Foundation to bridge gap between budget and need
Organization to raise funds for additional school programs
BY JANE MEGGITT
Staff Writer

ALLENTOWN — A new bridge between the school and the community promises to benefit area students.

Members of the Board of Education and the community are working together to form an education foundation that will help students in Allentown and Upper Freehold enhance their education.

BOE President Jeanette Bressi said, “The education foundation will provide a meaningful opportunity to unite our community on behalf of our children.

“To be truly successful,” she said, “the foundation will require support from the entire community.”

In a time of frozen state educational funding, Bressi said the foundation could provide creative means to enhance the district’s educational environment.

“It is my sincerest hope,” Bressi said, “that our community embraces support of the foundation and realizes the profound impact it can have on the future of our school district.”

Bressi said the district had started a foundation in the 1980s, but that it had become moribund.

“We tried to revive it three years ago, but most of the energy was on the side of the board,” she said. “It was not the right time for the community.”

But now that the community has grown, Bressi said there is a base to make the project successful. She explained that the board would start the foundation, but would then back out from actively running it and instead maintain a liaison to the foundation’s Board of Trustees.

“The leadership is from the community,” Bressi said.

Bressi added that she would like the foundation to raise money for the arts, for which the school has a limited budget. She would also like to see money spent on technology, which she said did not have a lot of money allotted in year-to-year school budgets.

Joseph Stampe is the school board liaison to the proposed Upper Freehold Regional Education Foundation. He said that as a separate 501(c)3 organization, that has as its mission to raise funds for the school district, it would be inappropriate for the school board to write grants for or direct money from the foundation.

“However,” he said, “as a parent and community member, the possibilities are limitless [in terms] of what the education foundation might try to raise funds for to support.”

Stampe said some education foundations have raised money for capital projects such as library upgrades, or building and grounds beautification projects, as well as academic grants for new programs like teaching awards or seed

money for special projects. He cited one foundation that raised funds for a new sports facility.

“I know there is currently a need to help raise money for a robotics project within the high school,” Stampe said. “We could start small, [by] raising funds for a new grand piano in the high school, to aiming high.”

According to Stampe, it has also been suggested that the education foundation should try to raise money for air conditioners in the existing schools.

“As I look at the road we are currently on,” Stampe said, “I would guess that the education foundation would ask the superintendent [who will sit on the foundation as an ex-officio member] and school principals what some of the needs in the schools are, then try to see where they could be helpful in obtaining funds.”

James Derasmo, an Upper Freehold parent who has been very involved with the project, said that a core team of community members and members of the board have been modifying existing bylaws with the goal of establishing the foundation. This core group officially kicked off its efforts on March 6, according to Derasmo.

“The working group consisted of Howard Krieger, Robert Cheff, Jeanette Bressi, Scott Smith and myself,” Derasmo said. “Over the next several weeks, Mary Beaumont-Diamond and Lisa Herzer joined the group, where we developed an initial game plan and collectively agreed to reach out to existing education foundations in neighboring communities to learn from them and their experiences [with] forming and running an education foundation.”

According to Derasmo, the group had met with Debbie Mincarelli, president of Hamilton’s Education Foundation to learn how to form an education foundation, and started reviewing the community’s existing bylaws. He said the group worked closely with Scott Smith and BOE member Robert Cheff, who were in the process of collecting various foundation bylaws to use as a basis for developing their own.

“We collectively agreed to wait until after the school election before widening the audience so as not to make the foundation a political item,” Derasmo said. “In the interim, I was asked to be the keeper of the documents.”

After the April 19 BOE election, Herzer and Derasmo attended a May 13 luncheon sponsored by the Central New Jersey Education Foundation Partnership in order to continue their networking efforts and learn more about forming a foundation. The partnership is an association of area education foundations that meets twice a year to provide information sessions and networking opportunities for its members.

Derasmo noted that the core “working” team had BOE involvement and community representation, and was diligent and conscientious in networking and learning from other successful education foundations, so they could leverage “best practices” and do their best for the students.

Cheff said he has been involved in trying to get the current foundation “brought back out of mothballs.” He also said he has reviewed the existing bylaws and has been making suggestions for limiting the board’s role in the active participation of any future foundation.

“Personally, I think that there should be no perception or reality that this would be an extension of the board,” Cheff said. “This needs to be a separate entity with a true arms-length separation from the purview of the school board.

“Whatever mission and objectives that are to be set,” Cheff said, “will be completely the will of the trustees, of which the board will have no vote.”

An information meeting has been scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on July 12 in the board office for all community members who are interested in helping with the education foundation.