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Perspective Newsletters
Fall 2006
Financial Support for our School Programs
Page 6
Dear Friends of the Foundation:
I am writing to ask for your financial support for our School programs. I will be
brief.
The Foundation was established over 12 years ago in an effort to carry the Leary
School programs into the future. The Foundation also converted the organization into
a nonprofit, regional corporation in 1994. Essentially, the school programs, staff,
and, most importantly, the mission to assist a special group of students in a special
way has successfully spanned over 42 years now.
Throughout this time, the Foundation has tried very hard to maintain a serious commitment
to its core mission of reaching out to sometimes the most difficult to reach students
as well as to provide a personally meaningful and effective educational program for
each of its students. We have tried hard to support the staff by providing competitive
salary and benefits. We have tried very hard to develop honest working partnerships
with all of the various public agencies with whom we share responsibility for students.
We have tried hard to exercise great fiscal responsibility with regard to all of
our stakeholders, including the public which supports the program through taxes.
However, we have been stretched thin over the past several years. State and local
governmental agencies have been stretched as well.
The Foundation is currently operating four programs: its oldest program, the Leary
School of Virginia (1964); its original job site program: the Leary School Job Site,
Fairfax County (which is operated as program component of the Leary School of Virginia
(1987) and is easily accessed through this program); its Maryland component, Leary
School, Prince George’s County (1994); and, most recently, the Leary School Job Site,
Loudoun County (2006).
Each of these programs maintains a strong allegiance to the Foundation’s mission
and culture: being there with students in need, reaching out to students in crisis,
accepting often very tough situations and providing effective programming across
many domains.
Each of these programs is running very close to a zero based budget. The gap between
the Foundation’s salary scales and benefit structure and that of area public school
systems is widening, while, at the same time, there are serious personnel market
shortages in most areas; for example, special education teachers, speech therapists,
and at the supervisory and administrative level.
Line budgets are under-budgeted, meaning that, in many areas, we will not be able
to make improvements, will end up with a net loss at the end of the year and, like
dominoes, other areas will have to be cut. Again, like dominoes, this will affect
the 2007-2008 budgets which are being prepared at this point.
The Foundation will, of course, survive. However, cuts here and there affect the
quality of the programming we offer our students and the recognition and support
we owe our staff.
At the same time, our read on the current regional special education environment
is that the Foundation is being challenged to develop additional job site programming,
to work in new ways and in partnerships with local governmental agencies, and to
increase substantially student outcomes and access as measured by local and state
wide curricular standards. All of these are tall orders. All of these aims are good.
Some of our expectation includes hopefully bringing a job site program into Prince
George’s County very shortly and perhaps the District of Columbia; exploring new
alternative programming in cooperation with many local governmental agencies, some
of which might include short term work, interventions, jointly-operated cooperative
partnership programs and shared programming. In addition, we continue to consider
after school programming options, additional vocational programming and job placements,
and extending our outreach to parents, families and students beyond the regular school
day and beyond the educational realm. We would like to offer more support and therapy
to our student and family bodies and, if at all possible, in an accessible manner
in local communities.
Each of these goals is a tall order by itself. Most likely are at risk of producing
a net loss financially, yet we all know that is not the most important variable.
However, it is a realistic and decisive threat to these worthy aims.
I ask each of you to consider supporting the Foundation in its legacy of helping
students in need and in its vision of doing so in the upcoming several years.
You all must know that each and every one of you is a deeply regarded member of the
Foundation: former and current students, parents, staff, friends, donors, governmental
officials, and all others involved in our mission.
We all thank you. Please feel free to call me personally at any time.
Respectfully,
Ed Schultze, Ed.D.
Executive Director and President
Federal Tax Identification Number 54-1732823; Nonprofit 501 (c)3
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