Excellence Fund, An Austin High Tradition
Austin High School’s EXCELLENCE FUND provides a great way to directly impact your student’s education. Now in its twenty-fourth year, the Excellence Fund partners with our school to enrich student academics and activities, ensuring continued budget-resilient excellence in the classroom.
Contribute To An Austin High Tradition
PTSA Excellence Fund
The Austin High School Excellence Fund was established 28 years ago to help ensure continued excellence in academics and other student activities. Each year, staff needs far outweigh the available resources. The Excellence Fund committee assesses special requests from Austin High staff and 100% of the contributions are disbursed.
Thanks to the contributions of AHS parents, alumni and family foundations last year over $78,000 was available to allocate toward the enrichment of the Austin High academic, student and administrative activities. Some of last year’s purchases are: A Smartboard for the math department, Nystrom desk atlas, skill books for social studies, choral and instrumental sheet music, printers, ink cartridges, document cameras and projectors, History Alive text books, Debate tournament fees, Ipod for dance/PE, copper and plastic plates for printmaking, back curtain for the theatre, X&Y graph whiteboard for the math department, metronome, Dell laser printer, Subscription-Gale Database for the Library, US History videos, Goode’s world atlas, glass bead kit, ceiling mounted projector for the counseling center, link crew leaders operating funds, AP math exam prep question books, ceramics supplies, Ballet Folklorico, American Heritage dictionaries, rolling make-up storage case for the theatre department, Apple Imac for the fine Arts department, chairs for the new culinary arts café, Diana camera, converter analog to SDI for the CTE department, books for language arts department, art supplies, and a High def camcorder for the CTE department.
Donations may be earmarked for specific departments or activities and are tax deductible. Please consider a generous donation. Click here for a donation form and mailing instructions or Click here to donate online (scroll to Excellence Fund).
Cha-Ching: Financial Giving
By Elise Schram
If you are new to the Austin High School family, you may be confused by the myriad of requests for monetary donations. First, the PTSA is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization. We solicit donations for a variety of our committees on our Membership Form that comes home with every student in their Back-to-School Packets. 100% of the money designated on that form for the different committees goes to fund those committees’ activities in the current school year. The PTSA, also, receives a portion of every membership fee and raises money at our one fundraising event, the Valentine Breakfast. This money is allocated through our budgeting process for everything from printing the newsletters to supplementing the budgets of each of the PTSA’s Standing Committees according to need. One of the largest of the PTSA’s donation designees is the Excellence Fund. The PTSA’s Excellence Fund was created by the AHS PTSA in the early 1980’s to offer parents and alums the opportunity to make contributions that will be spent by the PTSA in the year they are received. Teachers make formal requests for money from this fund, and a committee of no more than eight PTSA members meets early in the school year to allocate the donations based on the number of students benefited, impact on academic achievement, and impact on student and administrative activities. The annual budget for the fund generally ranges from $15,000 to $40,000 per school year and promotes excellence in the classrooms by providing teachers funding for things the district cannot provide.
The Austin High Endowment was set up by the PTSA in 1999 to be a permanent fund with its income available for distribution to the PTSA Excellence Fund. These funds are not necessarily distributed in the year they are received, and the Austin Community Foundation holds and invests them. Cash, stock, life insurance, and other property are accepted as permanent additions to the Endowment to ensure the school’s long-term success. It is a great place to make memorial contributions and honor graduates or teachers.
Stephen F. Austin Society is not a part of the PTSA but was set up by AHS alums and parents in 2002 to support extracurricular programs at AHS. The SFA Society has one fundraising event a year (usually the Sunday of Labor Day weekend) and has already distributed more than $200,000 in grants to promote extracurricular excellence. Booster clubs and activity directors make formal requests for the funds. This year’s fundraising dinner will be Sunday, September 5.
Another way to give is through Booster Clubs, and there are many! Each class, Freshmen through Seniors, has a booster club to raise money for their senior year activities. Each sport has a booster club to raise money for things the district cannot provide. Band, Theatre, Debate, Red Jackets, Orchestra, etc. all have booster clubs as well. Some booster clubs keep their funds in campus accounts and others keep them off-campus. Many of the Booster Clubs are set up as individual tax-exempt groups separately regulated by the same tax code as the PTSA, and are allowed only two tax-free fundraising events per year.