Campus to Hold Glitzy Fund-Raiser : Education: Organizers hope to generate $100,000 to air-condition Topeka Drive School classrooms. The event raises issues of fairness to other areas.

It has all the makings of a classy evening.

There’s a bar for cocktails, chicken en croute for dinner, dancing in a swank ballroom at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, a one-hour concert by rhythm-and-blues singer Jeffrey Osborne, and a live auction featuring such items as a basketball autographed by Magic Johnson and a sequined dress worn by pop star Whitney Houston during her 1986 concert tour.

Black-tie is optional but recommended. Seating is limited for the April 4 benefit, which will be emceed by television talk-show host Byron Allen. Tickets cost $100 apiece and can be purchased through Ticketmaster.

A professionally produced gala for some well-known charity, perhaps?

Not quite. The glitzy event is a fund-raiser organized by an active group of parents--including Grammy-nominated Osborne and his wife, whose daughter attends Topeka Drive School in Northridge.

Through what will certainly be one of the more elaborate fund-raisers staged in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Topeka’s volunteer parent-faculty organization hopes to raise money to help install air conditioning in the school’s classrooms, which can register temperatures in triple digits during the hottest days of the year.

The gala is part of a trend that began in the San Fernando Valley last year as parents impatient with the sweltering conditions on campus increasingly rally to remedy the situation themselves--a goal that often comes with a price tag in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Most of the schools are amassing funds gradually and installing air-conditioning units a few at a time with money made from small fund-raisers. The case of Topeka is unusual in that parents are hoping to complete the task in one swoop.

District officials have largely welcomed efforts across the Valley to air-condition campuses. But the new trend, at its most lavish and sophisticated with the Topeka extravaganza, has raised questions of fairness and a re-examination of the role of parent groups, which traditionally have focused more on parental involvement in the classroom than on fund raising.

The Topeka event, in the works since fall, is especially impressive when compared with the walk-a-thons and aluminum can collections held at other schools.

“It’s a big job,” said Jan Veis, 37, president of Topeka’s Parent & Faculty Organization. “It’s like planning a bar mitzvah on a larger scale.”

She and others were spurred last year by the districtwide switch to a year-round school calendar, which shunted children back into the classroom in August during the height of summer. The new schedule, some record heat in October and the grim reality that the money-starved district could not afford to air-condition the school crystallized their resolve.

Acorps of two dozen Topeka parents has been hustling for months--scouting venues, scrounging for auction items, cajoling thousands of dollars in sponsorships from major corporations, persuading radio station K-LITE to promote the event, even designing a logo for the formal invitations that were printed up and sent out earlier this month.

The aim is to rake in $100,000--over and above the few thousand already spent to stage the event--to cover the cost of air conditioning more than 20 classrooms.

“I personally have never worked on a fund-raiser of this magnitude,” said Veis, the mother of three Topeka students. “I’m more a bake-sale and candy-drive kind of mom.”

Many district officials have greeted their efforts with applause.

“My hat’s off to them,” said Julie Korenstein, West Valley school board member. “We need help, any way you like it.”

But some school officials whose campuses lack air conditioning agree that an event like “Dream a Little Dream: A Very Special Evening With Jeffrey Osborne” goes beyond the pale of what parent groups at their respective schools can muster.

They point out that such large-scale productions require wherewithal, time and a network of connections that are more the province of middle- to upper-middle-class parents than their poorer counterparts.

“The general attitude as I hear it from parents and teachers is that, well, they have the parents who have the money who can do it,” said Emma Wilson, principal of Burton Street School in Panorama City.

In Van Nuys, parents at Kittridge Street School “would be interested” in generating revenue for a cooling system, Principal Donald Watson said.

“But it would be rummage sales and bake sales and that kind of thing,” he said. “It would be basically impossible to raise enough money.”

Even at Topeka, some parents were upset by the $100 price of the gala tickets, even though the amount can be reduced if the parents help round up advertising and sponsorship revenue.

“There’s definitely a sense that there are some parents who can’t participate,” Veis said. “But there will always be parents who can’t participate. We’ve tried to let everybody realize that although this is an event that is exclusive in the fact that you have to be able to afford tickets to attend, it really is a means to an end.

“We want to put in air conditioning at Topeka, which will benefit all the children at the school. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to raise a substantial amount of money, and we didn’t feel we could pass it up.”

She added that funding air conditioning through outside means would benefit other schools since Topeka would no longer be competing for the same district dollars.

The trend toward more fund raising by parent booster clubs has gained momentum as the district’s financial straits have become increasingly dire. But officials of the Valley’s Parent Teacher Student Assn. say the movement has also shifted the focus of parent organizations away from the traditional concentration on parent education.

“Our philosophy is really opposed to putting huge amounts of energy” into fund raising, said Esther Goldberg, vice president of the association’s Valley chapter.

“There’s a lot more to do in the schools than just supply the things that the school district cannot. . . . Unfortunately, the financial pressures are enormous, and they’re going to be worse, I’m afraid.

“But that’s not, to our way of thinking, the greatest emphasis a parent should be giving to our schools.”

Instead, the PTSA attempts to involve parents in the classroom through volunteer and parent-education projects, she said.

However, several parents point out that creating a more comfortable physical environment can only improve their children’s education and performance in the classroom--a view held by Osborne, who with his wife, Sheri, remains committed to keeping their children in public schools. Their 8-year-old daughter, Tiffany, is a third-grader at Topeka.

“We felt that most of the private schools were very forthright and snooty, to be honest,” Osborne said. “They were also very regimented and, in her early years, I wanted her to have communication with community kids and not high-society kids.”

He said his 2-year-old son will also attend Topeka, despite the fact that Osborne can easily afford private schooling. “That’s what I want for my kids. I don’t want to place them in a sterile environment in Beverly Hills.”

And, he added, the example of Topeka’s fund-raising drive may pave the way for other schools, regardless of their socioeconomic setting.

Already, said Sheri Osborne, who co-chairs the planning committee, parents at two schools have called for advice.

“We want to raise awareness that this can be done,” the singer said. “There are entertainers out there who are willing to do things for the schools. . . . You just gotta ask.”