With one week left in the 2006-2007 Palo Alto for Partners in Education (PiE) campaign, Paly is ranked 16th out of 17th in parent participation for all of the Palo Alto public schools.

According to Susan Bailey, PiE President, the current top two schools with parent participation are Ohlone (54%) and Palo Verde (49%). As of last week, Paly’s participation is at 20%, up from 13% from last year, and with still one week left in the campaign, Bailey said. The school with the least amount of participation is Gunn High School, with approximately 14% participation.

“It’s a learning process for the parent,” Bailey said. “The parents learn along with their children, and throughout the years, they know how much they should donate, and it is a balance with all the other funds that they have to pay.”

Paly parents can choose to donate to an elementary fund, secondary fund, and/or an “unrestricted” fund.

“Some parents designate all their funds to one level, while others ask that it be divided according to where their kids are,” Barry said. “However, many others just say use it wherever it is needed the most.”

PiE is a non-profit foundation dedicated to supporting Palo Alto public schools. Its mission is to partner with the Palo Alto School District and the local community to help raise funds fort the schools. Palo Alto Partners in Education is currently the only source of non-district funding in Palo Alto.

PiE was originally created by the merger between the Palo Alto Foundation for Education, and the All School’s Fund in the 04-05 school year. During its first year in service, it raised more than $1.8 million to support the Palo Alto Unified School District.

All the money that is donated to PiE is spent throughout the Palo Alto schools to help make them more efficient and a better learning place for students. For example, jut last year, the money given to Paly helped hire a full-time college counselor, initiate the glass-blowing program at Paly, increase campus security, and allow more time for students with teachers.

“Last year’s campaign gave Paly over $150,000,” Palo Alto High School PiE representative Anne Barry said. “With this money, we were able to hire Sandra Cernobori, and with that, we became one of the only public high schools in California to have a full-time, fully credentialed college advisor. Additionally, we spent some of the funds toward making the Copy Center more effective so teachers could spend more time with their students, and we used some of the funds to supplement campus security.”

Some other accomplishments that PiE managed in its first few years of service were a successful $100,000 teacher grants campaign, and its $1 million campaign to provide new science labs for both Paly and Gunn.

PiE’s goals for the 06-07 school year are to lower student to educators ratios, improve the technological resources of Palo Alto school’s, and to provide curriculum support to all students, according to their website. Along with these goals, PiE hopes to raise over $2 million for Palo Alto schools.

“PiE’s goal is to clear $2 million, and we are close to 90% of the way there,” Barry said. “My own goal is to see Paly participation hit 25% this year. We’re here for the long haul, and I have no doubt that the high school numbers will increase year by year. But if we’re going to hit 25% this year, it is, like I said, time for Paly to rally.”

If interested in making a donation, visit http://papie.org/donPers.shtml. You can donate to the General Fund, where money is split between elementary and secondary schools, or contribute directly to your child’s school. Also, you can make your donation go twice as far using company matching. To see if your company matches donations, visit http://www.matchinggifts.com/asf/.

For more information about donating or PiE in general, visit their homepage at http://papie.org/index3.shtml.