Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer

Artist-In-Residence at Stocklmeir Elementary School, Marie Franklin, right, helps out Michael Zhang, left, and Fareeha Waheed, both third-graders in Ms. Yamasaki's class, with building and designing their clay pockets. The pockets will be fired and painted before the students take them home. Stocklmeir receives funding from the Cupertino Educational Endowment Foundation (CEEF).

Program lends a helping hand at CUSD schools

CEEF strives to help local schools stay in the game

By DANIEL HINDIN

For 17 years the students and faculty of the Cupertino Union School District, including Sunnyvale's Stocklmeir, Nimitz and West Valley Elementary Schools, have benefited from funding from the Cupertino Educational Endowment Foundation. CEEF provided $450,000 to the district in 2000.

The school district relies on this funding to keep vital educational programs alive and introduce new, innovative ones that the district can't afford. The funding helps a great deal considering the CUSD ranks 33rd out of 33 public school district in Santa Clara County in the amount of funding they receive from the state. This level of funding also lands them at 984th out of 988 schools in the entire state, a placement that CEEF says it's working diligently with community leaders and state legislators to change.

Currently, CEEF says its primary focus is the Enhanced Cultural Arts and Integrated Information Literacy Program. They provide matching funds up to $3,000 per year for each school. Once they receive this money, the schools can use it in any way they see fit as long as it helps to enhance their cultural arts or information literacy programs. As a result of this program, CEEF now funds 57 percent of the district's annual visual and performing arts budget.

"The schools can use the funds for a wide range of things," says CEEF Executive Director Eleanor Watanabe. "[As part of the cultural arts program], they might bring in artists or music consultants or purchase art materials or instruments. This has been our most successful program. We're going to make it a permanent program. Different schools have different wants, and this gives them flexibility."

At Stocklmeir, the district's largest school with 710 children, the information literacy program has helped faculty obtain more computers for their computer lab. Teachers sign up to use the lab mainly for social studies and science lessons.

"The kids do a lot of research on the internet," says Stocklmeir's Media Aide Linda Harvey. "Computers really engage kids who aren't engaged in other things."

As part of its cultural arts program, Stocklmeir brought in local artist Marie Franklin to provide its students with expert instruction.

CEEF board member Linda Hay speaks highly of the art programs that CEEF promotes.

"You can really see the benefits by looking at the kids who had these opportunities and where they are now," Hay says. "It gives them unique skills and confidence."

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