After Plainsboro resident Marcia Fleres decided to step down earlier this summer as executive director of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Education Foundation, the group has decided to become an all-volunteer organization.
“Marcia served a great purpose and did a good job as executive director,” said Board of Education member Rachelle Feldman Hurwitz, the liaison to the Education Foundation. “But now the foundation needs to expand and revitalize its board. As the district faces more and more financial cutbacks, the Ed Foundation becomes more and more important to our students.”
According to Feldman Hurwitz, the Education Foundation is a vehicle that enables teachers and students to have additional funding for district-wide, specialized events or programs, such as the original smart boards, FIRST high school robotics teams, family science day, Race to Nowhere, and more. Teachers submit grant applications for academic programs or activities.
“It is a very important educational component of our district. The more intrinsically involved the board members are, the more vested they become in the success of the program. That is why they are embracing the concept of becoming an all-volunteer organization,” Feldman Hurwitz said.
Education Foundation President Ed Rosenzweig agreed. “The Education Foundation is evolving, we are trying to get it on a sustainable footing, and integrate our programs more with the school district and the community. One of the best ways to do this is to get more people involved as volunteers. Not everyone has the time to serve on the board, but they can volunteer to help with one aspect of our organization, such as our youth committee.”
“The Ed Foundation has gotten smaller,” Rosenzwieg said, “both in terms of number of people involved and the amount of money we are able to award to projects. That needs to change. I have three goals I want to work on: to increase our financial strength; to increase the size of the board; and to increase the diversity of the board, so it better reflects our diverse community. This is an opportune time to work on these goals, because we have a new superintendent, David Aderhold. I have met with Dr. Aderhold once already and will be meeting with him again to discuss the funding priorities for the district and how we can work together to make our grant program more aligned with the academic needs of the district. I would like to have someone from the school district’s curriculum committee on our board, so that we can better tailor our grant program.”
Rosenzweig began serving on the foundation’s board in January, 2012. He owns a small, Internet-based natural history specimen business, and buys and sells gems and rare minerals to individuals and organizations all over the world. He has lived in Plainsboro with his wife and two sons for 23 years.
“One son is a senior, and the other is a junior at High School South. My kids have gotten so much from our school district, and I decided to give something back, because education is so important. I used to work in the financial services industry, but now I work from home, so this seemed like the ideal time to get more involved,” he said.
“The Ed Foundation has sponsored so many quality educational programs, such as last year’s portable planetarium, which brought a hands-on lesson to the entire third grade. We have sponsored many STEM projects, art and literacy projects, and summer programs for academically at-risk kids.
“But, still, we are not that well-funded, especially for a district of our size and economic level. I have reached out to education foundations across the country, and have attended conferences to learn education foundation ‘best practices.’ We are in a unique district. We are diverse, ethnically and socio-economically, but because we are a higher economic bracket we are shut out of many formal corporate grant programs. So we need to find innovative ways to increase our reach. Right now we raise about $55,000 a year. I would like to see that increased to $300,000 per year, or approximately $30 per student.”
“My three goals all revolve around this issue. We need to become better known, and the best way to do this is to draw upon volunteers from across our community — parents, of course, but also corporate employees, small business owners, people who work in the academic institutions in the area. If we expand the size and diversity of our board, we can expand our volunteer base,” said Rosenzweig. “And this will help us garner more name recognition.”
“The purpose behind all of this is to make us more vital to the schools and, most importantly, the students. And we can play an important role. For instance, our district is entering into a new technology phase, by piloting Google chrome books in the fifth grade classrooms. The Ed Foundation can help the district explore new technologies and devices, much as we did with the original smart boards. We can use grant money to pay for a technology pilot, so that the district can assess their benefits. Our grants are completely outside the school budget, which is a huge benefit to the district.”
“The key to this, I believe, is to become an all-volunteer organization. People who donate their time to an organization they believe in are, by definition, making a greater commitment to that organization. Someone in a paid position, or who has served on the board for a long time, can get set in his or her ways over time. It is just human nature. That is why we need new people, with new ideas.” Anyone interested in volunteering should contact the foundation at 609-375-8WWP (609-375-8997) or e-mail info@wwpeducationfoundation.org
Adults are not the only ones who can volunteer at the Education Foundation; there is a strong and vibrant youth committee, too. Said High School North juniors Prachi Mahableshwarkar and Natalie Wong: “For the upcoming year, we are planning to have a Youth Committee booth at the high school club fairs at North and South, as well as the PTSA-sponsored volunteer fair. We are are in the process of planning volunteer opportunities for the high school students in addition to fund raising. Last year we raised over $20,000 and hope to surpass that amount this year. But our biggest goal is to have more students get involved.”
“It is all about the kids,” said Rosenzweig, “so their participation is vital, too. Any students looking to get more involved in their school, or help out their community, should consider joining the youth committee.”
