In this Learning in Lake Oswego episode, we spotlight the Lake Oswego Schools Foundation, a cornerstone of our school district for nearly 40 years. The Foundation has played a vital role in bridging the gap between state funding and the level of excellence Lake Oswego families expect in their schools. To help us dive deeper, we welcome three special guests: Whitney Woolf, Executive Director of the Foundation, shares insights into its mission, priorities, and impact; Laura Coyle, Foundation Board President, discusses the power of volunteerism and the board’s vision for the future; and John Wasielewski (Waz), Lake Oswego Middle School teacher and Foundation ambassador explains how the Foundation supports teachers and enhances students' learning experiences. Learn how the Foundation impacts every school in the district, how you can get involved, and the exciting opportunities that events like the annual Gala bring to our community.
Dr. Jennifer Schiele, Superintendent, LOSD
Mary Kay Larson, Executive Director of Communications, LOSD
Whitney Woolf, Executive Director, Lake Oswego Schools Foundation
Laura Coyle, President, Lake Oswego Schools Foundation
John Wasielewski, Ambassador, Lake Oswego Schools Foundation
Welcome to Learning in Lake Oswego, a podcast providing educational insights for an engaged community. Lake Oswego School District Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Schiele will discuss what's important to our learning community. She'll be joined by experts examining various topics, answering important questions, and sharing upcoming events and activities you won't want to miss.
And now, it's your host. Lake Oswego School District Executive Director of Communications, Mary Kay Larson. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Learning in Lake Oswego. I'm Mary Kay Larson, your host, here with our wonderful superintendent, Dr. Jennifer Schiele. In this episode, we are shining a spotlight on an incredible institution in our learning community, the Lake Oswego Schools Foundation.
For nearly 40 years, the foundation has helped bridge the gap between state funding and the level of excellence we strive for in our schools. [00:01:00] It was created by parents and residents in response to a sharp decline in state funding. The Foundation has been instrumental in ensuring more teachers, classes, and experiences for our students in Lake Oswego schools.
To dive deeper into its impact, we've invited three amazing guests here today. Joining us are Whitney Wolf, the Foundation's Executive Director, who ensures a smooth operation. Laura Coyle, the Foundation Board President, whose leadership and passion for her volunteer role really makes a difference. And John Wasielewski.
I have a hard time saying that because we actually really know him as Mr. Waz. To everyone out there listening. Waz is a Lake Oswego Middle School teacher and Foundation Ambassador who sees firsthand the difference the Foundation makes in our schools. We have so much to cover. Jen, let's get started.
Thanks Mary Kay. Hi Whitney, Laura, and Waz. So fantastic to have you here on the show. I've had the privilege of speaking at foundation [00:02:00] board meetings and attending many of their events. It's inspiring to see how many people care about education in Lake Oswego, giving their time, talent, and treasure to make a difference for all of our students.
I'm excited for our listeners to learn more about this incredible work at the Lake Oswego Schools Foundation. So let's get started. Whitney. Hi. Hi Jen. Thanks for having me. Yes, we're so happy that you could be here. Can you start with telling us a little bit about yourself, how long you've been with the district, and then what led you to this important work with the foundation?
I started out in the district about 20 years ago as a parent. My kids all, I have three kids, they all went through Lake Oswego schools starting in pre k. I got really involved as a parent volunteer and I was able to be a parent club president for three years at a couple different schools. I was a foundation campaign co chair and then I was lucky enough to work for the district.
So I've been with the district for about 10 years. [00:03:00] In 2019, the executive director foundation, executive director position came open and I was in the right place at the right time and the rest is history. I will say I had been a teacher in the past. A conversational English teacher in Tokyo, Japan. So it was the, that experience along with district experience and fundraising that really helped with this role.
That's fantastic. And we are so lucky to have you here, Whitney. It's, it's such a pleasure to work with you every day. For those who may not know or may not be familiar, can you share the Foundation's mission and how it supports our students in our schools? So, I just want to say how lucky we are to have a Foundation.
And when we say Foundation, I just want to make clear, we're really talking about the whole community working together to support schools. Our mission is, it's super simple. We have a very, very simple [00:04:00] mission. We fund teaching positions and we're part of helping to fill the funding gap. There's just not enough in state and local funding to give kids everything they need for an excellent education.
