5 Schools to Divide $200,000 Gift Equally for Book Purchases

Five schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District will receive equal shares of the California Community Foundation’s $200,000 grant for textbooks and library books by the end of next week, officials said Wednesday.

The immediate help for those campuses will be followed by an unprecedented effort by the foundation to raise $1 million more for textbook purchases at other district campuses.

Washington Preparatory High School and Crenshaw High have been named so far, with the other three to be added next week, said foundation President Jack Shakely.

Washington High is about 7,000 books short and Crenshaw reported that it needs 3,200 textbooks and 2,700 paperbacks to provide books for every child in every class.

The foundation is working with the district to compile a list ranking the schools in order of need. The amount of money raised will determine how many other schools will be helped.

The immediate help to Washington High couldn’t come at a better time, said student body President Tramiel Clark, a senior who said he has shared and borrowed textbooks since he was a freshman.

Clark said that although teachers strive to make it easier on the students by sharing classroom sets of books or loaning them out after school, he doesn’t feel that he has enough time with the text.

“As for my education, I want to get everything. I just don’t want to be briefing over things,” Clark said.

Along with the immediate relief, which should put textbooks into the hands of 1,000 students by Christmas, Shakely announced Wednesday at a news conference in Washington High’s library the formation of a 10-to 20-member citizens advisory committee to look for long-term solutions to the district’s chronic textbook shortages. The extent of the problem was publicly disclosed in a Times story in July.

The advisory committee, which will be co-chaired by William Ouchi, chairman of the district’s LEARN education reform program, and Virgil Patrick Roberts, a foundation board member and chairman of another reform organization known as LAAMP, will recommend solutions. Preliminary studies have indicated a variety of causes, including student discipline, transiency and supply management.

Shakely said the effort, called the Schoolbook Partnership Fund, will end June 30, when the committee is to present its findings to the district and the public. Shakely said the group hopes to raise the majority of the money--mostly from corporations, philanthropists and company-organized fund-raisers--in the first six weeks.

Roberts said he expects the district to pay close attention to the committee’s recommendations, especially when its findings are made public.

“If we keep it high profile, then the public will know,” Roberts said. The public, in turn, “will have the ability to hold the school district accountable.”

Information about the project can be found on the Internet at: www.calfund.org. The phone number for the fund-raising effort is (213) or (310) CHARITY.

The committee’s first meeting is scheduled for January. Already, several education and business leaders, including Day Higuchi, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, and T.J. Bapti, vice president of corporate relations for Walt Disney Co., have agreed to serve.

The committee also will extend its efforts to the school districts in Compton and Inglewood, offering up to 20% of the funds raised.

Allan Parachini, the foundation’s vice president of communications, said it will be up to each school to decide how the money will be spent--whether on textbooks or library books. Each of the five schools will receive the same amount.

The foundation will supply the grant through its Ralph T. Morris Trust, a memorial fund earmarked for education and health purposes. Shakely said the foundation will absorb all administrative costs, so donations will go directly to buying books.

The foundation is asking for donations in $35 increments, the estimated value of a textbook. To make a contribution, send a check made out to the Schoolbook Partners Fund to the California Community Foundation, 606 S. Olive St., Suite 2400, Los Angeles, CA 90014. The donation can go to a specific school by listing the name in the memo portion of the check.