not solve—the school district's expected budget cuts.
 
Jeff Prottas runs the Washburn High School Foundation. Started in the late 1980s, the foundation provides funds for teachers' special projects and small infrastructure improvements around the school. Last year, the foundation paid for the new electronic sign outside the building and refurbished one of the school’s stairwells.

The Washburn foundation plugs leaks where it can, but the school's needs are much bigger than the foundation’s budget. Minneapolis Public Schools are facing a $10-30 million budget shortfall.

Prottas said they've received requests from all sorts of school departments, from funding to transport art students to theaters to money for music programs.

Jodi Wishart, the head of Southwest’s foundation, said her foundation is trying to expand into similar territory, after many years where the foundation just paid for scholarships.

"We would like to give more grant money for teachers in the classroom, and for capitol improvements like a new scoreboard or a new sign outside the school," Wishart said.

"Kids need to feel proud of the place where they go to school," Wishart added, explaining that small improvements like a new scoreboard can have an aesthetic impact out of proportion to their cost.

"Parents at Southwest are really energized and gung-ho," Wishart said. "We raised $1 million over the last five years: there's just a ton of fundraising energy from the parents."

Even with this enthusiasm, both foundations raised a bit less than $200,000 each last year—that’s roughly equivalent to four average teachers’ salaries and benefits. That’s a drop in the bucket compared the schools’ expected portion of the district’s budget shortfall.

Mary Cecconi, from the Minnesota advocacy group Parents United For Public Schools, said the dollar amoutns parents need to raise to fully fund schools gets in the way of any attempt to fill gaps in state education funding with private dollars.

“You can try to fill that budget deficit with wrapping paper if you want,” Cecconi said, referring to the common practice of parents selling wrapping paper to their neighbors and each other to raise money for their child’s school. 

"Take five or ten percent of Minneapolis [Public Schools]'s budget—that’s millions and millions of dollars," Cecconi said. "No matter how much you sell, you can’t make up for it."

Minneapolis Public School's budget for the 2010-2011 school year is $684 million.

The Washburn High School Foundation’s Prottas agrees, and said that he hopes his group is not looked to as a source of money for Washburn’s day-to-day operations.

“The school will continue to have needs beyond the resources that flow in from traditional sources” like the state and federal government, Prottas said, pointing out that the small “extras” his and Wishart’s groups fund can dramatically enrich student’s high school experience.

In the end, these foundations’ greatest contributions to Washburn and Southwest may not be strictly monetary.  Both Prottas and Wishart say they are embarking on projects to reconnect alumni with their former high schools, and encourage them to volunteer as mentors, tutors, or even as part-time staff.

“There’s a tremendous opportunity for all the alumni living in the Cities who can come in and mentor, volunteer, connect kids with a wider vision of what it means to be successful in the world,” said Wishart. “The district has a huge budget gap, but the best way to fill that is with warm bodies who care.”

Prottas suggested that these kinds of "warm bodies" could help provide resources that wouldn't otherwise get money.  

"If the school needs a part-time media center specialist," he asked, "does it make sense to pour $45,000 in to a position, or does it make sense to gather up 3 or 4 volunteers who can give part of their day, a few days a week."

Some schools, such as Taft Information Technology High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, have used volunteer tutors to great effect in closing the achievement gap. Using the sort of community resources provided by these foundations is an approach Minneapolis school board member Richard Mammen in a conversation with Southwest Minneapolis Patch after his election.

Mammen pointed out that the school districts needs to change the way it thinks about money.

“Do we think about the money we take in, or what the money can buy?” Mammen said. “That's where you look at the social capital you have as a district [...] and the people who are engaged in the building who can bring things in without drawing resources from the budget.”