And we know a large part of what makes an excellent education is teachers and having enough teachers. So that's where we focus. We want to make sure, you know, we've, we've got more teachers in the district. We're the only organization in LOSD where people can donate to affect that. And we fund positions in all 11 schools.
And we are so lucky that you do that. So this year, are there key priorities that are different or the same, or how do you go about working to address those key priorities? In terms of key priorities, fundraising, of course, is always top of mind. We want to make sure we have enough money to support the positions we fund.
And that, again, comes primarily from parents. A little bit. From local businesses and matching gifts in [00:05:00] terms of our biggest priorities for the year. We have three. One is being sure that everyone knows we have a foundation and what the foundation does and why we do it. And we do that through as much personal outreach as we can through our volunteer board.
We have about 25 working board members. They're amazing. In addition, we have ambassadors at every school, and that's a new program this year. And then we We have lots of volunteers and folks who'd like to speak on our behalf. Our second is new families, welcoming new families to the district. We also want to be a resource to them.
And I get calls asking, you know, from new families asking, like, which schools should we go to? And by the way, the answer is they're all great. So just choose the area you want to live in and don't worry about it. I get calls, you know, who do you use for tree trimming? What about pediatrician? What's the traffic pattern like around Uplands?
I'm looking at buying a house there. So it's, I get all kinds of [00:06:00] one stop shopping for Whitney. I love it. It's seriously call me. And then third is participation. And we, we strive for 100 percent participation from parents. We know that not everyone's in a position to give a lot, but we just ask folks to give what they can.
And then how does the foundation, because this comes up a lot, how do you determine which programs or teachers or positions to fund? We want to fund the classes that give kids the most choices and experiences beyond what might be possible with state and local funding alone. And we fund positions at each of our schools.
I've said that. So that each child has greater opportunities than without the foundation in terms of determining exactly which classes are open. offered. We consider ourselves to be the experts in fundraising and the district to be the experts in education, working with kids and families on exactly which classes to offer.
And then we are looking at which classes we should fund. So, for example, We fund in the elementary [00:07:00] schools, and this is at each of our seven elementary schools. We fund the music teachers and a portion of the reading specialists. We're also funding electives in the middle and high schools in science, technology, performing and visual arts.
So we are touching a lot of students every day. Every student receives benefit from the foundation. That's what makes it so amazing to me that you've figured out how to make sure that every student is touched by that. That's great. So and I think this is the most interesting question i'm asking but what are the biggest challenges in fundraising?
I I can't even put my mind around how much money you all raise and how do you do that? But what what are the challenges? There's obviously economic challenges that happen from time to time, you know greater and less But probably the number one thing is attention. And, you know, we're all so busy and pulled in so many different directions and parents more so than anybody else.
And how we address that [00:08:00] is we focus on events that don't necessarily have a fundraising component. We try to be, you know, build strong relationships, one on one relationships with folks. And we're also trying to be where people are, just be a very easy. easy to take the information in. So we try to be where parents are.
So maybe on social media, maybe it's an email that resonates with them. Maybe it's back to school night that resonates with them, a mail or something like that. And we try to make it very simple. So they're not having to decipher what we mean. You know, we're trying to really unclutter our message. And then can you tell us about the impact of the annual campaign?
And then, you know, you mentioned a little bit about how it benefits every school, but just in general, that that impact of that big annual campaign. First of all, our community is so generous. They're just amazing both with financially and with their time. They're just, we have an incredible community.
At a macro level, we have two funds, which is our annual fund and our endowment fund. [00:09:00] So you asked about the annual fund and that's where most parents are giving and it affects kids today. So those funds are spent on teaching positions now and you know, like I said, we fund positions at all 11 schools and we've talked a little bit about what those positions are.
Yeah, and now you just mentioned the endowment. How does the endowment fund work? And then how does it contribute to the long term goals that the foundation has? The endowment fund is really amazing, and it provides a lasting legacy, and it's from donors, and it works similar to a 401k in that funds are held in an investment account, and in our case, the funds are held at Oregon Community Foundation, which is a multi billion dollar investment outfit.
