A Brief History

In 1995 at the board's annual retreat, a parent from Rancho Romero presented the board with the idea that Rancho Romero could become an affiliate.

Her concern was that the PTA should not be raising funds (violation of their charter) but recognized that establishing foundations at each of the schools didn't really help unify the schools that were served by SRVEF. The proposal said mini-chapters of one unified foundation might be better. Since Rancho's goal was the same as SRVEF, only at a local level - to raise funds for enhancing education - the board spent the day deciding if an affiliate might be possible.

The board established a committee to pursue school site foundations and divided the task into four parts (financial, policy & procedure, organization and communications). After three months the committee presented a pilot plan to Rancho. Meetings were held with Rancho and the details worked out so they could become a functioning entity by July 1, 1995.

The school site foundation would have to call itself a fund not a foundation. Their board needed to have parents, teachers, principal, and school site council members; the by-laws were developed from SRVEF by-laws; they would maintain separate bank accounts, have their own employer ID number, their own logo and identify that they were an affiliate of SRVEF on any of their literature or correspondence. No money should pass through SRVEF and they were asked not to SOLICIT united way funds.

At first the meetings with Rancho were monthly, but it became clear they were functioning quite well and every other month would be satisfactory. The following year Green Valley requested that they be accepted as an affiliate. Based on the success of Rancho the board Okayed their development.

About this time the board applied for a group exemption. It was difficult to reconcile the tax return for the United Way application with the figures of Rancho on the SRVEF return. It became obvious that each affiliate needed to file their own tax returns.

As more schools became affiliates it was recommended that we develop an instrument that stated the rules of becoming and remaining an affiliate so that SRVEF or the affiliate could terminate the relationship if necessary. We now require the affiliates to sign this "Memo of Understanding" on an annual basis.

Twin Creeks and Bollinger both came on at the same time. Because SRVEF requires that the group meet certain criteria before the motion is made to accept them as an affiliate, the school has to have their committee organized and everything in place before SRVEF will even consider them. It takes about 4 to 6 months to complete this. During this time SRVEF representatives meet with the school committee so it would become obvious if they were not on the right track or willing to operate as stated in our Memo of understanding.

Sycamore is extremely organized with the PTA and the principal endorsing the idea of an affiliate Fund. A parent (the chairman of the Green Valley affiliate) who has children at Los Cerros will be working with Los Cerros to get them organized and hopefully ready to function as of 7/1/01.

Since 7/01/01, SRVEF has added 8 more affiliates, Alamo, Charlotte Wood, Country Club, Golden View, Hidden Hills (newest affiliate 4/1/04 was formed as the school opened), Pine Valley, Stone Valley and a Special Needs Affiliate (to meet the District wide needs of parents with special needs). As of 12/31/04, all but the Special Needs Affiliate are up and operational. The Special Needs affiliate could not attract the mass of parent support needed, so was temporarily deactivated in June of 2004, the proceeds raised by them are maintained by SRVEF for the benefit of Special Needs programs in the District. In January 2005, we have been approached by Coyote Creek to form an affiliate at there school.

The original intent of the Foundation has been met. The affiliates meet and share ideas, concerns and occasionally person-power. We have even been approached by several schools that have their own 501©3 organizations to be involved in the sharing of ideas and support. The growth has put a strain on the Foundation and the SRVEF Board during 2004 re-aligned its self to start to provide additional support to our Affiliates and Endowment Committee. The start of 2005 has seen our greatest challenge the charge of embezzlement against two affiliate treasurer's in unrelated cases. This has caused SRVEF and the District to review process and procedures and will in the long run continue to strength our organization

The following are our Affiliates as of 12/31/04:

Alamo Elementary
Bollinger Canyon Elementary
Country Club Elementary
Golden View Elementary
Green Valley Elementary
Greenbrook Elementary
Hidden Hills Elementary
Iron Horse Middle
John Baldwin Elementary
Los Cerros Middle
Pine Valley Middle
Rancho Romero Elementary
Sycamore Valley Elementary
Stone Valley Middle
Twin Creeks Elementary
Charlotte Wood Middle

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