Residents wash cars, sell lemonade to help Bainbridge schools

Like many people on Bainbridge Island, Debbie Stearns moved there because of the quality of the public schools.

So when she learned the district was going to have to cut more than a dozen teachers due to state-budget reductions, she joined about 100 other parents and kids Saturday to march through downtown in a rally to support the Bainbridge Schools Foundation.

This weekend, the foundation also held a garage sale to raise money to recall teachers. The seventh- and eighth-graders from Woodward Middle School held a carwash to drum up some extra dollars. And a few elementary students have even set up lemonade stands, with all the profits going to the schools.

"We love the schools," said Patricia Lahtinen, who marched in Saturday's rally. Lahtinen has two children in Bainbridge schools, and her family moved there in part because of the schools.

"The whole island, it's a very distinct cultural feeling here," she said. "It's easy to get involved with the schools. It's amazing, because the teachers do so much with so little money."

The idea for Saturday's rally came together so quickly that its organizer, the Schools Foundation, didn't have time to get a parade permit.

So the marchers stayed out of the street and walked down the sidewalk, dodging mailboxes and telephone poles, on their way to the town's waterfront park. Passers-by tooted their car horns in enthusiastic support.

The effort to try to fill budget shortfalls is a familiar refrain in districts across the state. The state Legislature cut $800 million in K-12 education funding in the last legislative session. In some districts, nonprofit school foundations have stepped in to try to fill the gap.

The Mercer Island and Bellevue districts' school foundations, for example, have held big breakfast and luncheon events, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Seattle's Alliance for Education recently raised $240,000 at a breakfast, although that foundation is focused on raising money for the district's strategic plan rather than filling in money from legislative cuts.

Those kinds of high-profile fundraisers, which received significant support from big corporate donors, are not an option on Bainbridge, whose employment base is largely small shops and grocery stores that serve island residents and tourists.

Some local businesses have pitched in, offering to donate a percentage of their sales to the Schools Foundation, but most of the fundraising the foundation does is grass-roots and family-oriented.

"It's a challenge to raise money here," said Vicky Marsing, executive director of the Schools Foundation. In addition to the fundraisers, the foundation is also asking each family to contribute $100 and encouraging families without students in the district to contribute, too.

Bainbridge ranks in the bottom 20 percent in per-pupil state funding among the 296 school districts, due to the vagaries of state-funding formulas, the district says.

That makes the $2.2 million cut in state funding especially hard on the district, said school-board member Patty Fielding, who joined the rally.

"I think it's a crime that we have to get out and do this," said Ali Perry as she pushed her son Ewan along on a tricycle. Her son's kindergarten teacher was one of more than a dozen who received layoff notices.

So far, the Bainbridge foundation has raised about $100,000, and is contributing an additional $150,000 more from its rainy-day fund, Marsing said.

She expects to raise another $100,000 before the fundraiser is over — enough to possibly recall a few of the teachers who have gotten pink slips.

"I don't know what we would do without the foundation," said Fielding. "People are having to make up that difference (in funding), and it's tragic."

Katherine Long: 206-464-2219 or klong@seattletimes.com