So the foundation receives an annual disbursement from that corpus. So the corpus is never actually spent down. So we're receiving money each year and that money goes into the [00:10:00] annual fund. The larger the endowment, the larger the disbursement we receive. So basically for every million dollars we hold in the endowment, we receive about 40, 000 and our endowment right now is sitting at about two and a half million, so we're receiving about 100, 000 each year from the endowment.
And that's fantastic. It's pretty, pretty incredible. And we are looking at growing that. Most of our endowment donors are former parents, although some current parents love the idea of leaving a lasting legacy. Yeah, legacy, that, that could really pave the way for years and years and years and years and years where the next superintendents don't have to think about that.
I love that idea. The larger we can grow the endowment, the better for our kids, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. What steps do you take to ensure transparency and accountability in your operations? Right, that's definitely top of mind for a lot of people. They just, especially these days, they just really want to understand where the money is going and, [00:11:00] and I will say we know we're a very trusted institution in the community, and we take that very seriously.
We are audited each year. We publish those results in an annual report. Our auditors highly respected McDonald Jacobs. In addition, Our board of directors is overseeing and making sure that the money is handled appropriately and spent appropriately. I just want to do a shout out to our amazing treasurer, Sarah Hasson, and the Finance and Governance Committee.
They do a lot of extra work to make sure that those funds are handled properly. In addition, we operate with gold standard non profit practices so that we have two sets of eyes on everything. There's never just one person doing something, whether it's opening mail, literally, I mean, I, nobody opens a piece of mail by themselves.
Or writing a check, it's always at least two people. There's always multiple people on every [00:12:00] single account, so there's multiple sets of eyes. And we have rigorous controls, and we are constantly reviewing our financial reports, so that, and our finance and governance team asks a lot of questions. They really are reviewing that in detail.
Which is fantastic. And I'm, I know that this community really appreciates all the transparency and making sure that everything is being spent the way we say it's going to be spent. So thank you for all that work. So the big question, listeners out there are wondering, how do I get involved? How do I donate?
How do I volunteer? Whitney, tell me what to do. Yeah, first of all, you can go to LOSfoundation. org, but you can get involved as a donor, volunteer, or an advocate. So our secure website is where folks can donate and you can find our website at LOSfoundation. org. org. You could also go to and there's a link there.
[00:13:00] that website down. Credit name just a few ways that We also have volunteer opportunities. Our largest fundraiser, I haven't really even talked about it, is the phone a thon, we do that in the fall. And I think most people are familiar with that. It's where volunteers get together three nights and call other parents in the district.
And it really is incredible, but we really rely on volunteers for that because the more volunteers we have, the more folks we can reach. I've actually had. Parents say, oh my gosh, I was waiting to get a call and that's when I was going to donate but nobody called me You don't have to wait for a call please go online because it really is just it's like I said, we completely rely on volunteers To make those calls and if we don't have enough volunteers, we can't call every single parent in the district The other thing is coming up is On March 15th is [00:14:00] our gala, and we can sure use some help there.
We'd love folks to help with check in help during the event. It's really fun, so look on our website for those volunteer opportunities. You can also serve on the board. As I said, we have about 25 board members, and then we also have ambassadors at each school. And always being an advocate, telling your friends about the great work we do is And this last question, Whitney, what do you find the most rewarding about your work with the foundation?
So most rewarding is the community coming together on behalf of kids. It's, Lake Oswego is a really special place. It's a great place to raise a family. And for the most part, we're all looking out for each other's kids. The saying is, It takes a village, really exists here and that extends beyond just families who live in Lake Oswego.
I know we have some transfer students from surrounding areas. They're definitely part of our village. [00:15:00] Our supporters want to help kids develop, grow and learn. We care about raising good citizens and good humans. And I love working with the foundation board and district staff. It's just really incredible.
I just, I love being part of this. organization and community. So thank you. Great. Well, you heard it here, folks. It takes a village from Whitney Wolf. So great to have you on the show today. Next, I'm going to start talking with Laura Coyle. So welcome, Laura. Can you start by sharing a little bit about your background, how long you've been involved with the district, and then.
