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HISTORY OF OUR ORGANIZATION

School Fuel began with an Interim Board, Interim Officers, a Support Group and an Advisory Committee. We want to heartily thank all these wonderful people for sticking with it all through the spring and summer of 2003 to bring the new foundation to its feet!

This page chronicles our beginnings, but School Fuel has now seated a Board of Directors and Officers, an Advisory Council and an ever evolving volunteer force, and will eventually include an Executive Director. Find out more about our current structure here.

INTERIM BOARD / SUPPORT GROUP

What was the Interim Board and the Support Group?
The Interim Board was steering the process of forming School Fuel. These people came together through a series of circumstantial, and quite fortunate, accidents. Several people had been working independently on the idea of the new foundation since the spring of 2002. When they discovered each other they quickly decided to come together and share their research and ideas so that their efforts would not be duplicated. Shortly thereafter it was decided that it would be best to have a meeting to better coordinate their efforts, and to solicit others in the community who were interested in assisting, or perhaps had already been doing some work on their own. Significant effort was expended in identifying as many people as possible from the community who were interested in devoting time and energy to the process of establishing a new education foundation. This meeting occurred on February 11, 2003 and out of this meeting grew the Interim Board (formerly the Core Group) and the Support Group.

The Interim Board pledged to spend whatever time and energy was required to guide the community through the process of establishing School Fuel. The Interim Board, with the help of the Advisory Committee, seated the first term Board in September 2003.

The Support Group pledged to support the Interim Board in its effort to establish the foundation, in whatever way they were able.

Interim Board:Jeff Belingheri, Joyce McCarron, Tiki Martin, Ann Marymor, Susan Mathews
Interim Officers:President: Jeff Belingheri, Treasurer/secretary: Joyce McCarron
Support Group: Sheila McGrath, Carole Hollander, Kathleen Freitag, Jim Leland, Natasha Ramirez

ADVISORY / STAKEHOLDER COMMITTEE

Note: The Advisory Committee Meetings began April 3, 2003 and completed August 26, 2003.

Advisory Committee: A group of concerned parents came together to establish a foundation to support all of the public schools in Novato. This group has appointed an Interim Board and formed an Advisory Committee that worked throughout the process of establishing the new foundation. The Advisory Committee had at least one representative from each of the groups were identified as major stakeholders of the public education system in Novato (parents of school-aged children, parents of pre-school aged children, teachers, classified staff, the administration, the School Board, local businesses and senior citizens). Following was the list of responsibilities/requirements for the Advisory Committee Representative position.

  1. The Advisory Committee position was made available to the stakeholder community and was decided by that community in what ever manner they saw fit.
  2. The Advisory Committee position was a commitment of five months and had meetings once or twice a month.
  3. The Advisory Committee position was a conduit between the Interim Board and the stakeholder community and therefore was required to have knowledge and support from that community.
  4. The Advisory Committee position impacted decisions made about:
    a. the new Education Foundation Mission Statement
    b. the new Education Foundation standards for Board members and Board size
    c. how the new Education Foundation would conduct its fundraising operations.
    d. how the new Education Foundation would distribute its funds.
    e. how the Education Foundation would run it’s daily operations
    f. the new Education Foundation Bylaws
  5. The Advisory Committee position was a voluntary, non-paid position.
  6. The Advisory Committee position ended once the new Education Foundation is completely formed.
Stakeholders Identified
The following stakeholder groups (and their representatives) were identified as interested parties in the public education system in Novato. School Fuel hopes to have these groups’ support as it moves forward.

School Site Parent Representative:
Hamilton: Derek Chase & Diane Gibbs
Loma Verde: Karie Whitman
Lu Sutton: Jennifer Treppa & Alice Fort
Lynwood: Stephanie Miller & Richard Blanchette
Olive: Martina Austin
Pleasant Valley: Regina Bianucci Rus & Kim Connolly
Rancho: Charmaine Stevenson
San Ramon: Danny Kao
Hill Middle School: Kathleen Freitag
San Jose Middle School: Ruthie Tolleson
Sinaloa Middle School: Sonya Perez & Cindy Curtice
Novato High School: Martha Leopardo
San Marin High School: Francine Cunnie & Patty Bennett
Marin Oaks High School: Sandy Agajan
Novato Charter School: Marucia Britto & Coy Smith
NOVA: Jim Stanek
Elementary Teacher Representative:
Middle School Teacher Representative:
High School Teacher Representative: Martha Leopardo
Classified Staff Representative: Mumu DeLong & Remsen Benedict
School Board Representative: Perry Newman
Administrative Representative: Jan La Torre-Derby
Novato Business Community Representatives: Chuck Bennett (Cal Land)
Preschool Parent Representative: Katharine Johnson & Susan White
Senior Citizen Representative: Blair Thornton

