School District Gains Community Support
At the end of the 20th Century, community support for schools meant mainly buying tickets to sporting events and a purchase as part of the annual fundraiser to help pay for prom or field trips.
Today, Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) raise money to pay salaries for language programs, computer labs and the like. Business owners are asked to partner with schools to provide basic supplies. At the Long Beach Unified School District, middle school sports will continue in the 2011-2012 school year only because the community raised $190,000 this summer.
“When we started (the Long Beach Education Foundation) in 2002, we came in with $11,000,” said Judy Seal, executive director of the foundation. “Now we have funds totaling $1.6 million. It shows a lot of support from the community to help keep underfunded programs alive.”
The campaign to save interscholastic sports programs at the middle school level this year has become the symbol for Long Beach stepping up to help the cash-strapped school district. As part of the nearly $60 million in budget cuts the school board was forced to make due to decreased funding from the state, the board decided to save $380,000 by eliminating the sports programs for grades 6-8.






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