While schools across the state are suffering from cuts in state and local budgets, parents at a Bay Area school district are taking matters into their own hands.
In less than four weeks, parents in the Cupertino Union School District raised a whopping $1 million for the district, which is facing a $7.3 million deficit because of state budget cuts.
A total of 107 teachers out of 900 in the district were handed pink slips and the jobs of 106 others are on the chopping block. When the parents learned for the proposed layoffs, they went to work.
"We've shown by raising the first million we are standing up to benefit our own children," Sandy Liu said.
Cupertino Union has a national reputation for excellent schools and many families moved to the area so their kids could be in the district.
"It's taken a lot for us to afford the district," Linda Sell said, "and I volunteer in the district so I want to keep what we have."
Even though they hit a milestone million, the parents say they're not done yet. They want to keep going to raise $2 million more to save all the teachers.
So far, it's estimated 30 teachers' jobs have been saved because of the parents' hard work. And the more money they raise, the more their kids' class sizes shrink. Classes have already gond from about 30 students to one teacher to 24 to one.
The parents and the district have agreed to dedicate the money from the fundraising drive strictly toward saving teachers' jobs.
