CEEF President Larry Stone
County tax assessor and civic leader Lawrence Stone has been elected president of the board of directors of the Cupertino Educational Endowment Foundation.
He succeeds McWhorter's president Steve Andrews as head of the innovative nonprofit foundation that seeks to provide a stable, long-term source of funding in support of instructional programs in the Cupertino Union School District. During the past decade the CEEF board has developed an endowment of more than $5.5 million.
Stone was a founding director of CEEF in 1984 and has remained an active member of the board while serving as councilman and two-term mayor of Sunnyvale and, for the past two years, as the county's tax assessor. The sprawling l5,000-student elementary school district includes 23 schools in Cupertino and Sunnyvale, as well as portions of San Jose, Los Altos, Saratoga and Santa Clara.
Stone brings to the foundation more than 25 years of financial management experience in private business, as well as a broad range of service in local government and civic affairs, said Eleanor Watanabe, CEEF executive director. His activities have included service as the founding president of the Arts Council of Santa Clara County and as chairman of the County Intergovernmental Council, where he led a successful regional effort resulting in trailblazing environmental protection measures.
A longtime advocate of open government, Stone has worked to enhance the ability of citizens to become involved as partners in local government and institutions. "This is a working board," Watanabe said. "Members come from throughout the local business, professional and corporate community and city government, and Larry is the ideal person to lead CEEF forward at this time."
Stone worries about the state of public education and the negative attitudes about it that exist in much of the country. "When good people make decisions not to go into education, then the whole system loses--not just parents, but the entire community," he said.
He is convinced that communities like the one in the Cupertino elementary district--where there is broad recognition and support for high-quality public education and a positive working relationship with the school system--should seize the opportunity to act as powerful role models for meeting the challenges education faces. The size of the CEEF endowment and the fact that it grants support to districtwide instructional programs relieve the district of some material concerns and allow for creative solutions, Stone said.
Noting that the district is seeking a new superintendent, Stone says his primary goals are to continue the solid, cooperative partnership that CEEF has enjoyed with retiring superintendent Patricia Lamson and to continue increasing the endowment. Year-round fundraising activity has developed a $5.5 million CEEF endowment that provides an annual distribution of some $250,000 to fund district-wide programs from a list submitted by the board of education. An aggressive campaign by CEEF last year to seek grants from corporations and other foundations to support the district's math program raised the year's total contribution to nearly $430,000.
Stone and his wife, Carmen, are 25-year residents of Sunnyvale, where they have raised their three sons. He will be installed Jan. 23 at a board dinner to be held at the Santa Barbara Bar and Grill in Cupertino.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 22, 1997.
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