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Leave No Dollar Behindtm
Private Giving In Public Schools

U.S. charitable giving reaches $295.02 billion in 2006 
Gifts to education are 13.9 percent of total estimated giving in 2006

• Giving by individuals is always the largest single source of donations - 75% - $223 billion
• Broad-Based Strategies for Raising Private Support
• Project Appleseed Capacity Building for Your Schools

Overview: Parental involvement is the most common form of "giving" at the school level but other contributors can play a significant role in providing support to schools. A majority of schools rely on parents, local businesses, corporations, and community-based organizations for support. Although not as prevalent across schools, students, philanthropic foundations, community members, professional associations, and city governments are givers (and often donate gifts of significant size).

The challenge of building new schools and modernizing existing ones offers the opportunity to enhance teaching and learning, and to strengthen communities at the same time. By initiating a thoughtful, inclusive school facilities planning process, school districts can incorporate diverse points of view, take advantage of the power and creativity of parent and business partnerships, enlist widespread community funding support, and create high performance schools that serve both students and their communities.

There is no precise formula for making this all happen, but the following 19 steps-and the action checklists that accompany them-provide the basics.

The initial phase of the planning process requires strong leadership and commitment, which must come not only from school board members and school district officials; it must come from concerned and active people and organizations within the
community.

STEP 1 Initiating the Planning Process
1The planning process for schools is
typically initiated by the local school
board or school administration, but
the spark that ignites the process may
come from conversations among neighbors,
a small group of concerned citizens,
or a single individual.

STEP 2 Funding the Planning Process
An extensive community-oriented planning process requires funding, and one of the first tasks of the initiating group will be to secure it. Since the process proposed here is both philosophically
and practically a collaborative and inclusive one, a combination of public and private funds will probably provide the best funding mix. Regardless of potential funding sources,
members of the initiating group need to be able to tell prospective donors why the money is needed.

STEP 3
Identifying a Facilitator
3Once the school board has sanctioned
a facilities planning process
and secured funding to support it,
the next step is to identify a facilitator to
organize and oversee planning activities.
Community-centered facilities planning is
time-consuming and challenging; leading
such a collaborative process requires great
skill and commitment.
The best candidate to guide the work
should possess a strong background in
planning; a good working knowledge of
current educational research and best
practices; effective communication skills
as a listener, speaker, and writer; experience
in facilitating large group meetings;
and a demonstrated ability to build consensus.
The candidate also must be skilled
in analyzing and using data.

STEP 4 Assembling
the Core Planning Team
4A core planning team of about
a dozen experienced and respected
leaders is needed to serve as the
leadership backbone for the project through
to its completion.
For the team to succeed, it should
include credible community members
who represent the full breadth of opinion
within the school district.

STEP 5
Organizing
the Steering Committee
5One of the core planning team's
initial tasks will be to organize a
steering committee.While this
committee will vary in size according to the
makeup of the community and the school
district, it should be large enough-and
broad enough in its thinking-to represent
the interests and resources of the
entire community.Many successful
steering committees have been comprised
of a hundred or more educators, parents,
students, and representatives from local
civic and business organizations.
The steering committee ultimately will
be responsible to the community for developing
the facilities master plan.Among its
members' most important roles will be to
serve as key communicators between the
community and the committee itself.
STEP 6
Involving Students
6Ironically, students-the people
with the largest stake in education
and those most directly affected by
the learning environment-are the ones
most frequently excluded from decisions
regarding its design. Leaving students out
of the planning process is a mistake.
Clearly they have a vested interest in the outcome and deserve a place at the table.
Including students is not only the right
thing to do, it is the wise thing to do.

STEP 7
Involving Parents
7As with students, parents historically
have been a greatly underrepresented
constituency in the
school design process. In fact, parents have
perhaps been the most underutilized
resource in American education. Three
decades of research has established
unequivocally that parental engagement
has a significant, positive influence on students'
academic achievement, behavior in
school, and attitudes about school and
work.Yet too often parents are not included
as essential partners in the education of
their children. Clearly, parents have a vested
interest in decisions about all aspects of
schooling, not the least of which are decisions
about where their sons and daughters
will spend their days. They deserve a
place at the table from the outset of any
planning activity.

