Batavia 5th grader Brittany Renner endured successful 10-hour spinal surgery last January. But she didn’t miss a day of class, even though she had to stay at home for the next four weeks to rest and heal.
Every weekday at 7 a.m., before the rest of her classmates were in their seats, Brittany turned on the home computer equipped with video camera and speaker phone and chatted with David Rowe, her teacher at White Elementary School. Then, all day until class ended at 3 p.m., she actively participated, often joining in the discussions.
“I felt like a kid still in class,” Brittany said.
Her mother, Diane Renner, was delighted. “She kept up her straight-A average, and her recovery was quicker,” she said.
The $500 spent for video cameras and speaker phones for the classroom and Renner home by the Batavia Foundation for Educational Excellence is just one of many projects funded by the newest method to pay for added school opportunities.
Non-profit educational foundations like the one in Batavia have exploded in Illinois during the 1990s, increasing from 25 to at least 150.
“Foundations seek to enrich and enhance educational opportunities,” said Stacy Holland, spokeswoman for New Lenox’s Lincoln-Way High School. They exist primarily to fund projects that would not be in the regular school budget, she said.
Lawrence Mortier, vice president for advancement and public service at Western Illinois University in Macomb, wrote his 1994 doctoral thesis on Illinois education foundations and identified 129 with resources ranging from $200 to $163,000.
Though Batavia, whose foundation started in 1986, was among the first communities to begin one, most suburbs began to look at the idea after 1991, the year the state legislature enacted the property-tax cap limiting annual local revenue increases.
“School districts started to look for alternative ways of funding,” said Claudia Thomas, co-chairman of Partnership for Educational Progress, or PEP. Though other education foundations invariably support one school district, PEP awards grants to Glenbard High School District 87 and the seven elementary districts, which feed into its four high schools.
After the tax-cap law, Thomas said, “foundations popped up like mushrooms.”
In Indian Prairie Unit School District 204 in Naperville and Aurora, foundation grants enable teachers to enhance outdoor education learning by buying books to help children identify trees and plants. That’s one of 92 projects funded since 1989 for a total of nearly $50,000. The projects also have included computer software for reading acceleration, cameras for 2nd graders to take community pictures and art prints to boost appreciation for paintings.
In Geneva Unit School District 304, the 11-year-old Geneva Academic Foundation has raised $250,000 for computers and software, art kilns, microscopes and other science equipment and library books.
In Bannockburn Elementary School District 106, whose foundation specializes in technology grants, more youngsters do their science projects on computers purchased with foundation funds.
In Glen Ellyn Elementary School District 89, more teachers go to education conferences because of an endowment gift–from a former superintendent, Paul Zaccarine–known as ZEST (Zaccarine Endowment for Staff Training).
Indeed, more foundation giving is connected with a specific individual for an earmarked purpose, such as the Zaccarine grant. Last week, for example, grants to 17 Naperville elementary teachers were awarded by the Jeanine Nicarico Memorial Fund for Literacy, honoring the memory of the 5th-grade Naperville girl killed in 1983 when she was home alone because of illness.
And as the foundations have proliferated, their fundraising techniques have become more sophisticated–and for the givers, more fun.
Some still rely on the traditional ways of mailings and face-to-face solicitation. Bannockburn has walkathons and taffy-apple and pound-cake sales. Geneva has a dinner dance and auction. Indian Prairie invites parents to check a box on a student registration form for a $15 donation. More than 2,000 did, adding $34,000 to the foundation’s funds.
The foundations in Naperville and Elmhurst sell $25 chances to give one winner $25,000 that must be earmarked for college expenses and invested by a local bank until the money is used.
The Lincoln-Way Foundation for Educational Excellence makes no general appeal, instead relying on specific fundraisers. School calendars cost $10, and ad space is sold. The profit was $17,000 this year for 2,000 calendars. A November dinner dance at $60 a ticket attracted 318 people. Engraved brick plates mounted outside the school auditorium went for $100 each, and 561 names are now affixed.
Lincoln-Way also tries to raffle off at $100 a ticket a new $225,000 house built by students. If fewer than 3,000 tickets are sold, however, no one gets the house, and the money is split 50-50 between the raffle winner and the foundation. This year, 1,210 tickets were sold, and the winner and the foundation each got $60,500. The house was put on the market.
In four years, the Lincoln-Way Foundation has raised $225,000. Funds have been used to equip computer labs at the school’s two campuses, provide scholarships for graduating seniors and buy a computerized physical fitness machine for the school.
Some foundations also urge teachers to apply for individual grants. Batavia has a fall award of grants up to $500 each and up to $3,000 in the spring for long-term projects.
