Save Our Schools Castro Valley

Q: What is SOSCV!?
A: Save Our Schools Castro Valley! (SOSCV!) is a non-profit 501c3 organization whose supporters include parents, neighbors and community members. Every parent with a child enrolled in the Castro Valley school district has a stake in its success.
The foundation was established in March of 2009 to help alleviate the impact of state budget cuts to public schools. The foundation is run by an all-volunteer executive board whose members come from all walks of life but share a common thread: all are parents of current, former or future Castro Valley school district students.

Q: What is the mission of SOSCV!?
A: Save Our Schools Castro Valley! was created “to assist in the achievement and maintenance of a superior public education system within the Castro Valley Unified School District by receiving contributions from the public and making contributions to the Castro Valley Unified School District.” Our entity will function exclusively as a conduit for tax-free donations to be made directly to the core programs and personnel that are being affected by the current budget cuts.

Q: How will SOSCV! raise money?
A: SOSCV! will sponsor fund raising events, solicit corporate donations, and our primary source of funding will be donations from parents, businesses, and other community members who are friends of the Castro Valley public schools.

Q: What can I do to help SOSCV!?
A: Donate to Save Our Schools Castro Valley!’s fundraising campaign. Your tax-deductible donation helps ensure that the Castro Valley Unified School District remains exceptional. Check with your employer to see if they have a matching fund plan – many companies do (also check the Matching Donation section at the bottom of our “Donate” page). Volunteer with SOSCV! (check out our “Volunteer Opportunities” page on this site). Encourage friends, neighbors and relatives – whether they have students in Castro Valley schools or not – to consider supporting SOSCV!. Excellent public schools make a better community for everybody.

Q: Who does SOSCV! support?
A: Save Our Schools Castro Valley! supports all of schools in the Castro Valley Unified School District: Independent, Jensen Ranch, Palomares, Stanton, Chabot, Vannoy, Proctor, Marshall and Castro Valley Elementary Schools, Creekside and Canyon Middle Schools and Castro Valley and Redwood High Schools.

Q: What are the CORE / foundational programs that SOSCV! refers to?
A: The programs that are at the core of the schools in Castro Valley include: math, English, history, social studies, science and many other academic areas. The CORE staff positions include: teachers, counselors, administrators, reading specialists, librarians, physical fitness instructors, and maintenance workers.

Q: What about the Arts Foundation, the Sports Foundation and Education Foundation, don’t they provide funding for the CORE / foundational programs?
A: Castro Valley is very fortunate to have three very successful foundations serving our schools. The Arts Foundation is focused on providing facilities, services and equipment that help promote the performing arts, and also partially funds the salary of the managing director for the Center for the Arts. The Sports Foundation is focused on providing high quality sports facilities for our community. The Education Foundation is focused on providing scholarships to students and other types of donations to students and schools. We encourage you to continue to donate to these very valuable organizations. The primary difference between these organizations and SOSCV! is that SOSCV! is focused on raising funds that can be used to help alleviate the effect of the state funding cuts on any program at any school in the district. All funds raised by SOSCV! will be deployed as directed by the school board.

Q: Why is SOSCV! allowing the school district to determine how funds will be spent instead of ear marking funds for specific purposes?
A: The Castro Valley School District is one of the few districts in Northern California that has not had to cut programs or staff as a result of fluctuations in state funding levels over the last several years. This year, the reserves built up by the district over a period of years allowed the district to avoid the painful mid-school year cuts implemented by many surrounding districts. At the same time, the quality of education in Castro Valley is the envy of the East Bay. Given this strong track record of fiscal responsibility, we strongly believe that the school district is best qualified to determine where the money should be deployed to maintain the high quality of its programs.

Q: What has happened with the funds that SOSCV! has given the district already?
A: ACCOUNTING:
A separate account has been set up in the District's financial system to track the donations from SOSCV. The account, called a "resource", is #9096. This resource represents a self-balancing set of accounts with year end general ledger balances rolling forward into subsequent years. The activity in the SOSCV! account to date is a receipt of $20,000 in September and another $21,000 in November, for a total of $41,000. All future donations will be added to this same resource. When direction is given regarding the approved expenditures of these funds, the activity will be in resource 9096 as well. Therefore, up-to-date information regarding receipts and expenditures can be provided at any time by calling the District’s Business Office at 510-537-3000.

STRATEGIC:
The current position, as of November 2009, of both the School District and the Board of Education is that the funds provided by Save Our Schools Castro Valley! will not be used to reinstate cut programs and staff for the 2009/2010 school year, but will instead be carried over to the 2010/2011 school year budget. There are three reasons for this strategy: 1) the amount raised by SOSCV! thus far in 2009 is not at a level which would substantially cover the cost of reinstating any of the budget cuts that might be considered critical to the operations of the schools for this year, 2) the 2009/2010 school year is already half over, and it is not realistic to bring back programs or staff for the last half of this school year, and 3) there are anticipated cuts for the 2010/2011 school year which will be closer to the classrooms and thus more important in the funding priority than the cuts made in the most recent budget process, and thus it makes more sense to build up funds towards the January/February 2010 decision period regarding the upcoming school year.