STEP 8
Involving Educators
8The participation of a large contingent
of educators in the facilities
planning process is critical to the
success of any school design.Although the
need for participation may seem obvious,
it has not been common. In the 1950s and
1960s, an entire generation of open-plan
schools was designed and constructed
with limited input from affected teachers.
While there may have been significant
educational benefits in these open designs,
their potential never was realized because
they were developed apart from their
users. Changing the configuration of the
learning environment without changing the
practices of teachers and learners is like
changing one half of an equation without
the other: The result is imbalance.With
open-plan schools, balance often was
restored at considerable expense by modifying
the facilities rather than changing
instructional practices.

STEP 9
Involving Business
9The involvement of corporations,
businesses, and organizations
representing businesses can
enhance and legitimize the school
facilities planning process.As primary
"customers" for the "products" schools
produce, businesses have particular needs
and unique perspectives.Having businesses
participate in your school's design process
tells the community that supporting
schools is good business.

STEP 10
Involving Senior Citizens
10The design and planning of
new schools should reflect
two new realities: the need
for life-long learning to keep citizens
employed, productive, and engaged, and
the coming demographic change, as the
baby boom generation begins to retire.
Beginning in 2011, the first wave of the 80
million Americans born between 1946 and
1964 will retire. The number of citizens
over age 65 will more than double from 30
million to 70 million over the next 25 years
(Sullivan 2002).

STEP 11
Involving
Community Organizations
and Government Agencies
11Cultural and civic institutions
can be important partners in
planning school facilities.
When organizations such as museums,
libraries, zoos, parks, and hospitals join
forces with schools, a community can
leverage these resources to enhance
student learning. The partnerships foster
connections that increase institutional
support at many levels.

STEP 12
Involving
the School Board and
District Administration
12The sanction of the school
board is vital to the success of
any school facilities planning
process. Board members can use their
power and influence to bring the right
players to the table, create the best possible
conditions for action, and leverage the
necessary resources to support the planning
process.
The school board's involvement will
vary from one community to the next. In
some cases, a board member may become
active on the core planning team and
participate in all steering committee
sessions. In others, the board may appoint
a liaison to the steering committee or
choose to hear only periodic progress
reports and wait to act upon recommendations
from the committee.

STEP 13
Building Common
Understanding, Shared
Beliefs, and a Collective
Vision
13The steering committee's
first task is to develop a
common knowledge base.
Participants can begin by studying community
demographic studies, summaries
of student achievement data, and districtwide
strategic plans. They can review base
documents that govern the education of
their young people, including learning
goals, graduation requirements and state
and national standards. This is also a good
opportunity to survey the attitudes and
perspectives of the community.Using such
data, the committee will be able to create a
school and community profile that
includes general characteristics, strengths,
limitations, and emerging issues.

STEP 14
Determining
Educational Needs
14Once the collective vision has
been successfully written,
steering committee members
will be ready-and probably eager-to
draft a wish list. For such a list to advance
the planning process, it must be framed in
terms of facilities needs. The list should be
thoughtful, strategic, and focused on the
future.

STEP 15
Identifying Resources
15At the same time the steering
committee is analyzing facility
needs, it should also be considering
resources available to meet those
needs.Many such resources will already be
on hand at existing schools. Others may
be located within the larger community. It is
important that the steering committee consider
both internal and external resources
as potential solutions.

STEP 16
Developing
Recommendations
16After the steering committee
has identified facilities needs
and identified available
resources, its next task is to prepare written
facilities recommendations that match
available resources to identified needs.
Guiding questions for this phase of the
work include: How can the school district
and community work together most effectively
to realize their collective vision for
schools? In what ways can the school
district and community combine forces to
build on their strengths?

STEP 17
Communicating
with the Larger Community
17The steering committee
should have maintained open
communications about the
facilities planning process throughout its
duration.
Once the recommendations report has
been issued,however, the steering committee
will need to embark upon a deliberate and
strategic effort to publicize the report's
contents and rationale. The goal of this
publicity is to foster community understanding
of the recommendations, solicit
feedback about them, and build community
consensus.

STEP 18
Creating a Master Plan
18The facilities master plan is
the culmination of all the
steps that have come before.
Before compiling the work products
generated by Steps 13 through 17, however,
the steering committee must carefully
assess community feedback received
during Step 17 and make any adjustments
to the plan that it deems appropriate.
That done, the committee should define
action steps, determine timelines, and
assign responsibilities for achieving its
recommendations. It should then prioritize
the recommendations, if this was not done
during Step 16.

