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Gilding the Building

Private fundraising to enhance public schools raises questions of inequity.

Chevy Chase Elementary, a 1930s-era school in affluent Montgomery County, Maryland, was recently renovated. Care was taken to preserve the original architectural details so that the school fit into the style of the surrounding neighborhood. That came at a cost, but county taxpayers didn't foot the bill. Parents and other private contributors paid for the $200,000 in "extras" to the capital improvement project.

Schools elsewhere in Montgomery County, however, don't have designer tiles on their façade or a waterfall in their courtyard. Most buildings, in fact, not only lack fancy flourishes--they often are so overcrowded that many students are in portable classrooms.

Montgomery County's predicament is not unusual. "It's always gone on to a degree," says Paul Tractenberg, an education expert and professor at Rutgers University Law School, although fundraising inequities are more typically associated with extracurricular activities. "Equity is undermined by the ability of communities to raise supplemental money," he notes.

In Houston County, Georgia, one school added a landscaped fishpond paid for by a private business. Another local school was able to raise only $500 in the past year. It went toward a banquet for school volunteers. Similar situations in the past compelled Georgia's state PTA to urge local members to stop paying for extras.

Boston Latin, a public school in Boston, raised $32 million in private donations that paid for a two-story library with cherrywood tables, leather chairs, flat-screen computer monitors and a portal known as the "Cinderella entrance." At the same time, schools in other parts of the city lack gymnasiums and bathroom doors.

Although there are many examples of inequities, few school districts have policies in place to deal with lopsided contributions for capital assets. Montgomery County decided the time had come to remedy that. "In the past, five different projects came to the board for approval," says Sharon Cox, a member of the Montgomery County Board of Education. "We had no policy guiding those decisions."

Cox introduced a bill, and early this year, a draft policy went out for comment. The board of education got 70 responses. "We received more public comment on that policy than any other policy," says Cox. Most of it was critical. And not everyone was concerned about inequities among schools. Some were worried that the county would clamp down with overly restrictive policies that would prevent extra spending.

A revised draft now up for comment provides guidelines for accepting non-county funds to improve facilities that qualify as capital investments. The policy does not allow for private funds to be spent on capital projects that should be the responsibility of the school system, such as core classroom space or maintenance of the physical plant.

The board would consider using private funds for playground equipment, stadium lights, theatrical equipment or other things that would benefit a school or a school-sponsored activity; for landscaping and other aesthetic enhancements that would help the school fit in with the neighborhood; for attracting community members by, for instance, building a larger gymnasium for a new school than otherwise would have been built.

Any projects over $25,000 would have to be approved by the board. The director of the Department of Facilities Management would be able to approve less expensive ideas. One of the factors that must be taken into account is whether the proposed improvement would "foster or exacerbate" inequities among schools. Another is whether there will be a future responsibility for annual operating costs from public funds.

After the first draft received so much attention, the school board set up three focus groups in different areas of the county to review the latest version to make sure nothing would be a red flag to the community. "Given the amount of effort we've put into getting feedback," Cox says, "we would be surprised if it were not adopted quickly."

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