Fund gives education a boost in Mead

School districts navigate tight restrictions on how they use state funds. There’s even a cap on how much they can seek in levies.

To give more flexibility to Mead School District, a handful of parents created a private foundation to support their teachers and principals.

The Mead Education Foundation is a rare institution for Eastern Washington. Private schools and colleges tend to have foundations, and some public schools in Western Washington have them as well. Several North Idaho public school districts have education foundations, including the Coeur d’Alene School District, which is supported by the EXCEL Foundation.

During their research, the two men who started Mead’s foundation did not find any other public school foundations in Eastern Washington.

“One of the reasons we did it is we feel Mead is such a good school district,” said board president Mark Barnes, who owns a furniture store. His wife is a teacher in the Mead district and his children attend Mead schools. Barnes and John Serben, an insurance agent and newly elected 6th District state representative, have been leading the project. Serben is the incoming president.

The Mead School District educates about 8,000 students and has a free-and-reduced meal rate of 23 percent. Spokane Public Schools, one of the largest districts in the state, has almost 30,000 students and a free-and-reduced meal rate of 48 percent.

The Mead foundation, which uses the 15-year-old Vancouver School District Foundation as a model, is separate from the school district and has its own eight-person board. The nonprofit foundation was formed in November 2003 and the board was created soon after.

So far, fund-raising has been done in everyone’s spare time and by the seat of their pants, Barnes said. Supporters started by obtaining a list of Mead district vendors and sending letters asking for $1,000.

“I even sent one to my dentist,” Barnes said.

The foundation held its first public fund-raising event in November, a Spokane Chiefs hockey game, which raised about $1,100. In the works are a ski event and a Spokane Indians baseball game fund-raiser. Barnes is also considering turning his neighborhood haunted house into a foundation event.

Barnes declined to say how much has been raised, but it has to be less than $25,000. Non-profit organizations must file certain tax forms once they raise more than that amount.

The money started going back to educators this fall, when the foundation established a $400 fund for each of the 13 schools to use at their discretion for unforeseen needs, such as coats and mittens for students in need.

In January, the board will determine which of the 18 grant requests from teachers should be funded. The teachers’ grant was established to encourage educators to experiment with technology in their lessons.

For instance, teachers submitted proposals using digital audio-visual tools to create new student projects.

The grants were capped at $1,500 for teams of teachers.

“We’re operating on very little funds,” said Kathy Johnson, a board member and treasurer whose husband works for the district.

Johnson was involved with a similar but much more established foundation while living in Friday Harbor, Wash. She and her husband moved to the Mead District about a year ago.

Serben said he’s been excited by the foundation, especially now that it’s able to award grants.

“It gives you a little input into what your schools are doing,” he said.

The concept of public school foundations began emerging nationally in the 1980s when states began capping how much funding schools can generate through levies. The National School Board Association reported this year that about 4,800 public school foundations have been formed nationally. State figures of foundations are more elusive as state groups don’t track them.

Typically, the average amount raised by a foundation is about .3 percent of a school’s operational budget, according to the National School Board Association.

The idea for forming a board came after a levy election last year, which brought out some vocal opponents.

“One day the anti-levy people could hit the right note” and a levy will fail in Mead, Serben said.

With a foundation, the district may be able to weather such a failure a little easier.