STEP 19
Implementing
the Master Plan
19Completing a master plan is a
cause for celebration because
the steering committee has
accomplished its primary mission.
But implementing the plan-moving
from vision to action-will be its true test.
Exciting plans are not enough. The hard
work of the master plan will not be beneficial
unless the plan is implemented.
Everyone involved in the planning process
must understand that implementation
requires time, commitment, and oversight.
Recognizing that it will take months or
years before construction work is completed,
many steering committees choose to stay in
place throughout the process.When they do,
their focus will naturally shift to the new
and equally critical tasks of tracking
progress and assisting the school board in
its implementation tasks.

Overall, school districts tend to attract resources from larger and more-organized groups, such as corporations, local businesses, and colleges and universities, as opposed to obtaining resources from individuals and smaller groups and associations, which was typical at the school level.

According to a Rand Corporation study - Private Giving to Public Schools and Districts in Los Angeles County: A Pilot Study, Rand Corporation 2001 - the nation's public schools have been under attack over much of the past three decades. A commonly heard criticism is that school performance, as measured by students' standardized test scores, has stagnated or declined over the years. At the same time, schools have failed to close the gap in achievement between the lowest-performing and highest-performing students. This situation exists despite increased resources for public schools and attempts to allocate resources more equitably.

Dependence on state support has created a number of concerns for the nation's schools and school districts. School finance reforms have led to increased decisionmaking at the state level regarding education at a time when governance reforms call for more local control. State decisionmaking, in turn, imposes constraints on local decisionmaking. Schools have become dependent on the state economy and must compete with other demands on state resources. In addition, state education funding over time has shifted toward a greater reliance on categorical (that is, restricted) funds and a lesser reliance on general-purpose (that is, flexible) funds.

Taken together, reforms in school finance and education governance have made securing private support for public education an important activity of many public schools and districts. While public schools and districts have always attracted private support, anecdotal reports and a limited body of documented research suggest they are now pursuing private support with increased sophistication and aggressiveness.

Major gift fund raising for capital projects at K­12 public schools is spreading throughout the United States and will become the norm in the 21st century. Fund raising in public schools is usually associated with projects that provide new band uniforms or bleachers. In the past Americans, as individual donors, expected their taxes to cover costs related to public school buildings. They are unaccustomed to being asked for charitable financial support, because some form of local elected or appointed government, rather than a nonprofit board of directors, holds fiduciary responsibility for the school.

U.S. charitable giving reaches 
$295.02 billion in 2006 
Third straight year of growth fueled in part by "mega-gifts 

U.S. charitable giving reached a new record in 2006, an estimated $295.02 billion, according to Giving USA 2007, the yearbook of philanthropy published by Giving USA Foundation and researched and written by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Donors gave an estimated $11.97 billion more than in 2005, a 4.2 percent increase (1.0 percent adjusted for inflation) over a revised estimate for 2005 of $283.05 billion. The 2005 estimate includes nearly $7.4 billion in extraordinary disaster relief giving. If disaster gifts are excluded from the 2005 total, giving in 2006 rose 6.6 percent (3.2 percent after adjusting for inflation).

"It is impressive that giving continued to rise in 2006, especially following the unprecedented levels of disaster giving in 2005," said Richard T. Jolly, chair of Giving USA Foundation. "America's 1.4 million charitable and religious organizations provide a huge range of services that improve lives, from meeting immediate needs to funding medical research or creating endowments to assure the future of arts or educational institutions."

Warren Buffett's Gift To Gates Foundation 
Brings Hope To Public Schools  
(Video - CBSNews.com)

Mega Gifts The record-setting gift amount includes $1.9 billion that Warren Buffett paid in 2006 as the first installment on his 20-year pledge of more than $30 billion to four foundations and also includes donations from hundreds of millions of Americans, as well as gifts from charitable bequests, foundations and corporations.

"While headlines focus on 'mega-gifts,' they represented 1.3 percent of the total, "said George C. Ruotolo Jr., CFRE, chair of Giving Institute: Leading Consultants to Non-Profits, parent organization of the Foundation. "About 65 percent of households with incomes lower than $100,000 give to charity. That is higher than the percentage who vote or read a Sunday newspaper.

Based on publicity surrounding the "mega-gifts" of 2006, some commentators predicted a rate of growth in giving akin to the double-digit increases seen in the late 1990s. Research shows that giving in 2006 was consistent with the historical relationships between wealth increases and giving.

"The stock market rose more than 10 percent adjusted for inflation in 2006," said Eugene R. Tempel, CFRE, executive director of the Center. "Going back to 1990, giving rose, on average, about one-third as fast as the stock market did, so 2006 is right on target. Giving rose 3.2 percent, adjusted for inflation, when the disaster gifts of 2005 are deleted," he added.