Q: Can I just give to my child’s school?
A: While donations to individual schools are always welcome, the donations are insufficient to fund the Core/foundational programs that are threatened by reductions in state funding. All of us have a vested interest in the quality of each school in the district. Those of us with elementary age children will meet in middle school and high school and are benefited by having all Castro Valley children well prepared to attend those schools. The middle school and high school programs have been developed and improved over many years and cannot be started and stopped as funds rise and fall. All of our kids are in this together.

Q: Why can’t my school just replace programs or staff which were eliminated in the budget cuts with parent volunteers?
A: Some parents have asked whether parents can volunteer to teach music, provide help in their library, or even to do basic maintenance around the school. Under labor law and the collective bargaining agreements with the employee organizations, no one school can pay to bring back any bargaining unit employee, whether it be music teachers, librarians or other teachers by itself, unless the position is brought back across the district equally. Any position eliminated in the budget cuts must be replaced at all schools or not at all. Under the law, volunteers may not replace any laid off employee. The district employee must be reinstated in order to provide their previous function. A good example is fourth grade instrumental music. While many schools may want to supplement music at their school with volunteers, the entire program must be brought back across the district at a price of approximately $90,000. Only SOSCV!’s district-wide approach to fundraising can address this type of need.

Q: How much money does the school district lose when my child is absent from school?
A: For every day your child misses school, the school district loses $36 in funding. As a result, if you were to take your child out of school to go on vacation for one week, the school district would lose $180. It doesn’t take very many students missing school to put a big hole in the district’s budget. As a result, you could help improve the district’s funding problems by simply making sure your child attends school every day. If you do take your child out of school, please donate the amount lost by the district to SOSCV! so that we can restore vital funds to the district.

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Q: How do I get my employer to provide matching donations?
A: Many employers have matching programs where they will match your donation to SOSCV! up to a certain amount. Some of these programs are not well advertised. The easiest way to find out whether your employer has such a program is to inquire with your Human Resources department. Typically, the program simply requires you to fill out a form and send it in to SOSCV!. SOSCV! will then complete our portion of the form and send it to your employer to receive the matching grant. We would be happy to help in any way we can. Contact info@soscv.org for assistance.

Q: When will funds raised by SOSCV! be transferred to the district?
A: We plan to transfer funds to the district every 90 days or whenever funds in SOSCV!’s account reach $50,000. SOSCV!’s mission is to get as much money to the district as soon as possible.

Q: Why should I donate to SOSCV!?
A: As a local organization, Save Our Schools Castro Valley! is uniquely positioned to accept donations, solicit, and fundraise, unlike the Castro Valley Unified School District. We are equipped to handle donations and get them quickly and efficiently distributed.
The organization encourages everyone to donate to both PTAs/PTCs and SOSCV!. Save Our Schools Castro Valley! was created to fund vital programs for the entire school district. PTAs and PTCs fundraise to pay for site-specific needs that vary school by school. Together, these two types of organizations can meet both district-wide and school-specific needs.
California's spending per student falls below the national average, and is at least $4,000 less per student per year than New York. The quality of public school education in California continues to be undermined by cutbacks in federal and state spending for public education.
CVUSD is currently facing a substantial deficit and many of our prized programs and teaching positions face elimination. Virtually all of the contributions made to the foundation go directly to school programs and to fund school positions. SOSCV! has no paid staff and all board members are volunteers.

Q: I donate to my school’s PTA every year, so why should I give more?
A: The budget cuts being implemented by the CVUSD for the 2009-2010 school year will reduce or eliminate education programs and eliminate many teaching, clerical, maintenance and other vital positions in the district. SOSCV!’s mission is to raise funds to restore programs that have been reduced or eliminated as a result of these funding cuts and layoffs. PTA funds and funds raised by other groups in the district cannot be used to rehire teachers or other district personnel and therefore are not available to restore the education programs that serve as the foundation of Castro Valley’s school system. All funds raised by SOSCV! will be donated to the school district’s general fund and will be spent as directed by the school board after consultation with the community, just as they do with public funds.