Like what brought you to the school foundation? I am first and foremost an Oregon native. I grew up here in Beaverton and then North Portland. I came to Lake Oswego first actually in 2004 and lived here for several years and then left after I graduated from law school at Lewis and Clark. I came back in 2012 and have been here ever since.[00:16:00]
Well, I've been involved with the district since 2018. I first. I served on the elementary school's task force when my son started kindergarten. And then from my work at the elementary school's task force, I was recruited initially by Neelam Gupta, current school board member and then additionally by Mary Kay Larson to join the foundation.
I joined the foundation in 2019. When my son was in first grade, which actually makes it very easy to count how many years I've been with the foundation and have been here ever since. So this is my sixth year. What inspired you to join the foundation's board of directors? And then what's that experience been like?
A couple of things. I initially started working with the with committee work at the district and I think kind of continued my inspiration to be at the foundation because I wanted to be engaged in the district. My job is crazy hours and I knew I was [00:17:00] never going to be able to be that like classroom parent or go on field trips and I wanted to stay connected to my son's experience in the schools and Initially working on a committee or serving on a committee felt like a good way to do that and then talking with Neelam and then with Mary Kay about what the foundation does and the foundation's mission.
It felt like a good opportunity to serve the schools and my son's experience in the schools in a way that allowed me to stay connected. The more involved I got and the more engaged I became in What the foundation's true purpose is, which is funding teachers and providing students that experience that really is the top notch, like, excellent education that Lake Oswego School District provides, the more I knew, like, this is where I'm supposed to be.
Education policy is something that's always been, like, at the core of my just passion. It's actually why I went to law school to begin with. I went to private [00:18:00] school here in Oregon, so I was like this is an opportunity to invest in my kid having that like private school experience in a public education environment.
I'm very passionate about public education. I want my kid to go to public school. But he still has that, like, rich opportunity to have all the experiences that you get with numerous electives and, you know, specialists and just all of the sort of one on one experience that you get in sort of robust, I guess, private education opportunities.
And then in terms of my experience serving on the board, I would say in a word it's been fantastic, but it's also been like a really interesting time to be on the foundation board. As I mentioned, my first year I started in the fall of 2019, and so we very quickly transitioned into the COVID experience.
I served on board development committee, we were interviewing people, we were recruiting candidates in a virtual environment, we were hosting [00:19:00] info sessions for new families online. It was a really interesting time to be a brand new board member. The benefit of that experience is that we had to lean in hard as board members.
It was all hands on deck and the board really came together and I think bonded in a way that we now have such a tight, like cohesive, supportive group of board members. And it's been nothing short of an amazing experience. So I feel like we have, I've had an opportunity to have a really fantastic experience as a board member that came out of that environment.
Yeah, that's fantastic. I'm glad to hear it's been such a positive experience for you. So the foundation relies on volunteer time, talent, and treasure. What does that look like in practice? There's a lot of ways that that comes to fruition. I think the most prominent Whitney has talked about a little bit, phone a thon, the gala.
Those are great opportunities. Phone a thon actually is probably one of the most fun things that we [00:20:00] do. It's we have a room full of folks, not just parents and board members, but we've had high school students come and call and it's really great. It's over three or four nights. We get dinner and everybody calls.
My favorite thing about phone a thon is calling new families and introducing them to the foundation. I love that. It's super fun opportunity. The gala Winnie's also talked about. There's other opportunities as well. Volunteers can serve on committees. They can serve as school ambassadors. They can host like new family coffees or events.
We've introduced some other opportunities this year. I think we had like a bingo night last semester. So there's just a lot of really cool things that people can do in terms of time. There's on our website LOS Foundation. There's a link there for volunteers. If you click, I think it's if you click on About Us, there's a dropdown for volunteers.
You, there's a lot of opportunities there that you can check out. That's [00:21:00] great. LOSFoundation. org, right? Yes, org, sorry. Just want to make sure everybody got the org part. Yes, yes. How do board members help shape the Foundation's goals and priorities? Like, when you're sitting in your meetings and you're a board member, how do you, you know, get to shape those goals?