Giving by individuals is always the largest single source of donations, according to the report. It rose by 4.4 percent. (1.2 percent adjusted for inflation) to an estimated $222.89 billion and accounts for 75.6 percent of all estimated giving in 2006.

Charitable bequests are estimated in 2006 to be $22.91 billion, a 2.1 percent drop (-5.1 percent adjusted for inflation) from the revised value for 2005, which is based on IRS records and is now $23.40 billion. New IRS information about 2005 shows a very large change in giving by the wealthiest estates. Charitable bequests in 2006 are 7.8 percent of the estimated total.

Foundation grantmaking, as recorded by the Foundation Center and reported in Giving USA, rose 12.6 percent (9.1 percent adjusted for inflation) to $36.5 billion. The increase was because of growth in the number of foundations and because the stock market rose very rapidly in 2006. Foundations make grants based in part on the value of their assets, and when asset values rise quickly, grantmaking increases. Foundation giving accounts for 12.4 percent of total estimated charitable giving in 2006.

Donations by corporations and corporate foundations are estimated to be $12.72 billion in 2006. This is a decline of 7.6 percent (-10.5 percent adjusted for inflation). The decline reflects the extraordinary gifts in 2005 for disaster relief as well as a slow-down in the rate of growth for non-disaster-related corporate giving. Without the 2005 disaster relief gifts included, corporate giving is estimated to have increased 1.5 percent in 2006 (a drop of 1.7 percent when adjusted for inflation).

Who Got What from Who in 2006 Charitable gifts benefit at least nine different types of charities, with religious congregations receiving an estimated 32.8 percent of the total. In 2006, the highest growth rate was in arts, culture and humanities organizations, which saw a change of 9.9 percent. This is the largest change in this subsector since 2000. Arts, culture, and humanities giving reached an estimated $12.51 billion in 2006. The new estimate is based on revised historical data from IRS Forms 990.

Giving to education rose an estimated 9.8 percent, to $40.98 billion, based on the Giving USA survey and data collected by the Council for Aid to Education. Gifts to education are 13.9 percent of total estimated giving in 2006.

Gifts to foundations showed the next-highest rate of growth, increasing an estimated 7.4 percent. This estimate is based on information from the Foundation Center about giving to foundations in 2005. For 2006, the Foundation Center and Giving USA estimate contributions made to foundations of $29.50 billion. About $3.5 billion of that amount is estimated fair-market value of medical supplies and medicines donated to a dozen operating foundations created by pharmaceutical firms and medical products manufacturers. Gifts to foundations are an estimated 10.0 percent of total estimated giving for 2006.

Two subsectors saw a decline in the amount received in 2006, in large part because the donations to those categories in 2005 included billions of dollars for disaster relief. Giving to human services dropped an estimated 9.2 percent (-12.0 percent adjusted for inflation), to $29.56 billion. Giving to organizations in the international affairs subsector fell an estimated 9.2 percent (-12.0 percent adjusted for inflation) in 2006, to $11.34 billion. In both cases, the 2006 estimate is based on historical data from IRS Forms 990.

Strategies The term contributed income is important. It is a gift. The donor does not buy a cake, wrapping paper, raffle ticket, car wash, t-shirt, candy bar or a ticket to something. According to the official language of the IRS, 'the donor has received neither goods nor services in consideration for the gift'. The donor does, however, receive recognition, a thank you, an acknowledgment, and the option to reduce taxable income by itemizing deductions on his or her IRS Form 1040 Schedule A tax return. The donor should also have input into how the gift is spent.

As public school districts deal with more and more budget shortfalls, organized parents, community members and educators are turning to alumni philanthropy to finance school construction and staff augmentation--just as America's public universities have done for more than a century.

Broad-Based Strategies for 
Raising Private Support

Maintain Continual Communication. One comment that we heard from all districts and schools related to the importance of continual communication with the community at large.

Make It a Reciprocal Relationship. Both school and district officials noted the importance of creating a reciprocal relationship with business partners so that both parties feel they are benefiting from the relationship.

Finds Ways for Donors to "Get Their Feet Wet." Several school principals noted that one effective strategy is to find ways for community members to make modest contributions to support a school, and thereby get them introduced to the school and its needs. Once volunteers saw what was happening at the schools and got to know the students, they frequently came back with more support.

Make It Appealing for Individuals and Organizations to Become Involved. Districts and schools reported that they needed to be flexible and creative in their approach to making involvement appealing to prospective donors. In addition, several respondents stated that successful schools make everyone feel welcome.

