Option for school programs
NYSSBA rep talks creation of a C-A education foundation
The Daily Mail
May 15, 2009

ATHENS — State School Boards Association Deputy Executive Director Rita Lashway visited a meeting of the Coxsackie-Athens Central School District Board of Education to promote the creation of an education foundation.

Such a foundation, she said, could raise money for the purchase of learning materials and equipment as well as to provide additional training for teachers and administrators.

“Regardless of whether you raise $100 or $100,000, everything helps,” she said.

Lashway used an ongoing program that brings elementary school students to the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse as an example of something that could be funded by the foundation.

She said an education foundation could offer residents a new opportunity to help facilitate the creation of, and provide the necessary financial support for, school programs.

The foundation would not be under the control of the school board. A member of the school board could act as a liaison but wound not vote on foundation issues.

She said that such a foundation requires dynamic and creative people who are not afraid to ask for money.

“Leadership is what makes an effective foundation,” Lashway said.

She said school board members should select people for the foundation board who can stay motivated and stay accountable to donors and their wishes.

“Donors are a very important of this equation,” she said.

The first members of the foundation board would be responsible for drafting the foundation’s laws, by-laws and vision, which will be adhered to by future foundation board members, she said.

Lashway responded to a question posed by school board member Joseph Cardinale that no donation to the foundation will be tax deductible until the foundation is awarded status of a non-profit organization.

She told school board member Russ Nadler that an educational foundation could be organized within an existing community organization. The umbrella organization could take a percent of whatever money is raised by the educational foundation, she said, and it could exercise some control of how the foundation’s money would be spent.

Lashway told the board that creating a foundation would be time consuming and not without its difficulties; however, many other school districts in the state have successfully created education foundations.

“They all have stories and nine out of 10 stories are good ones,” she said.