BY LAYLI WHYTE
Staff Writer
LAYLI WHYTE This new computer lab at Knollwood Middle School was funded by the Fair Haven Education Foundation. FAIR HAVEN — After the success of last year’s fund-raising efforts that led to a new computer lab for Knollwood Middle School, the Fair Haven Education Foundation has set its sights this year on the stage.
The big project for this year, according to Doug Edler, president of the foundation, will be to raise funds for enlarging the stage and acquiring new sound and lighting equipment for the expanding theater program.
“Participation in the performing arts at Knollwood has increased dramatically,” said Edler. “Over the past three years, enrollment in the program has gone up 60 percent. Overall enrollment in the school has risen marginally, but not 60 percent.”
Edler said that the budget for the project has been set at $28, 380.
“We’re hoping to get a grant,” he said. “We’re working on it.”
The foundation was able to obtain a grant for last year’s purchase of 26 Dell computers, which freed up Knollwood’s old computers for Sickles primary school.
Edler said the grant application for that project was submitted at this time last year, and that the computers were purchased last December with a total of $25,415.
He credited Patricia Young, technology director at Knollwood, with much of the success of the new lab.
“She did a tremendous job installing all of the computers herself, instead of waiting for a Dell representative,” Edler said. “That saved the school $1,200. Dell gave us a credit for that, which allowed us the purchase another computer.”
“We’re hoping to do one big project every year,” he said. “It takes a lot of community involvement because that’s where we get our funding from.”
Edler said the 11 members of the foundation send out a newsletter every spring to update parents. They also hold a dinner-dance that helps raise significant funds. The money earned from the sale of calendars every year also adds to the funds the foundation has to work with.
“The calendars are oversubscribed this year so we had to go back to the publisher,” he said.
Edler said that the foundation hopes to raise as much money as it can, while asking the residents for as little money as possible. One idea put forth is to hold a raffle of a donated car, which would be open to people outside the borough. Although the foundation has had a raffle license for some time, no one has stepped forward to donate the car.
The one big annual project is not the only focus the foundation has. Beginning in the previous school year, seventh-graders were asked to submit ideas for mini-grants. Edler said that nearly all submissions were funded.
“If all of the ideas came from the students, it would be even better,” said Edler. “They’re the ones that know what they need best.”
Edler also said he was very interested in looking into the possibility of using PDAs (personal digital assistants) in science classes, a technique, he said, that is currently being implemented in the Colts Neck school district.
Edler said that his biggest hope is that the foundation can join forces with the Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School and the Rumson education foundations at some point in the future, to have a regional group. He said this might ease the donation burden on the residents in both towns because it would be one group asking for donations fewer times a year.