With little fanfare, the Shawnee Mission school board wrapped up a year-long study on donations by giving its final approval to a policy regulating when and how private money can be accepted to fund school staff positions.
The board voted unanimously Monday to approve the policy and accept a few minor edits of the first draft that was introduced two weeks ago. Board members asked some clarifying questions but did not discuss the policy at length.
The policy has been in the works since last May and has been fraught at times as board members and district stakeholders attempted to ensure equity between school neighborhoods without discouraging well-meaning donors.
An imbalance in overall private fundraising
At the heart of the tension was the perception that students in wealthier parts of the district, particularly the Shawnee Mission East feeder pattern, had access to educational advantages because of their parents’ and communities’ ability to fundraise.
Statistics provided by the district administration showed that over the previous three school years, about 80% of privately raised funds dedicated to a particular school went to schools with less than 20% of students on free or reduced lunch.
The figures provided by the district showed that schools in the SM East area raised more than $2 million, more than the other four high school feeder patterns combined.
But the new policy guidelines adopted Monday pertain to a certain small subset of such private donations: those made with the intention of paying the salaries for added staff positions that funding isn’t available for in the rest of the district.
What is a “community-funded position?”
The use of such “community-funded positions” in Shawnee Mission has been on the decline in recent years, but school board members said that the perception is a factor in determining how the district makes those decisions in the future.
The district says currently there are a total of five full- or part-time community-funded staffers at five separate schools, all in the SM East feeder pattern. They all serve as either classroom interventionists or educational aides.
In statements to the Post this week, representatives for the Blue Valley, Gardner Edgerton, Olathe and USD 232 school districts all said they currently have no privately funded staff positions, with at least one district saying such policies could raise equity concerns among schools.
Over the course of the last year as Shawnee Mission has studied the issue, some SM East area parents have raised concerns, saying that their students’ needs, although real, are not being taken as seriously.
At a meeting last summer, East area resident Judith Deedy recalled a few years ago when donations were used to pay for a reading aide at Belinder Elementary because the administration had assigned that position to another school that had a higher percentage of students receiving free and reduced lunch (a typical proxy to measure a school’s level of need).
“I just think we get a little narrow when we start thinking of this as an ‘us vs. them,'” Deedy said then. “We’re still in the public school system. Nobody’s got gold-plated gymnasiums.”
What the new policy says
The new policy still allows private funders to donate dollars that pay for staff positions, but it lays out guidelines and a scoring system to evaluate when such money can be accepted.
Potential donors must answer questions about funding, whether it aligns with district goals and equity among other buildings.
Higher scores are given for plans that increase access and equity among students in a building and across the district and also to applications with a sustainable funding plan.
No funds can be given for positions that do not already exist within the Shawnee Mission district and donations cannot pay the salary for a full-time classroom teacher or special education teacher.
Applications are reviewed annually and should be submitted by February 1 of each year, with board consideration at the final March meeting.
Administrators recommended donors whose applications are approved to also make a donation to the Shawnee Mission Education Foundation, the fundraising arm of the district whose highest profile project is currying donations for college scholarships each year.
Only one person spoke during the public comments portion of the meeting on Monday.
Lisa Feingold of Merriam said she was concerned that the donation policy’s preference for dollars that are sustainably funded was not compatible with the annual nature of the application process.
Administrators later clarified that they were looking for an idea of whether the applicants might be thinking of the position as long-term, not asking for something like a bank statement to prove funding for future years.