Advisory Committee Meetings

The dates and topics of each Advisory Committee Meeting were as follows:

 

Organization and Structure of the Advisory Committee Meetings:
Letter to Advisory Committee Representatives

March 20, 2003

Dear Advisory Committee Representatives:

Thank you for your commitment to the “Advisory Committee” process and the Novato Foundation for Public Education (NFPE). This document is intended to provide you with a basis of understanding as to what each of our roles will be in this process, and to what will be expected of each of us as we move through this process.

The Novato Foundation NFPE has been formed as a California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation. By law, the NFPE must have officers and a Board of Directors in order to conduct business as a Public Benefit Corporation in the state of California. At the end of the Advisory Committee process, a Board will be appointed, and that Board will appoint the officers of the NFPE. However, since the NFPE has already been formed in order to facilitate the raising of seed money to assist in the formation process, interim officers and an interim Board of Directors have been appointed. The interim officers are Jeff Belingheri (President) and Joyce McCarron (Treasury and Secretary), and the interim Board is the Core Group (Jeff Belingheri, Joyce McCarron, Susan Mathews, Tiki Martin and Ann Marymor). During the Advisory Commitee process, it will be the responsibility of the Core Group/Interim Board to do the following:

  • Draft and adopt the Mission Statement
  • Draft and adopt a Fundraising plan
  • Draft and adopt a Fund Distribution plan
  • Draft and adopt a plan of governance and operation
  • Draft and adopt the Bylaws
  • Assemble and appoint the “permanent” Board of Directors

The Advisory Committee is being formed to assist the Core Group/Interim Board in making these decisions. The role of each Advisory Committee Representative is to share the ideas and concerns of the Stakeholder Group that he/she represents. The Core Group/Interim Board will take those ideas and concerns and draft/adopt the documents discussed above in a manner that incorporates as completely as possible the consensus of opinion of the Advisory Committee Representatives.

In order to move through all of the topics in an efficient manner, each Advisory Committee Meeting will cover one of the six topics noted above.

The format/operation of each meeting will be identical, as follows:

1. At least one week prior to each Advisory Committee meeting, the Core Group/Interim Board will distribute draft documents (i.e., Mission Statement, Bylaws, etc.) and other information regarding the topic to be discussed at the upcoming meeting to each Advisory Committee Representative. Each Representative will be expected not only to read all of the documents and related materials, but also to share the documents and related materials with other members of the Stakeholder Group that they are representing and solicit their comments, ideas and concerns.

2. Each meeting will begin with an introduction of the topic to be discussed at that meeting, followed by a presentation on that topic by a guest speaker. The guest speaker will be someone with a great deal of experience in dealing with the topic at hand, and will make a short presentation.

3. After the presentation there will be a comment period in which each Advisory Committee Representative will be expected to share the views of their stakeholder group with respect to the topic at hand, and specifically with respect to the draft document that they received prior to the meeting.

4. All comments, ideas and concerns will be recorded on a white board in order to facilitate the collection and organization of everyone’s comments, ideas and concerns.

5. The Core Group/Interim Board will facilitate the discussion and attempt to identify areas of conflict and lead the Advisory Committee to some consensus of opinion.

6. The meeting will adjourn and the Core Group/Interim Board will meet soon after to finalize the document at issue. Every effort will be taken to ensure that the document ultimately adopted by the Core Group/Interim Board is broadly supported by the Advisory Committee. If the Core Group/Interim Board feels that there was not an adequate consensus of opinion reached in the previous meeting, then the agenda of the following meeting will be altered to include additional discussion of the previous meeting’s topic.

If you have any questions regarding the information presented in this document, please do not hesitate to contact Jeff Belingheri at jeffb@nfpe.org or Joyce McCarron at joycem@nfpe.org for clarification.

The NFPE looks forward to working with all of you to establish these vital building blocks for a Foundation that will benefit all of the students of the Novato Unified School District, and the Novato community at large, for generations to come.

 

 

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