Yeah, the board's instrumental in that. One, so at the end of the school year, we host a strategic planning retreat where we do all of our planning for the upcoming year. That really kind of serves as a guidepost for the next year. And then in our meetings each month, so we meet monthly. So prior to those meetings, we do committee work.
Every board member serves on one to two committees. Those committees are really aligned to the mission, vision, and values of the board. And then within our monthly board meetings, we address some of that committee work. We address [00:22:00] foundation business in those monthly meetings. We talk about upcoming topics and events and really focus on, you know, are there As you said, particular goals everyone's very involved.
It's very collaborative. It's very cooperative. I would, to use a specific example, so last year, a significant priority was increasing our volunteer base and establishing stronger relationships with. Our schools across the district. So we spent the year talking about how are we going to do that? We had a lot of ideas around it and the outcome was the school ambassador program that Whitney talked about earlier.
And that was, is one of our school ambassadors, like us, we go middle, but it took a lot of collaboration and conversation around how do we do that? What have we done in the past? What worked, what didn't. And all the board members participated in contributing ideas. What would a program look like? How would it be structured?
What would it. [00:23:00] require, how would it evolve, and, you know, ultimately this is the program that we came up with and it's been extremely successful. Yeah, I think that's great because it really fits in our culture of belonging. You're just trying to get more people into the fold, which I think is only helpful to really our students at the end.
So it was awesome that you guys started that this year. What do you think makes the Lake Oswego Schools Foundation unique compared to others? other school foundations? I know some of them around us don't even have foundations, but some do. And what do you think makes us unique? That's a great question and I can't speak obviously to all foundations, but from what I've seen the majority of other foundations are really focused on professional development opportunities or grants for things in the school district and it appears to me that what makes us unique is that we're focused solely on funding teaching positions and increasing the number of teaching positions in our district.
That for me is the strength of our foundation that we are really [00:24:00] dedicated to increasing teaching opportunities and programs and opportunities for students in that way. Yeah, which is so very important and I were so grateful to the foundation. So if you have the opportunity, which you do right now, to talk to families or community members, maybe even new people to Lake Oswego, considering getting involved, either as a donor or a volunteer, what would you say to them?
I mean, I would say do it. Do it. I mean, I, I'd say honestly, like you're Seriously though, do it. Your commitment is welcome at whatever level works for you and your family and that goes for donating your time just as much as it does for your financial commitment or donation. I can't reinforce that enough.
I think people feel like, you know, my 5 contribution or my one hour of time, like, it doesn't, Like that's not going to make a difference. And what I want to say is that it does. It makes a huge difference. And I think, again, as Whitney alluded to earlier, our participation rate in particular when it comes to [00:25:00] financial contribution has ramifications across the entire fundraising environment.
It, it plays a role in things like our bond rating when we go out to, I think that's the right terminology, but when we go out to get our bond, our participation. Rating and fundraising from our community at the foundation level plays a role in that bond rating. And so there are impacts across the entire fundraising landscape in our community.
So even if it feels like, oh, you know. That five dollars maybe doesn't have an impact, it does, it has impacts across the entire environment. Or, you know, this hour that I can maybe give to volunteer at the gala, I don't know how helpful that is. It's a huge, it's hugely helpful, like a check, helping check in at the gala is incredibly helpful for us.
So all of those things make a massive, a massive difference. So yes, do it. Yes, do it. And again, Phonathon, an hour of Phonathon helps us [00:26:00] contact some, I don't know the exact number, but it's like 40 families or something. It's crazy how many people we can reach just with an hour or two of volunteering at Phonathon.
Yeah, and I know that they talked about this, but I've come to the Phonathon and I get to see them all working. And it looks Like a party actually there's a lot of people in a room. There's food. There's Laughter there. I mean, they're really kind of working together, which is fantastic and I do think even five dollars or one hour is so important because you know, we want everyone in this community to feel like they're contributing to our excellence and When you can check out of that and not be a part of that it you know, you feel that.
So I think it's good to do what you can. So last question for you what has been the most rewarding part of the involvement with the foundation? And don't say getting to know me better because I don't want to seem biased or anything. What really is the most rewarding part of your involvement? No, I really love this question.