Q: If I donate to SOSCV! using a credit card, how much does it cost SOSCV!?
A: Our credit card payment processor is PayPal. PayPal charges us 2.2% of the total amount of each donation plus $.30 cents per transaction. For example, for a one time donation of $100, PayPal will deduct from the amount they pay us, $2.20 (2.2% of $100) plus $.30, for a total of $2.50. If you donate $100 in 12 installments over one year, PayPal will deduct 2.2% from each transaction and charge $.30 for each installment payment. As a result, the total fees will be $2.20 (2.2% of $100), plus $3.60 ($.30 x 12), for a total of $5.80. In the interest of transparency, we want all of our donors to understand these transaction costs. We will continue to seek cheaper ways to process credit card transactions. Suggestions are always welcome.

Q: Don’t my property taxes provide for local public schools?
A: Prior to 1972 and Prop 13, school districts were largely dependent upon property taxes, which furnished about ? of public education revenues. Local Districts could simply raise property taxes when more funds were required. Around the same time as Prop 13 came the Serrano vs Priest lawsuit, which challenged the fairness of the funding inequities that resulted from widely disparate property values and tax bases. The combined effect of Prop 13 and Serrano was to shift public school support from local property taxes to state general funds, thereby shifting the control from local authority to the state. You can learn more about California school funding at www.californiaschoolfinance.org.
With the State controlling funding, Districts receive a base amount for each student enrolled. Additional funds are typically granted to Districts in the form of Categorical Spending, or funds designated for specific programs tied to District demographic factors, socioeconomic or otherwise. To make things worse, although the District’s operating costs rise each year (even before addressing staff salaries), the State may or may not implement a cost of living adjustment, depending on its own finances. So when costs such as utilities or health benefits increase, the District has to find the money to fund the increases. This is in addition to any negotiated salary increases for teachers or other staff. Since most of the District budget is salary, the only way to fund the increases is to eliminate positions.

Q: Is there a precedent for what SOSCV! is trying to do?
A: Yes, there are many other organizations across the state and across the country that have realized that an excellent public education is not necessarily free and they are doing the same things and trying to help their local School Districts provide the best programs possible for their schools. In the Bay Area alone, there are organizations in Redwood City, Hillsborough, Albany, Willow Glen and San Francisco to name a few. The Davis Schools Foundation has been in existence since 2005, and for the 2008-2009 school year, this organization has raised almost $1 million. This concept is new in Castro Valley, however and we need to support the excellent efforts of the Castro Valley Unified School District in its time of need.

Q: How much of my donation will go to Castro Valley schools?
A: SOSCV! is operated by volunteers. We have no employees and will not pay anyone to help us raise money. Our expenses in 2009 will include the cost of incorporating, filing fees for tax deductible 501(c)(3) status, filing our charity permit with the State of California, web hosting, accounting software to track donations and expenditures, tax reporting, audit fees (if necessary), insurance and marketing expenses. We hope to find parents or community members who work for tax reporting or audit firms that can help us procure those services for free. We have also received free services from some local businesses (see our sponsors page). We anticipate that our operating expenses for the first year, including start-up costs, will be approximately $5,000 to $7,500, and that subsequent years expenses will be somewhat lower. We are always in need of volunteers and free or heavily discounted services, so please contact us with any help you can provide.

Q: “Won’t Castro Valley just pass a parcel tax to cover the budget shortfall?
A: Even if Castro Valley were to pass a parcel tax, it isn’t likely it could be implemented and have any impact until the 2010-2011 school year. Moreover, Castro Valley has around 16,500 taxable parcels, but some of these may need to be exempted from the tax for various reasons. The total amount currently predicted to be raised by a parcel tax is only $1.0 to $1.5 million. (just a fraction of what is needed)

Q: What effect will the federal stimulus money have on our school district’s current budget shortfall?
A: The district received $3,567,740 in Federal Stimulus Fiscal Stabilization (SFSF) funding of which $2,329,677 will be spent in 2009-2010 and $1,238,603 will remain in the fund balance for use in 2010-2011. The funds expended for 2009-2010 were used to reduce the number of layoffs that the district had to make for this year. How the remaining funds will be spent will be determined through the budget development process. It is important to understand that the SFSF funding is one-time funding, and while this one-time money will provide a partial financial bridge to help get the district through this school year, it will NOT cover the entire projected shortfall. Furthermore, this stimulus money will not be of significant help in the 2010-2011 school year, when the anticipated budget cuts should be just as serious if not more so than this year.

Q: How much discretion does the district have in using SOSCV!’s donations, can they spend these funds in any way they want?
A: Donations made through SOSCV! are actually some of the most specifically-targeted donations that donors can make in this school district. There are 7,648 cost items in the school district’s operating budget of over $70 million. SOSCV! donations can only be used toward 46 of these cost items, or six tenths of one percent of the total cost items. These 46 cost items account for $4.5 million or roughly 6% of the total district budget. SOSCV! believes that the district will be responsible in its allocation of these funds across these 46 cost items, in a way that treats all children in the district equally, and reflects the historical performance of the district with respect to fair treatment of the students and the schools in the district.