An ampitheater will create an outdoor learning space for Southold elementary school students.
During a time when school districts, faced with Common Core, a two percent tax cap and crippling budget cuts, are making do with less, staff and students in the Southold Union Free School District are getting creative in finding ways to fund projects that will enhance kids’ educational experiences.
To that end, the brand-new Southold School Educational Foundation, which was formed in June, 2013, is a non-profit organization that can act to raise funds for extras for students, such as a new television studio.
The Foundation, Board of Education member Judi Fouchet said, has been in the works for a long time. “We’re ready to rock and roll,” she said.
In addition, students have launched a Go Fund Me campaign to also raise funding for the “cutting edge” television programming and film productions they hope to produce in the district.
“In the past few decades, digital media production has expanded to include digital graphics, animation, digital television, video, and movie production,” the project description reads on Go Fund Me. “With this gofundme campaign we are aiming to create a new state of the art, digitally equipped studio — SOHO TV — that will not only prepare our students, and those from surrounding school districts, for potential careers in media production, but will also serve the community by providing exciting in-depth coverage and documentaries about our local community.”
The description adds, “Through the acquisition of digital cameras, audio equipment, computer software and hardware, the SOHO TV studio will be able to produce engaging cinematic-quality programming. Utilizing the latest digital technologies, students will become career and college ready, developing sought-after skills in media production. It is our goal at SOHO TV to create a dynamic and lively media center at Southold School that connects students to community partners, and the community to our school.”
The Go Fund Me campaign has raised $890 of a $15,000 goal so far.
The Southold School Educational Foundation is a 501(c3)non-profit organization created to support the Southold School community in a variety of ways, with an overall mission of providing “an avenue for funding innovative ideas that will enrich the education of our students as well as bring our parents, students, alumni, and town citizens together as one community supporting Southold School District,” the organization’s mission statement reads.
In addition, Fouchet said, events such as a recent 5K & Fun Run hosted by the Southold Athletic Association, help to fund projects that promote health and wellness, such as new play equipment in the elementary school playground — and a brand new ampitheatre, which will be used as a learning center for kids. The event, organized by elementary school gym teacher Pete Salerno, is an example, Fouchet said, of how faculty and administrators are finding ways, despite the looming two percent tax cap “to get the little stuff done” that enriches a child’s learning experience.
The Foundation, Fouchet added, will allow the district to raise “a lot of money” for programs to benefit kids. “Now we have a mechanism,” Fouchet said.
For additional information about the Southold School Educational Foundation, go to Southoldef.org.
