Non-Profit Looks to Fund Programs for Naugatuck Schools

The borough’s education system has a new ally in the nascent Naugatuck Education Foundation (NEF), a non-profit organization that hopes to provide support for project expenditures that cannot be funded through the Board of Education.

Formed about three years ago, NEF was recently accepted as a corporation by the state of Connecticut and is in the process of applying for its 501 (c) nonprofit status through the Internal Revenue Service. Once this is done, the organization can officially begin fundraising and accepting tax-deductible donations.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the members of NEF have been resting on their laurels. Instead, the organization has been busy over the past three years drafting its bylaws, sorting through its various legal accreditations and forming a tentative path for the future.

“We looked at a lot of other education foundations and said, ‘This is where we want to go with ours,’” explained Vice-chairman William Brown.

The brainchild of several borough educators and Superintendent John Tindall-Gibson, NEF will be only the third entity in Naugatuck that represents every single schoolchild, after the Board of Education and the Naugatuck Parent School Council, a collaborative of the PTOs at every school in the district. Among the other members of NEF’s steering committee were Brown, Robert A. Mezzo, the current mayor of Naugatuck, and Kevin M. DelGobbo, former state representative for 70th State House District which comprises most of Naugatuck.

“Educations foundations have become very common in the country,” said Tindall-Gibson. “The idea has been around for some time. I’ve worked with education foundations in a couple of other communities.”

Seed money came from the Parent School Council, which donated funds to help with NEF’s legal fees.

“The Parent School Council was very kind, and they are really enthusiastic that they have a partner in being a positive beacon for the community,” said Chairwoman Joan Doback.

Although she was not present for the organization’s inception, Doback has leapt into her duties over the past year with both feet. On May 19, she and the rest of the board decided collectively to remain in their current positions for another year to steer NEF through its 501(c) approval process. But that’s not the only goal that the organization has in mind for the 2011-12 academic year. If things go according to plan, NEF will also be getting down to its primary mission over the next 12 months: funding special projects for students that the borough would not be able to afford otherwise.

“We are hoping that as early as this school year — if not this fall, then early in the spring — we will be able to give mini-grants out to the teachers in the classrooms,” Doback said. “These mini-grants will be $500 or less…. We have a grant application, and [teachers] apply for these grants for projects that would benefit the kids in their class or on their team.”

At a at Western School, Doback explained that education foundations in surrounding communities have used their resources to fund everything from debate and robotics clubs to geography and spelling bees to science classrooms. While the board of NEF does not yet know what form the projects in Naugatuck will take, they'll be looking to the borough's educators for feedback and guidance on the kind of programs that should be funded.

“We’re looking to gather ideas from educators in the public system and fund the ones we feel will have a chance to impact the community in some way,” said Brown.

And the best part? The existence of NEF will not raise taxes or deduct from the borough’s education budget. This is a point that NEF members are stressing as they get the word out about the organization.

“Many people will be concerned that this is going to raise their taxes,” said Doback. “If we’re putting new programs into the schools, we don’t want the residents of Naugatuck to think that it is going to be shouldered by them. This is going to be shouldered by our fundraising efforts. So it is important to us to point out that we are working independent of the Board of Education. We are not taking taxpayer dollars for any of this, and it doesn’t affect the Board of Ed budget at all.”

There is a second benefit as well: In an economic climate where increases to the education budget are negligible at best, NEF can offer school programming without having to worry about whether teachers will be laid off in order to fund, say, a new computer program.

“We’ve got to find a better way to get some programs into the schools because the economy is bad, and there’s just no end in sight to this zero budget type of thing,” said Doback.

Added Tindall-Gibson: “Boards of education always have more needs than they have money. So some of the rich things you’d like to do with children get cut out because there’s no money for it.”

Going forward, NEF hopes to move beyond just offering small grants to individual teachers and expand into school- or even district-wide projects. Funds for these initiatives would come from the organization’s annual fundraiser, and although there has been no decision yet as to what form this fundraiser will take, board members have tossed around ideas that range from a 5K road race to a benefit gala and more.

Regardless, NEF’s goal will remain the same: to instill 21st-century learning skills in Naugatuck’s young people through a series of programs that will prepare them for the challenges they will face in life.

Said Doback: “This is just a way of making better our corner of the world and taking matters into our hands and trying to do something that can make things a little bit better for every child in the school district.”