Coralwood School and Diagnostic Center
Parent Council

Foundation..

Introduction | Mission | Non-Profit Status | Endowment Fund | Board of Directors | Current Committees & Projects | Higher Opportunities for Teachers | Public Relations and Fundraising | Additional Projects | How You Can Help

Introduction..

Since early May 2005 we have a non-profit foundation created to promote educational excellence at Coralwood School. Coralwood Foundation, Inc., as the organization is called, is the “brainchild” of parents, teachers, therapists and school administrators. Realizing they could not rely exclusively on school system funding to continue building Coralwood School into a cutting edge institution in early child education, in late 2004 they decided to join forces and develop a foundation with a permanent endowment fund. The foundation’s goal is to raise $1 million in five years.

Parents have been creating local educational foundations (LEFs) for some time. Common to all LEFs is that they are typically nonprofit and tax-exempt, and they operate as third parties between the community and the school system to promote excellence and innovation. Many got started in the early 1980s, especially in states that experienced tax revolts, such as Massachusetts and California. Parents in these states were concerned that falling tax revenues and shrinking educational budgets were affecting the quality of public education.

While Coralwood Foundation shares many of the concerns of typical LEFs, we have a narrow, unique focus: to encourage educational excellence from within, by empowering Coralwood School teachers to pursue their interests to advance the frontiers of educational excellence for children. We have a truly unique student population, making us ideal protagonists in this initiative. Children are drawn from all across DeKalb County, more than half have some form of disability, 21% receive free or reduced lunches, and 42% are minorities. We envision our school growing its reputation in metro Atlanta and at the national level as a center of innovation in early childhood education for kids of all ability levels.

As our teachers contribute to their knowledge fields and the reputation of our staff grows, so will our ability to partner with institutions and individuals that can help us fund our research, and to turn that learning into models that can be replicated elsewhere. If our vision is correct, Coralwood Foundation may itself turn out to be a replicable model on how schools can upgrade by the bootstraps.