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FAQS

Are my donations tax deductible?

Yes, donations to the Foundation are tax deductible. It is a designated public charity and exempt pursuant to IRS 501(c)(3).

What is the Foundation’s annual budget?

Approximately $200,000.

Where does the money go?

The Foundation’s budget includes payments to the Newport-Mesa Unified School District for the costs of salaries and benefits of the “Fab 5″. For the 2011/2012 school year, our contract with the District requires that we pay them $179,780, in four payments. The first payment was made September 1, 2011. In addition to paying the salaries and benefits for the Fab 5, we pay for upkeep to existing computer equipment, buy new computer hardware, and other items that the school needs but the District won’t pay for.

Who are the Fab 5?

The Fab 5 includes Jake Topete (our “teacher on special assignment), Josh Hilo (our on-site technology guru and computer networking expert), Regina Freiberg (upper grade aide), Diana Jennings (kinder and 1st grade aide), and Sharon Sutton (librarian aide). Without these people, common computer issues (such as “I can’t log in”, “Accelerated Math is down”, “the printer’s not printing”, “Internet is down”, “my Smart board won’t access the network”) would be relegated to a District employee who would come to our school in a couple of days to fix it. With Josh Hilo on site, teachers can spend there time teaching, rather than solving computer problems.

What does Jake Topete do?

Jake performs many functions at the school. One area of interest is his work with data generated by the computer programs used by the kids, including testing and Accelerated Math. Jake takes the data, analyzes tendencies, and discusses his results and analysis with the teachers to help them focus their teaching on particular subjects or particular students. He has determined, for example, that one 2nd grade class performs better on a particular STAR testing subject (on one of the practice tests), and initiates a discussion between the teachers regarding how they are teaching it so they can learn from each other for the benefit of the students.

What did the Foundation buy for the School in the 2010/2011 school year?

Last year your donations allowed us to keep our school on technology’s cutting edge – with your donations, we purchased for the school:

• 114 Netbook computers (this year, both 5^th and 6^th graders will use these small laptops in the classroom)
• 78 desktop computers and 15 new monitors
• 20 laser printers, and 40 laser printer cartridges
• About $10,000 worth of wireless networking equipment
• 210 computer memory chips (1GB RAM) to upgrade current equipment