Provide Training to Volunteers. Another effective strategy used by some schools was to provide orientation or training to community members who were interested in volunteering at the schools.

Know Your Resource Base. Representatives from the schools and districts discussed how the various characteristics of their communities affected how they approached raising private support. They suggested that identifying their resource base required a good understanding of their communities and what they had to offer in terms of support.

Private Support Garners More Private Support. Staff members from several districts and schools noted that when a school or district can establish some credibility with potential givers, other givers (including foundations, corporations, and the like) are more willing to give.

Focus On Individual Giving. If your school's alumni have the same dynamics in place that a university usually has, such as a sense of allegiance, a pride in having gone there, a sense of gratification for the good education they received, then it doesn't matter if it is a junior high, high school or a university because the major gifts and planned giving process will work and your school could be sitting on millions of dollars in contributed income.

Project Appleseed recognizes that today's philanthropists are demanding a more active role in shaping the outcomes of their gifts, a result both of their entrepreneurial wealth and an emerging belief that institutions need to be scrutinized more closely. To fund the rebuilding and renovation of America's public schools, parents and schools must harness alumni - but how?

Project Appleseed 
The National Campaign for Public School Improvement

Capacity Building for Your Schools

We can provide your administrators, school board members, parents, alumni and community leaders with the information, planning and leadership on key activities involving feasibility, capacity building, approval, and implementation. Our staff can help guide your schools through all fazes of your project:

• Project Proposal Creation
• Marketing
• Community engagement
• Alumni capacity building
• Recruitment of alumni leaders
• Web site development and on-line presentation
• Nonprofit organization and board development

E-mail Project Appleseed at giving@projectappleseed.org. Tell us about your potiential project, schools, alumni and funding needs and we will provide you with information about what we can do to help your schools achieve it's major raising goals.

Can you spare a million?

By Carolyn Bower Of the Post-Dispatch

Sales of wrapping paper, entertainment books and T-shirts have become familiar ways for schools to pay for playground equipment, field trips and even classroom supplies. Now public schools have found another way to pay for extras.

Donations. Big ones. Gifts that can pay for the sort of projects that school tax money might have financed in more flush times.

Consider:

• A million-dollar gift from two alumni paid to renovate a wing of Affton High School into a student union area, with a coffee bar, study areas, a wall of computers, and indoor and outdoor dining.
• A million-dollar gift from an alumna of the Highland public schools paid for new band instruments and upgrades to technology labs. Some of the donation may be used to air-condition elementary school classrooms.
• Clayton parents and community members launched a campaign this month to raise $2.6 million for the high school's athletic field and track.
• Ladue alumni are raising $1.7 million to build a field house and renovate the track, field and press box at the high school.
• Project Appleseed is helping University City parents and alumni who are seeking $15 million to $20 million for a recreation center as well as air conditioning and other upgrades to the district's high school. (Illustration above)

For years, private schools and colleges and universities have raised millions of dollars from alumni for building renovations, teachers, programs and technology.

Now public school districts have begun to follow suit.

1. Volunteer Time

Volunteers give their time to such activities as tutoring programs, after-school enrichment programs, mentoring programs, and classroom support.

2. Monetary Contributions

Funds for Public Schools

Fundraising Campaigns for School Facilities

Public Education Network

Education Week Grants

Foundation Center

On Philanthropy NSBA SchoolGrants Newsletter

Monetary donations are almost always targeted for a specific purpose or program. Generally, schools first develop priorities, plans, or goals and then approach private givers with specific proposals in a capital campaign.

3. Material Donations

Computers for Learning (CFL) provides schools and educational nonprofit organizations a place to request excess computer equipment. It also provides a quick and easy way for government agencies and the private sector to donate that equipment to schools and educational nonprofits. Many schools receive donations of instructional materials, computers and software, equipment and supplies, and gift certificates and awards (such as free tickets to a ball game for an outstanding report card). Corporate and business donors generally start out by providing in-kind support and, as the relationships develop, some givers would eventually provide monetary support as well.

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Order the Parental Involvement Toolbox for your schools today! Get the Parent Organizing Database 1.0.1. Does your school or parent group need to manage contributions and parent volunteer contacts without making a huge investment of money or time? You've come to the right place. The Parent Organizing Database runs on any Windows computer, and is easy enough for everyone to learn.

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In the 21st century school improvement works like the double helix that combines and recombines genetic material to renew life. An effective school improvement strategy must combine two complementary strands:

• The inside strand focuses on the content of schooling - curricula, academic standards, incentives and work rules for teachers and a philosophy of school management.
  
