Schools Forced to Rely More on Parents : Education: Donations once paid for special trips or classes, but some campuses now need help to buy essentials.

Ventura County schools may have to lean on parents more heavily than ever for donations of time and money next school year, but parents say tough economic times will make it more difficult for them to give.

During the past school year, some schools’ parent organizations raised more than $20,000 with a single fund-raising event. Others, in less affluent areas, could only raise a few hundred dollars over the course of the year.

That gap may widen next school year, some parents fear.

Money raised by parent groups traditionally has been used for field trips or art and music courses. But as school districts across the county slash budgets to cope with shrinking state resources, the money may be needed for essentials as basic as pencils and paper.

That may leave schools in wealthier neighborhoods, which have traditionally raised more money, with better-equipped schools or better programs, some parents say.

“The burden is really on us if we want our children to have the finest education they deserve,” said Judy McCarthy, president of the 150-member Lincoln Elementary PTA in Ventura. “Some of the larger schools can raise $20,000 in one fund-raiser.”

At 275-student Lincoln Elementary, where the PTA raises about $10,000 a year, parents supply paper, pay for field trips and help out in the library, McCarthy said. One parent volunteers 15 to 20 hours a week in the library alone.

“Before the year was out, we were running out of pencils and supplies” because of a district spending freeze, McCarthy said. “If they make cuts in those areas, whose responsibility is it to supply those things?”

Some parents active at their children’s schools say they feel increased pressure to step up fund-raising efforts, filling in holes left by budget cuts.

“It seems that every year we have to make more and more money to keep our schools at the same level that they were the year before,” said Jerri Scott, PTA president at Camarillo’s Monte Vista Intermediate School.

On the high end of the scale, a jog-a-thon at Camarillo’s Las Colinas Elementary last school year raised $27,000. And additional money from a parent-sponsored hot lunch program was used to hire a music teacher.

And in Oxnard, at the new Christa McAuliffe Elementary School, parents and students raised $25,000 during the 1989-90 school year with a jog-a-thon and used the money to buy computers.

But parents at Barbara Webster Elementary School in Santa Paula were able to raise just over $300 with three fund-raisers last school year. Teachers, however, with a separate candy sale, raised about $5,000, said Joyce Smith, president of the Friends of Barbara Webster.

“Barbara Webster is a very poor school,” Smith said. Many of the school’s 380 students come from migrant families in which both parents work, she said.

“They just don’t have a lot of money at all, so even if you have the fund-raisers, it’s real tough,” Smith said. “We don’t really go to the parents at all for money.”

Fortunately, the Barbara Webster school receives special funds for its computer, math and science magnet program, and has four computers in every classroom and two 30-computer labs, Smith said.

At Oxnard’s Mar Vista Elementary School, many students are from poor families, but the Parent-Teacher Club still manages to raise about $9,000 to $12,000 a year, mostly through its three major fund-raisers--a carnival, a candy sale and a jog-a-thon, said club President Jane Yanagihara.

“Our families are very poor, and they try to help,” Yanagihara said. “But you can’t keep asking and asking.”

For the third year, Mar Vista’s parent club will set aside $1,000 of its funds next school year to purchase pencils and paper for the school, Yanagihara said.

The club also pays for field trips, but rising transportation costs are placing those out of reach, she said. Instead, students walk on some field trips to nearby places like Oxnard College.

One problem with fund raising is asking for donations too often--and burning out parents and the community, some parents say.

“You end up in your neighborhood with your hand out again,” said McCarthy of Lincoln Elementary. “People say, ‘Oh no, not again,’ or ‘I gave last week and I just can’t give any more.’ ”

Some groups said they hit parents up for major help or donations once a year at most.

Some schools can raise thousands of dollars more than others, but parents say that the wealth of the surrounding neighborhood is not always an indicator of how much money a school can raise.

In Oxnard, for example, some schools in less affluent areas but with lots of family and neighborhood support have traditionally done nearly as well at fund raising as wealthier schools.

Juanita Elementary School in La Colonia typically raises about $16,000 at a very successful community event--its annual enchilada dinner.

And in previous years, Ramona Elementary, also in La Colonia, has raised about $22,000 a year. Fund-raising efforts were not as intense this year, said PTA President Martha Rodriguez. The aging school is being closed and a new one will replace it.

Janice DiFatta, president of the Simi Valley PTA Council, said most Simi Valley PTAs raise $15,000 to $20,000 a year. But the district’s two fundamental schools--Vista and Hollow Hills elementaries, which have high parent participation--have raised as much as $50,000 each, she said.

However, DiFatta said that the PTA’s main function is not to raise money, but to encourage parent participation and enrich students’ education.

“Unfortunately, because of the budget crunch, things get worse each year,” DiFatta said. “PTAs right now are in a very, very hard position. The philosophy is not to be a fund-raising organization or back up the district’s need financially. But when you’re at the school site, and see the need is so grave, the pressure from some parents does go that way.”

But like the state, parent groups, too, say they are suffering from hard economic times.

“There’s just no money in the economy for schools,” said Scott of Camarillo’s Monte Vista school. “The state doesn’t have any, districts don’t have any, and you can only hit parents up so often for money. Parents don’t have any money either. So where is it going to come from?”

Last school year, donations countywide were fewer than expected because of the recession, some parents said, and many groups will begin next school year with less than they had hoped for in their accounts.

“Money raised by PTAs has been going down,” said Janis Johnson, president of the Oxnard PTA Council and a member of Driffill Elementary’s PTA. “At our school it was drastically down. . . . The economy affected everybody. It was definitely a trickle-down effect from the state.”

In his preliminary budget, Gov. Pete Wilson had proposed cutting $2.1 billion in funding to schools, but later proposed restoring that funding. However, Wilson and the state Legislature are at an impasse over the tax package needed to make up a $14.3-billion deficit and balance the state budget.

Despite predictions that the recession is ending, some parents still see a bleak economic outlook for next year--and even greater challenges in raising funds for schools.

But fund raising is only part of the picture. Perhaps more important to a school’s success than raising money is parent involvement in the schools, parent activists say.

Even if money is short, they say, parents who have the time can help their children’s schools by volunteering time or services.

In the Fillmore Unified School District, the school board is considering a “parent involvement policy” that would require each school to come up with a plan for getting parents to help at school, said Assistant Supt. Mario Contini.

And at Mar Vista School in Oxnard’s Ocean View district, parents of incoming students will receive a handbook that includes a plea for help.

At Mar Vista next year, Yanagihara said, “the basic education in the classroom isn’t going to suffer, but enrichment (courses) will. “We’re telling parents that if you don’t come and help, there’s not going to be anything available for the children,” said parent group president Yanagihara.