And for me, it's actually evolved over time. I would say at first, when I first started, it was like getting to meet the teachers who sit in the [00:27:00] positions that are funded by the foundation. You know, I was at elementary for so long, so it was the music teachers, Miss McQuillan. That was so great for me. I got to see like, hey, this is directly like who we impact.
But as I've moved up through my school experience, and especially now that I'm at the middle school, it's actually getting to witness the second hand, like I don't know what to call it, like Joy or fulfillment that the kids experience in the classes that we're funding. So I'm a theater kid and theater probably like saved my life in high school.
Like I went to college on a theater scholarship. I know firsthand that kids can like find themselves in those electives, those classes that are provided by the teaching positions that we fund. So I don't know whether it's theater or it's music or STEM or art, like all of those. classes that we fund. I mean, we have these like amazing engineering and culinary arts electives now like at the high school, right?
Just the fact that our kids have so many opportunities to find [00:28:00] their place here because the foundation is able to fund those positions, like that's what I find so rewarding and the excitement like in my kid's voice and his friends when they talk about their like drama class or the other electives that we're offering like.
We did that. I'm so proud of that. That's what I love about being part of the foundation and that's what I guess sort of drives me to continue to do this. So that's what I find so fulfilling and rewarding about this. Yeah, that is fantastic. And I'm so appreciative of what you just said, because as a middle school and high school principal for many years, that's what I would hear from kids.
I would hear like, the only reason why they came to school today was because of some elective class or some opportunity that we gave them that we in Lake Oswego would not be able to do without the help of the foundation. So it's, it is those stories and those individual students that someday that child might be.
You know, the President of the United States, [00:29:00] and we got them through because of the drama class that they took, or the speech class that they took, or the engineering class that they took, or whatever it is that helps them connect with their schooling and their learning, and we're so grateful to the foundation for that.
So, Laura, thank you so much for being on the show and, and actually volunteering so many hours. people out there. She's here a lot. She does a lot of work for us and for free. So I really appreciate that. It's been awesome getting to know you and thank you again for everything you do. Yeah. And just before I go, I just want to thank our community and the district and the families and just everyone in Lagos.
We go who supports the foundation. We could not do this without the environment that we have here. And it just means so much to me that we have the foundation that we have. We are very lucky. So many districts do not have the support that we have here. And it just, it means so much to me and our kids and our teachers that [00:30:00] we're able to do what we do here.
So just a huge thank you to the entire Lake Oswego community. That's great. We are very lucky. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Before we dive into your role with the foundation, can you tell us about your work as a teacher? How long have you been teaching in Lake Oswego and what brought you here?
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I have been a teacher in Lake Oswego for four years. This is the fourth year. I came from Buffalo, New York, and I had originally started at Lake Oswego. as a special education aide, and then within the first month, somebody left, and I was kind of lying in wait to be a teacher, so I stepped up at that point.
Great, what are you teaching? I'm teaching an elective called Study Skills to Sixth Graders, which focuses on executive functioning skills, which is like the skills you need to be a person, like an adult, and you know, make the world work. And then I teach a support class called Academic Support to the Seventh Graders, which is kind of touch ups on [00:31:00] executive functioning skills so that our students can make their way through school as easy as possible.
So Buffalo, New York, what brought you? Oh, I love the weather. To Oregon. Oh my gosh. This beautiful rainy day that we're having. I know. This is amazing. In Buffalo, we have three feet of snow right now. So this is amazing. Wow. So, I'm originally from Minnesota, so I always think of, you know, the snow as well.
But I look out at this rain and I would rather it be white out there. Mm mm mm. It's, it's. It's like, it's zero degrees in Buffalo for about six months. Oh. So this is, this is perfect. I'll take this every day. Got it. Okay. I'm gonna just take your word for that one because these gray days can be difficult.
Thanks again for being here, Waz. You're serving in a relatively new role as the Foundation Ambassador. Can you explain what that entails and how you connect staff with the Foundation's mission? When I had applied to be an ambassador for the Foundation, it was [00:32:00] kind of a Fluid role. It was not necessarily something that was well defined.