• The outside strand attracts and mobilizes community and political support, social capital, and other resources from outside the traditional school bureaucracy - from parents, grandparents, community members, alumni, businesses and the larger community.
  

A hundred years ago, at the turn of the last century, America's stock of social capital was at an ebb, reduced by urbanization, industrialization, and vast immigration that uprooted Americans from their friends, social institutions, and families, a situation similar to today's. Faced with this challenge, the country righted itself. Within a few decades, a range of organizations was created, from the National PTA, Red Cross, Boy Scouts, and YWCA to Hadassah and the Knights of Columbus and the Urban League. With these and many more cooperative societies we rebuilt our social capital.

We can learn from the experience of those decades as we work to rebuild our eroded social capital. It won't happen without the concerted creativity and energy of Americans nationwide.(Putnam, 2000)

Many communities have the financial, intellectual, and leadership resources needed to rebuild their own educational improvement strategies. To initiate an effort to improve public schools in all of our nation's communities, Project Appleseed concentrates on the outside strand of school improvement. We mobilize Americans to volunteer and give to their local public schools.(Hill, 1989)

The Parental Involvement Pledge

What Is It?
The Parental Involvement Pledge has two components. It provides an opportunity for parents to formalize their commitment to working with their child's school through a written agreement they can complete and take to their parent leader, school secretary, teacher, or principal. The Pledge also provides a survey of parent volunteer interests. The survey identifies 37 areas in which parents can volunteer in school, outside the classroom and at home. The Pledge is based on the Six Types of Parental Involvement developed by Dr. Joyce Epstien at John's Hopkins University.

How Do You Use It?
The Pledge is a tool to share with staff and parent organizations as a way of recruiting volunteers and appropriately connecting them with specific needs and activities.

When Do You Use It?
Title I of No Child Left Behind requires that a Pledge or other learning compact be used during parent-teacher conferences. Use it also when you want to encourage parents to volunteer or when you want teachers to invite and encourage parental involvement on National Parental Involvement Day, the third Thursday in November or Public School Volunteer Week which is the third week of April.

Why Do You Use It?
U.S. Department of Education research (Prospects Study 1993) demonstrates that schools that use learning compacts like the Parental Involvement Pledge have higher student achievement than those that don't use them. The Pledge provides a concrete way to help parents volunteer because it allows them to choose very specific activities. It is easier to get a commitment and follow-through if it is clear exactly what is being asked and what is expected.

Who Do You Involve?
When parents are involved, their children do better in school, and they go to better schools. Why is this true? Because when parents are welcome in the school and are consulted about decisions affecting their children, an atmosphere of trust and collaboration develops between school and home. When this happens, our children will perform at a higher level, and the school will become more effective. The school is a critically important community institution, since the quality of education shapes not only our children's individual future, but also the future of your community and society. Your support of public schools is important; involvement and action by several parents in a group can influence school policy-makers and result in decisions and choices than can benefit many children. Use the Pledge with parents, parent groups, and staff as a tool and encouragement for parental involvement.

 

Leave No Parent Behind
No Child Left Behind Speakout, Texas Statewide Hearing  
Linda & Reginald
- Reagan High School, Houston A-Plus

AS A PARENT, GRANDPARENT, OR CARING ADULT, I hereby give my pledge of commitment to help our community's children achieve a truly independent future. My declaration of responsibility and commitment to my public schools is stated in these five self-evident truths as spoken by President Woodrow Wilson:

 

 

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Box Tops Kids Caucus


      

Box Tops for Education asked how the kids and their parents would improve involvement if they were principal for a day.

Kayleigh Parravicini, Grade 5
Marlborough Intermediate Elementary School, 
Marlborough, MA

What Kayleigh would do: Start the "Parental Involvement Pledge"

"Parents would be asked to sign a parent involvement, or 'Parental Involvement' pledge, stating they will spend at least fifteen minutes everyday helping their child with homework, reading to, or with, their child, practicing math facts and concepts, or just listening to how their child's day in school went. Students would be asked to sign a pupil involvement, also a 'Parental Involvement' pledge, promising to work hard in school, to tell their parents about their day in school, and to ask for help with their studies, if needed." A chart of time spent "could be turned in at the end of the month and the family would receive one ticket entry for a raffle drawing to win a cool prize."

Kayleigh Parravicini, Grade 5
Marlborough (Mass.) Intermediate Elementary School

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