About Us
History
Palo Alto Partners in Education (PiE) is the nonprofit 501(c)(3) foundation wholly focused on fundraising to enhance educational excellence for every student in the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD). Partnering with parents, school staff, and community members, PiE works to help preserve PAUSD’s outstanding schools and programs.
Since the enactment of Proposition 13, California has faced substantial declines in school funding. Currently, California ranks 47th out of 50 states in spending per student based on Education Week’s January 2009 “Quality Counts” report. Even for a basic aid district like the Palo Alto Unified School District, spending per student is $1,000 less than the median spending per student in other top-performing school districts across the country, after adjusting for salary differences.1
PiE was created to help address this gap between what Palo Alto families want and what public funds can provide for students. Established 2005 through the merger of two existing local foundations – Palo Alto Foundation for Education (PAFE) and the All Schools Fund (ASF)-PiE was created in response to a 2002 PAUSD Board of Trustees decision to equalize funding for every school in the district by disallowing site-based funds for staffing. Today, PiE has become the only non-profit organization that raises funds for staff at all PAUSD schools.
Palo Alto is not the only community compelled to raise private funds for public education—more than 675 school foundations throughout California raised some $230 million in 2008-9 to fund vital programs in their districts.2 Like those other foundations, Partners in Education is the embodiment of the community’s value for education; the foundation represents our commitment to its youth and an excellent public education.
Since 2005, PiE has given more than $15 million to PAUSD to support Palo Alto public education. While in the early years PiE paid for the “nice to have” programs on campus, today we are central to maintaining core programs like science enrichment, general classroom aides, arts instruction, student guidance, electives enhancement, college and career counseling, and technology mentoring. PiE provides between half and three-quarters of the flexible funding available to principals on all seventeen PAUSD school campuses.
Now six years old, PiE has been privileged to support Palo Alto schools and looks forward continuing to pay for additional and much-needed PAUSD staff, relying on the generosity of the residents of the PAUSD community. Hundreds of volunteers and thousands of donors have worked with PiE to make sure our children receive the best possible education in Palo Alto schools. We could not make a difference without the help of our supporters.
Thank you for the past six years. Together, we hope to continue to make a difference for our children.
1 PiE benchmark study 2006
2 California Consortium of Education Foundations (CCEF)