So we've been kind of figuring it out a little bit. So far with the beginning of the school year and, you know, the holiday seasons, it's been more of a how can I engage with the community. So with Back to School Night, I was engaging with parents and families and students. And we have an upcoming event for new families to the community.
to ask questions and have, you know, get their, you know, questions answered and work together to find out how they best fit in the community. In terms of me interfacing with the staff at the school, I haven't quite figured out what that is yet. That's why it's going to be really important that everybody listens to this podcast.
It's going to explain as Whitney has explained what it is. It is so very important to how we function here in Lake Oswego. So how has the foundation impacted your work at Lake Oswego Middle School? In the past year or two, I've started to [00:33:00] get a little bit more involved with the different. side pieces of the, of how the schools work.
So I was, got very involved with the union this year. I'm on the bargaining team and the foundation seemed like another spot to have my fingers in to see how the, the, the pie gets made. It's really kind of opened my eyes to see how we fund our teachers, how we actually fund our programs and how we fund our different services that we provide at the school.
And it's been really enlightening to see that there's a. a dollar amount attached to our staff, but that the amount that the foundation provides is actually a lot of bodies. Money from the foundation provides a space for this person to work. So in Lake Otsego, we have a huge amount of services that we provide.
And I think of it in two ways. I think of it as we have our electives and then we have our supports. And we have really strong systems for both. And it's affected the way that I think about the school because, you know, I'll talk to [00:34:00] my elective friends at school. And it's like, wow, that person is, you know, super important to the school.
And the foundation helps provide that a spot for that person to be here. But then I also see that all the people behind the scenes, the, you know, the speech pathologist, the learning specialist, the student support specialist, all the SEAs, EAs, the foundation also provides a spot for them. To exist as well, and without the foundation, these people would still exist, but with the foundation allows us to have more comprehensive supports and electives in both regards and that's why I think it's super important, and it's really changed my way about how I think about funding the school.
And do you hear any feedback from your colleagues about their contribution, the foundation's contribution? I hear about it a little bit. They say, you know, some of the older staff, they seem to know that it exists and that it gives some money. They don't tend to really know how it works or where it goes.
There's a lot of misconception of how the money is used to fund staff. People think that it's kind of, there's a, [00:35:00] you know, this money goes to this position, which is not necessarily true. But there's some misconceptions about what it does and how it works. Which I would like to get passed so that we can as a community advocate for the foundation because most people know that it exists and it has a function, but they don't know to what extent it's actually supporting them in their work.
So how do you explain the importance of the foundation to parents or community members who may not fully understand its role? Like what's your elevator speech, if you will? Elevator speech. The foundation is super important because it allows the district to be flexible. And also there's the element of electives where we're able to provide some really high quality electives like, you know, seed, you know, fiber art, all these different things that are not necessarily offered other places.
The foundation allows this district the flexibility to even consider that. Yeah, I [00:36:00] love that. What would you say to families or businesses considering donating to the foundation? Number one, please. I agree. Please, please. Please, please. I would say please donate. Not because the money is good, which you know money is nice.
I would argue that people, if they're considered donating, picture a person. And especially if you have a student or a kid in Lake Oswego schools. Picture that favorite teacher that they have, you know, some of the favorite, the most favorite and like popular teachers at Lake Oswego middle school are electives teachers.
And I like to think of it, you know, there's some promotional information that the foundation puts out where they have these little cutouts with people's heads and they say, you know, what jobs kind of are supported by the foundation. And I like to put people's face in there, you know, it's like, Oh, that's, you know, that's Miss McKiernan, you know, that's Mr.
Zuckerman, you know, your student's favorite teacher. is supported by this foundation. And it's super important to think of it as not dollar amount, but people, the [00:37:00] more money there is, the more people we have, the more connection, the more positivity, the more love, the more support we have comes from this foundation.
And I think that's the most important thing that we can remember is that this foundation is not. And it's an institution, but not necessarily this huge institution that's, you know, doing a whole bunch of stuff. It's people at the end of the day, which is super important. We sure are people. That's, that's a big part of us.
