The latest incarnation of Portland Public Schools’ districtwide foundation has raised just $200,000 so far this fiscal year, with just four months left until schools let out for summer break.
That relatively meager total is orders of magnitude less than the $2 to $4 million dollars that the previous system, which allowed individual schools to run their own foundations, regularly brought in each year.
Under the former system, schools could use some of the money raised by families at auctions and jog-a-thons to cover salary and benefit costs for teachers and other education professionals. That was enough for a modest staffing boost in a district that this year has floated plans to cut an estimated 300 employees in order to plug a $50 million budget deficit…