Volunteers’ Labor Lost : Help at Cash-Strapped Peninsula Schools Dwindles as Stay-at-Home Mothers Go Back to Work

Students on the Palos Verdes Peninsula stopped singing six years ago when the elementary school music program got axed. Borrowing books became bothersome when staff cutbacks left the district with only one full-time librarian. And parents joke that students had better not get sick at school since four registered nurses float among the district’s 13 schools.

Budget cuts over the years have forced the district to eliminate many services, but volunteers--mostly stay-at-home mothers--always made up the shortfall. They collected money for athletics, worked in classrooms as teachers aides, and set up a foundation that raised funds for music and computer programs.

But the volunteer pool is shrinking these days as many Peninsula women enter the work force. Many are restarting careers that they left for motherhood while others need to provide a second income for their families during tough financial times.

“When it comes to volunteering, there aren’t a lot of new faces these days,” said Peninsula High School Principal Kelly Johnson. “There used to be more turnover, but we’re seeing the same people all the time now.”

When Mary Lu Swartz signed up to work on the graduation night committee five years ago, plenty of parents turned out to help. But when she was planning the event three years ago, there weren’t enough chaperons to oversee the safe-and-sober celebration. So she recruited her husband and son, who was home from college.

“When I first started volunteering in the district, one mom worked and 29 stayed at home,” said Swartz, who began volunteering 22 years ago. “Now it’s reversed. Almost all the moms work. It’s made it harder to spread the responsibility around.”

When library positions were slashed in the early 1980s, school librarian Mary Oran said, the school began to rely heavily on volunteers. Back then, about 35 to 40 would regularly sign up to help, she said, but this year, 12 parents volunteered and only five committed to a regular schedule.

“As the years have progressed, we’ve become more dependent on volunteers,” Oran said. “But there are fewer people who can help out.”

Volunteers also raise nearly $1 million each year for the schools. The district receives minimal federal funds, the majority of which are allocated to schools in low socioeconomic areas. According to the Los Angeles County Office of Education, 1% of Peninsula students meet the funding criteria for federal funds.

For example, in the 1994-95 school year, the Peninsula district received $3,593 per pupil while students in Inglewood received $3,485 from the state. But on top of that, the Inglewood district received more than $4.5 million in federal funds while Peninsula schools received only $574,000. Peninsula volunteers, however, were able to pump nearly $1 million into the school while Inglewood officials report no fund-raising efforts occurred in the district.

“In order to keep as many programs as we have, we have to raise the funds ourselves,” volunteer Mary Jo Mock said. “The district can’t afford it, but we want to maintain the level of programs that we have.”

Mock is one of many volunteers returning to work. She will resume a public relations career since she will have the added expense of sending her son to college next year.

At the end of June, she will leave her post as co-president of a district PTA council and her trustee position on the education foundation. In the fall, she will step down as president of the high school’s Multicultural Advisory Board.

Similarly, Constance McBirney, president of the Monte Malaga Elementary School PTA, vice president of the PTA council and an auditor for the junior high school’s PTA, will step down from her position at the elementary school to work a part-time job teaching computers there.

Volunteers such as Mock and McBirney have shouldered more responsibilities as the Peninsula population has aged, sending fewer students into the schools. Only 20% of Peninsula households have school-age children, and the median age of residents has climbed from 38 in 1980 to 44 in 1990, according to census reports.

City Planner David Wahba said young families with schoolchildren cannot afford to live on the seaside hill.

The decrease in enrollment has made it difficult to find funding as well as volunteers. A 1987 proposed parcel tax that would benefit the schools was defeated in a local election, and proposals for similar bond measures also have been unsuccessful; people who don’t have children in the schools are generally less interested in education bonds. In 1990, no longer able to financially sustain all its schools, the district consolidated its three high schools and combined the three junior high schools at two of the old high school campuses.

“As the black hole of needing funds gets bigger, we add more fund-raisers and that adds more work,” McBirney said. “It’s getting harder to get volunteers, the same people are volunteering and the same few are getting burned out.”