85 percent of everything we do is people. Spent on people. Last question. What are your hopes for the future of the foundation and that impact on our schools? I would love for the foundation to be larger, but I'd also love the foundation to be more secure so that the district could reasonably rely on this money every single year.
The scene right now is this thing that shows up sometimes, but it's not actually sure how much or you know, [00:38:00] and they can't necessarily predict into the future what it's going to be. I would love for the foundation to be this thing that is a line item where the district can count on this and make decisions every year because they know this money's coming.
They know that the people of this community are supporting the foundation in a way that allows for long term planning for the school district and long term planning for staff and services. This security, I like the idea of it being this thing that boosts us but I want it to be this thing that secures us and lets us go into the future stronger.
That's a great hope and dream for, for the foundation. And, and here in Lake Oswego, we are so lucky because our community always supports schools. We, we ask them to step up and they always do with their time, money, energy. I'm so grateful. It's one of the reasons why I work in this district. It's because I've seen it firsthand.
families coming together to help support children in schools. So it's, it's really is special here in Lake Oswego. So Was, thank you so much for [00:39:00] being here today. It was great to talk with you and have a wonderful foundation season. Thank you. It was wonderful to be here. Thank you, Whitney, Laura, and Was for sharing your passion and dedication to rallying our community in support of education.
We need the Lake Oswego Schools Foundation support now more than ever. Let's turn our attention to what's happening in our community, Jen. As always, Mary Kay, a lot is happening this month. So tomorrow we have our Elementary Language Immersion Information Night at Palisades World Language School, which is February 5th from 6 to 7 at night.
All parents and guardians are invited to this enlightening evening to learn about both Spanish and Mandarin Chinese immersion programs. And then the online application for those programs, it's open now and it closes on March 7th. So keep those dates in mind. We also have February's black history month and our schools and classrooms incorporate instructional activities, highlighting black Americans contributions through [00:40:00] history.
Earlier, Lakeridge middle school had their eighth grade. Social Studies classes had the experience of doing an on site field trip with the Black History 101 Mobile Museum. I was there. It was fantastic to listen to our students talk with the presenters. They have about 15, 000 artifacts of black memorabilia.
spanning from the transatlantic slave trade era to hip hop culture. So it was just, it was really fun for the students. It was a great experience and I actually really learned a lot myself. So thank them for coming and allowing our students to have that great experience. Coming up we also have our black student unions are partnering with Tualatin high schools, black student unions to host.
It's the Portland Metro BSU Cultural Fest. This is the first ever. We're really excited about this. The event's going to take place at Lakeridge High School on February 22nd from 12 to 3. And this is a family friendly celebration. It's open to everyone in our community, as well as the Tualatin community.[00:41:00]
And the event will feature food and vendor booths and guest speakers, live music and more. So it's going to be really fun for everyone, so I encourage you all to join. And I'll be there. Me too. Me too. And then another exciting opportunity to support our Lake Oswego Schools Foundation, which we just talked about, is the third annual gala.
The Foundation Board invites everyone in our community to this special event on Saturday, March 15th at Iron Light in Lake Oswego. And it's always a fantastic evening filled with delicious food and dancing and community spirit, all while raising funds for our school. So it really is fun. I'll be there. I hope you can join me.
For more information and tickets, visit the foundation's website at LOSfoundation. org. For those interested in our immersion program, which Jen mentioned earlier, I want to bring our attention to a podcast that we recorded about this time last year, featuring our Mandarin Chinese students. It's a kindergarten [00:42:00] teacher and a very special treat with a few of our students singing songs in their newly learned language.
So just a throwback to another podcast to catch up on if you haven't already. It's a real treat. That's it for today's episode of Learning in Lake Oswego. We have many more shows to come with topics that are on the minds of everyone in our community. So. Stay tuned. Until then, keep exploring and stay engaged.
Class dismissed. We hope you found this episode informative and helpful. While our discussions are general, we understand each family's experience is unique. If you have specific questions about your child, please contact your school principal. To learn more about the topics we discussed, Ask a question or share ideas for future episodes, please visit LOSDSchools.
org. And remember to like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. [00:43:00] Thank you for engaging with Learning in Lake Oswego. We appreciate your support and look forward to having you with us for our next episode.