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Every month, the 11 dealers on the Sunnyvale Auto Row sell almost 1,500 vehicles, and through a new partnership with the Sunnyvale School District Education Foundation, that could translate into thousands of dollars for local schools.
The foundation and the auto dealers on Feb. 1 kicked off the "Support Our Schools" program. Every dealer now has forms that can be used to give $100 from every car sale directly to the foundation. That money will then be used to fund school programs.
"We hope people will do it because they want to give funds to Sunnyvale schools, but it will also get people who live in Sunnyvale to shop in Sunnyvale," said foundation president Geoff Ainscow.
Ainscow described the program as a "win-win" for the schools and the car dealers at the Jan. 31 city council meeting.
Ainscow said the program came out of a meeting with Sunnyvale Toyota owner Adam Simms, a member of the Sunnyvale Auto Dealers Association Advisory Committee.
"We're pleased to be part of a program to help support the Sunnyvale school system," Simms said, "and as good retailers, we want everyone to shop where they live. Then the money goes back into the community."
Simms said he thinks it will be a successful program once it picks up, because he estimates that one third of all the people who buy cars in Sunnyvale are parents of Sunnyvale students.
Customers must fill out forms to have money given to schools. They can specify what school they want to receive the funds, and even specify what item they want their contribution spent on. Ainscow said that the foundation will write checks to any school people choose, not just those in Sunnyvale, but he hopes the majority of funds will stay in Sunnyvale.
The program runs until June 30, but Ainscow and Simms both said they hope this pilot program will become an ongoing collaboration.
Some of the money will be put toward the foundation's 3-year-old library project, designed to hire teaching librarians for each school.
By 2010, the foundation wants to have 10 teaching librarians--people with teaching credentials and advanced degrees in library technology--in Sunnyvale schools to help teachers use the Internet to plan lessons and develop programs for math and science classes.
"The information on the web these days for education is amazing. The problem is that we don't have people in the schools who can make it work, and that's what teaching librarians are for," Ainscow said.
Sunnyvale's first and only teaching librarian joined Lakewood Elementary School in September 2004. Ainscow said it costs almost $100,000 to fund one teaching librarian for one year, including salary and support staff.
"We think it will transform the Sunnyvale school system and make the districts some of the best in the country," Ainscow said.
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