Apodaca: How can public schools compete for donations?

Newport Coast Elementary School is planning a fundraising gala at the Balboa Bay Club later this month.

Proceeds will go to a foundation that pays for two full-time teachers, one part-time teacher, a teacher’s aide, a crossing guard and the school’s technology program.

In addition to the foundation, Newport Coast’s Parent-Teacher Assn. operates with an annual budget of about $200,000.

Then there is Pomona Elementary in Costa Mesa, the polar opposite in terms of its fundraising potential.

Pomona’s PTA has typically raised no more than a few thousand dollars during each school year. There is no foundation. While Pomona does receive some grant money under the Title 1 federal program designed to help disadvantaged schools, it isn’t nearly enough to cover many of the school’s needs.

In Newport-Mesa, “we’re the haves and the super-have nots,” said Suzanne Gauntlett, Newport Coast’s PTA president.

And therein lies the glaring, uncomfortable truth. Public schools are meant to provide all children equal access to quality education.

But the reality is far different. There are great, gaping disparities throughout public education, and they are made wider still by the private donations made to schools in more affluent areas.

The gap has grown as budget cuts have squeezed school finances mercilessly. Parents with the means to do so have stepped up to offset some of the cuts — an option that isn’t available to families at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum.

In some districts, the fundraising differential among schools has prompted a backlash.

Some districts have successfully transitioned to a shared system, in which donations are pooled and redistributed to schools according to need.

In the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, however, some of the parents in the wealthier zones have threatened to pull their kids from the public schools because of a proposal to centralize fundraising.

Here are some of the questions being asked: Do parents have the right to pay for goods and services at one school when they aren’t available at all schools in a district? Should steps be taken to spread the wealth? Would an attempt to level the field backfire by discouraging donations?

“In a perfect world, it would be great” if all schools could fund every desired activity, said Lisa Boler, president of Harbor Council, the umbrella organization for Newport-Harbor PTAs.

If parents at top fundraising schools were told that some of their donations would be diverted to other schools, “I don’t think people would work as hard to raise money,” Boler said.

Schools have also struggled with the question of where to draw the line on how far parents can go with their largesse.

Boler recalled that several years ago, when the 20-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio was instituted in grades K-3, the parents at one school wanted to reimburse the district for the cost of continuing that ratio through the fourth grade. The administration turned them down.

The district does have a common fundraising mechanism into which all parents can contribute. The Newport-Mesa Schools Foundation awards teacher grants based on a blind reading of the applications — meaning those making the decisions don’t know who will receive the money.

But in Newport-Mesa, the bulk of the fundraising is done on a school-by-school basis, and the differences can be huge.

At Corona del Mar High School, which my son attends, the foundation’s goal this year is to raise $800,000. Over the last 15 years, it has raked in more than $7 million, which has paid for counseling, athletic and other support staff, computer and science labs, an after-school math clinic, computers and projectors, landscaping, gym renovations, and a college-planning guide.

And that’s just the foundation; CdM also raises money through PTA activities and a slew of booster clubs targeted toward specific programs.

I certainly wouldn’t want CdM to lose any of those benefits; indeed, my husband and I feel fortunate that we could choose to live where our kids could attend the finest public schools.

Parents at schools like Pomona also care deeply. I visited the pin-tidy campus last week to speak to PTA President Beronica Enciso and community facilitator Carmen Mora, and they were just as passionate about education as parents and staff at wealthier schools.

This year, due to budget cuts, no money was available to send Pomona’s sixth-grade students to science camp, an activity long considered a rite of passage for local kids. So Enciso organized parents and students to sell homemade tacos and nachos, peddle pencils and rally the community to raise the $18,600 needed.

Even Pomona’s teachers and staff kicked in some money.

It was an admirable effort and it succeeded, but how many other worthy programs are students at Pomona and other such schools missing?

There are no bad guys here — not the parents who can afford to bankroll programs and services at their kids’ schools; not the families at less well-endowed schools who are desperate for more help; and not the beleaguered teachers and administrators who are grateful for any assistance they can get.

The real culprit, as always, is the dismal political system in California that has ravaged our public schools. Until that is fixed, and education is treated as the state’s unequivocal funding priority, the gap between the public-school haves and the super-have nots will continue to yawn.

PATRICE APODACA is a Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She is also a regular contributor to Orange Coast magazine. She lives in Newport Beach.