The bylaws of CCLF are the core organizational document. They outline the primary purpose of CCLF (See Article 2), the membership (Article 4 -- parents and guardians of any child attending Coyote Creek Elementary School), the composition of the Board of Directors (Article 5 -- which includes the Principal, a teacher, a classified employee, etc.) and general operational guidelines on how and when meetings are held, how action is taken, the role of officers and committees, financial reporting, etc. If you have any questions or comments regarding the CCLF bylaws, please do not hesitate to e-mail our Board President, Paul C. Minney.
Memorandum of Understanding with SRVEF
Instead of incurring the time and expense of creating a separate nonprofit public benefit corporation, the Coyote Creek Learning Fund (CCLF) has decided to affiliate with the San Ramon Valley Education Foundation ("Foundation"). As an "affiliate" of the Foundation, CCLF operates and functions as an auxiliary organization of the Foundation under the umbrella and group exemption of the Foundation's 501(c)(3) group tax exemption. As a condition precedent to operating as an affiliate, each affiliate organization is required to execute a Memorandum of Understanding, which obligates CCLF to abide by the policies, rules and regulations of the Foundation relative to operating and maintaining its status as an affiliate of the Foundation. The primary goals and objectives of the Memorandum of Understanding are to emphasize the importance of fiscal prudence, the development of effective governing policies and guidelines, the implementation of appropriate checks and balances in fiscal reporting, and the maintenance of adequate and timely records for audit purposes. Included is the Memorandum of Understanding for the 2004/2005 school year as well as the 2005/2006 school year.
Guidelines
Most of the hard work and labor for the annual fundraising activities of CCLF are handled by committees. CCLF currently has two standing committees: (1) the annual Golf Tournament Committee and; (2) the annual Spring Auction committee. The Committee Guidelines approved by the CCLF Board, outline committee composition and selection, authority for execution of contracts, obligations for timelines and reporting of events, reporting and budgeting to the CCLF Board, insurance, marketing, media response, and resolution of complaints or concerns. Should you have any questions or wish to volunteer for one of these committees, please contact the Board Secretary, Rachele O'Loane.
Creation of CCLF
Unfortunately, based upon the under funding of public schools as a whole, and more specifically the disparate funding of the San Ramon Valley Unified School District as compared to the surrounding school districts, each District school site has created a separate Fund in order to generate additional resources to provide educational enhancements. Initially, the Learning Fund was operated by the School site personnel and fundraising activities were handled by the PTA. However, this arrangement had its limitations. First, PTA's traditional and primary functions are about community building, volunteer coordination and advocacy programs, and not necessarily about fundraising. And second, as the Fund's activities began to grow it was drawing more time away from School site staff.
Consequently, at a parent meeting held on February 28, 2005 , information was presented on Coyote Creek's curriculum goals, the challenges of school financing, and the importance of the creation of the new Coyote Creek Learning Fund (CCLF). In a nutshell, the CCLF will combine into one nonprofit corporation the private fundraising activities of the existing Learning Fund and the major PTA fundraisers (for example, spring auction, golf tournament, etc.). This change allowed the PTA to return to its original purpose of advocacy for children, community building programs, and volunteer services for the School. For a number of reasons, including, direct involvement of parents, better insulation from liability, the ability to multiyear plan, the ability to hold larger fundraising activities, it was decided that the Learning Fund would be converted into an affiliate of the San Ramon Valley Education Foundation (as has 16 other schools in the District) to better promote the mission of the Learning Fund ( Mission : Maintain and enhance quality of education and environment of Coyote Creek). Accordingly, the original Learning Fund was converted to the Coyote Creek Learning Fund effective March 2005. (To learn more about the reasons for this important conversion please view the PowerPoint presentation).
