By Nan Cooper / STAFF

Fall is the time when schools and PTA’s usually kick-off their fundraising activities. This year, in addition to seeing neighborhood children at your door with catalogs of wrapping paper or cookie dough, you may also hear from parents raising funds for education foundations.

The trend for foundations goes back decades as collegiate alma maters decided they needed a financially separate organization to raise and disburse individual donations and grants. Private schools have also long had such organizations, taking advantage of the foundations’ tax exempt status as they raised money for capital campaigns and to enhance learning. In more recent years, public school systems, public high schools, and now even public elementary schools are jumping on the bandwagon.

Early on, the Fulton County School System (FCSS) created the Fulton Education Foundation (FEF) in 1986. It is a registered 501(c)(3) organization and donations are tax deductible. According to Darlene Trigg, FEF Executive Director, they are going through a retooling this year. Trigg stated, “The vision of the foundation aligns with that of the school district. There are four primary areas: Student Achievement, Student Safety, Staff Development, and Staff Recognition.” The FEF is supporting several cutting edge programs focused around technology like the Fulton Institute of Technology for students and the Technical Leadership Forum for instructional leaders. The FEF also supports an annual event honoring the FCSS ‘s teachers of the year and school professionals of the year as well as outstanding business partners Foundations in the public high schools often have an athletic component as at Roswell and Chattahoochee High Schools.

Roswell High School established their foundation in 1992 with the stated purpose providing financial support for the students, teachers and facilities at Roswell High School. The RHS Foundation paid for a football stadium and softball field added in 1994 and an auditorium in 1995. The Foundation’s current list of accomplishments includes upgraded enhancements to the stadium, contributing to the construction of the hitting barn for indoor baseball practice, and providing scholarships for students and faculty.

The mission of the Chattahoochee Cougar Foundation, Inc. (CCFI) is to enhance the capital facilities at Chattahoochee High School. Their most recent project was to build the Alumni Pavilion. This 2,700 square foot covered deck overlooking Cougar Stadium serves as a gathering place for school and community groups.

With an eye toward more than sports, CCFI received a $75,000 check last July from Fulton County District 3 Commissioner Lynne Riley. The grant was designated to manage and administer funds for the construction of the ARCH project, located at Chattahoochee High School. The ARCH project is a best management practice geared toward remediating a growing community problem of storm water pollution. The project incorporates a constructed wetland detention pond for storm water runoff,  an amphitheater and environmental education stations. The wetland detention pond retains and cleans storm water through a bioremediation filtration process before it enters Johns Creek.

At Centennial High School they have a foundation for the Fine Arts (CFFA). They sell memberships to families of children involved in the fine arts at Centennial. They also request donations, manage concessions at performances, and sell “bricks” and other products. The CFFA is also a 501(c)(3) organization.

While this variety of foundation accomplishments is interesting, the new trend in foundations is at public elementary schools. According to Maggie DeCan, President of the first-ever public elementary school foundation in Roswell — Roswell North Elementary Foundation (RNEEF), “It’s exciting and a little sad at the same time. Our public schools are not funded to really meet today’s basic educational requirements.” DeCan went on to add, “For a school like Roswell North, with almost 1,000 students, to only have one computer lab is a terrible disappointment. Our foundation is required just to meet our basic technology needs.”

While Roswell North may be first in Roswell, River Eves, Hembree Springs and Sweetapple Elementary Schools are all in the start-up phase for their own foundations. DeCan is pushing FCSS to take more ownership of the development of the foundations. Says Decan, “It’s becoming inevitable that all schools will need foundations. As the tax base ages and tax funding to schools shrinks, the needs will still be there. Foundations are an easy vehicle through which others can contribute to the schools. And since every school will need a foundation, they shouldn’t all have to learn how to do it.”

Even elementary schools are considering foundations primarily to support educational programs beyond what limited tax dollars fund. The RNEEF was formed to enable the purchase of technology, science and math resources that are necessary for children to succeed both after they leave elementary school and in the work world of 2020 and beyond.

Jerome Huff, principal at Roswell North has already been through the process of identifying these opportunities and his school community has determined that a priority for RNEEF is an interactive board in every classroom. At nearly $6,000 each (installed), this is quite an undertaking. According to Huff, “It has long been a vision of mine and a desire of nearly every teacher in our school to have an interactive board in each homeroom to strengthen the quality of the teaching that we are able to provide our students and to expose our children to the technology that they need to master for success later in their lives.”

Only days into their first annual fundraising campaign, RNEEF has raised over $30,000 – enough money to buy five boards. In addition to parent and school employee support, RNEEF will be actively working to win corporate and government grants and to solicit local business partners as well as the Roswell community, including Roswell North graduates, school district residents and friends of Roswell North.

Congressman Tom Price, M.D. (R, 6th District) lives in the Roswell North neighborhood and said, “We have long been strong supporters of RNE, and appreciate the formation of a non-profit foundation to support a public school. As a strong believer in local communities meeting the challenges of public education, I admire the parents of Roswell North for not waiting on public assistance to address the needs of their school but, instead, taking action to acquire the resources that RNE needs to prepare their students for the future. I applaud RNEEF and encourage you to join [my wife] Betty and me in supporting this worthy foundation.”