Letting parents save school programs

School boards are taking it on the chin these days, with meeting after meeting in which irate parents and sincere students beg that their favorite academic or extracurricular programs be taken off the chopping block.

So it must be tempting when those interested parties volunteer to come up with funding and keep a program afloat. Imagine - free money, and at least one group of constituents that could walk away satisfied. Happy ending, right?

Not so fast.

We understand parents' desires to do whatever it takes to enrich their kids' lives and make them competitive for college. But school boards need to take a critical look to make sure any parent-funded rescue plan is fair to everyone.

Some obvious conflicts emerge. Contributing money to help save a program shouldn't be tied to your child making the team or getting first chair in the orchestra.

There are other considerations. School boards owe it to their communities to keep programs equal at schools across the district, even though the ability to raise funds might be vastly different. Parents looking to save, say, elementary school art class need to organize a plan to keep the program going at every elementary school in the district. And school boards should accept no less.

With so much at stake, school boards need to give an ear to every proposal for retaining programs. But the ones that move forward also should meet another criteria. Successful proposals need to include plans to carry on funding, not just mount a one-year rescue. Otherwise, "the parents are just writing a check. Can we assure that long term?" asks Ken Kaczynski, school board president in Elgin Area District U-46.

Those are just the first steps. School boards have another layer of questions involving liability and supervision of programs that aren't paid for out of their budgets.

It sounds impossible to jump all these hurdles. But it's not.

Lake Zurich Unit District 95 parents organized and held fundraisers ranging from a golf outing to T-shirt sales with a goal of raising $200,000 to save fourth- and fifth-grade band and orchestra at all five elementary schools. They worked with administrators and the school board to understand budgeting and staffing processes and got the program reinstated, using just $35,000 of the group's funds, with the rest squirreled away for future years.

During battles to save a particular program - successful or not - a bonus for school boards and administrators is introduction to a group of impassioned, organized community members and students. Perhaps their skills can be put to use helping to save other programs that are equally important but, for any number of reasons, might lack such resourceful backers.

Now, that would be a happy ending.