Each year, Hawai'i's public schools take in more than $2 million in private gifts — everything from alto saxophones and upright pianos to cash to pay for textbooks, computer maintenance, bus excursions, even teacher pay.

While taxpayers contribute roughly $13,000 per student to cover education costs, some schools are growing more dependent on the private sources.

Some smaller schools in particular are now also beginning to count on the gifts to bolster state dollars.

What used to be gravy for her school, said Pauoa Elementary School Principal Roberta Richards, "is now going for bread-and-butter items."

"I want to do a lot of things for our children and I just don't have the financial support," Richards said. "Small schools like mine, we're very poor. These gifts are going to help fill in the gaps."

Whether the gifts come from families, alumni or energetic parent groups, schools have been able to use the extras to enrich programs.

The gifts provide an academic boost to students, said Lea Albert, complex area superintendent for 16 schools on the Windward side.

"I see these gifts as instrumental in ensuring student achievement," Albert said. "Whether it's in the classroom or in athletic activities or co-curricular activities, many of these gifts provide fundamentals — equipment or books or monies for programs."

While Hawai'i's private schools have always counted on help from families or alumni to build endowments to support their efforts, what isn't as widely known is just how much the state's public schools count on the donations.

According to the latest report covering the 2005-06 school year, public schools received $2.1 million in gifts. That's down from the previous two years. In 2004-05, schools got $2.5 million in gifts; in 2003-04, gifts amounted to $2.49 million.

"No matter how much money is given to the schools through taxpayers, you always need some more," said businessman Robin Campaniano, president of the nonprofit Public Schools of Hawai'i Foundation, founded in the mid-1980s to help focus private giving on public education. Since then it has funneled $2.7 million in grants to 1,780 innovative teachers in "Good Ideas" grants in the classroom.

"There's never enough money," Campaniano said. "We seem to support the schools more and more, but could they use more? Yeah."

While schools aren't exactly canvassing their parents for handouts, the concept of private funds paying for public schools has firmly taken hold.

"In my opinion, this is filling in the gaps," said Judy Nagasako, who heads the DOE's business education partnerships office, which oversees and quantifies the gifts.

"There are some who would say the state should fund it, and that's true. But on the other hand, if someone has an idea to use those funds differently, they might get totally different results. We're underfunded when you think of the significance of what we're trying to do."

State funding for schools in Hawai'i falls somewhere in the middle of the pack nationally. A rough calculation of the per-student spending average — taking the total state Department of Education budget of $2.2 billion divided by 175,000 students — is $13,000. The total budget includes all funding sources, including federal funds.

The U.S. Census last month issued a report of each state's average per-pupil spending in the 2004-05 school year. It listed a Hawai'i figure of $8,997.

The system has 257 schools, not including the charter schools.

PRIORITIES RULE

DOE assistant superintendent Randy Moore said the needs in education are virtually limitless, while resources are not. That means decisions must be made, priorities have to be set and projects may have to be put on hold.

"The line between 'nice to have' and 'have to have' is a subjective line," he said. "Air-conditioning, of course, is nice to have. But is it essential? It would be a mischaracterization to say it's stuff the state should have provided and didn't. There are only so many resources, and value judgments come into saying how they're allocated."

With the University of Hawai'i Foundation providing a model by raising millions of dollars for students in the state's public university system, the public schools are getting the hint. And schools aren't averse to letting their parent organizations know how they can help.

But at least one major donor is concerned that too much private money could work against the schools by encouraging state funding to shrink accordingly.

"That's why most people, when they donate, they're kind of hesitant," said Hank Iida, a Windward businessman who set up a $50,000 foundation for the Castle complex a decade ago, and has seen it grow to $130,000 to provide extra help for 10 schools on that side of O'ahu.

"Most big donors would think that way," said Iida, who spent several years spearheading fund-raisers to build the endowment. "So they only fund things that the state couldn't or wouldn't fund."

Along with unexpected gifts from individual families, schools are heavily tapping their parent groups for extra needs.

For example, Richards, the Pauoa Elementary School principal, is awaiting approval on a grant application being done by parent Lynn Murakami-Akatsuka to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs for $50,000 to buy lab equipment and science supplies. The school's student body is predominantly made up of Native Hawaiian and immigrant children.

"Like Pauoa, I'm sure other schools are having a hard time getting additional things beyond positions," Murakami-Akatsuka said. "You'll find a lot of schools doing fundraisers or writing grants or hooking up with the military."

At Mililani Mauka Elementary, Principal Carol Peterson mentioned to her parents that the school would be losing faculty, including a PE and music teacher, when the new elementary school opened two years ago. Parents did the rest.

"They got behind us and we were able to fund-raise and get the positions," Peterson said.

"We're doing OK, position-wise now, but this year we wanted to buy a mobile computer lab that rolls into the classroom, and that was over $30,000. Through donations and fundraising, we got the money. Also the Parent/Teacher Organization funded our part-time art teacher, donating about $12,000 in salary and supplies." It was supplemented by some state funding.

With part-time art teacher Shelleen Lindberg now on the job, students are getting an enriched program, and the classroom teachers have extra time to focus on academics.

"We wouldn't go without PE, music or art because all the teachers are required to teach those things, but the kids wouldn't have that specialized instruction they get from a resource teacher," Peterson said.

DONATION PAYS SALARY

The same goes for physical education instructor Lance Fujioka at Mililani Uka Elementary. For the past two years, his salary has been paid by a donation from the parent group.

It has meant more time for classroom teachers to spend on academics, plus a heightened focus on health and physical activity that Fujioka brings.

"We wanted to get a PE teacher aboard to keep physical education in our school," said PTO president Joreen Murayama, whose organization raises about $55,000 annually for the school by selling everything from magazines to brownies. "But it was also to give teachers extra time to work in their classrooms."

Fujioka has already seen students at the school show increased levels of physical activity.

"A lot of times a classroom teacher would mostly teach sports and competitive games in PE which really plays toward the athletes in the classes, versus trying to push toward building skills and creating enjoyable time for even the less-skilled students," he said. "They're the ones we really want to focus on as well, to create an active lifestyle for them."

Fifth-grader Alexis Kishimoto, 11, said having a full-time PE teacher helped her improve her basketball skills and realize "you can do fun things and still be exercising."

Her father, Alvin Kishimoto, saw his daughter gain the confidence to try out for and earn a spot on a community basketball team.

"What she learned in PE," he said, "carried over into her everyday life."

PTO president Murayama and other parents are delighted with the results, and happy to help.

"Each public school is only allotted so much money," she said, "so we ask what they need and go from there. ... We're trying to really upgrade this school."

VARIETY OF HELP

Parents have bought air-conditioning and new computer programs, maps for the library, balls and jump-ropes for sports programs. They've given money for Big Island trips and weekends at Camp Erdman, where students learn self-reliance. They've also helped support the peer mediators and junior police officers.

Private funds allowed eight teachers from kindergarten through second grade at Hau'ula Elementary School to buy the equivalent of $1,100 worth of new library books for their classrooms — more than doubling the number of books available in each room — all because of a partnership with Kamehameha Schools.

"This kind of support for the classroom really helps," said Hau'ula Principal Bradley Odagiri.

It also means the Stevenson Middle School eighth-graders, all 201 of them, had a rich assortment of prizes at their recent banquet, thanks to more than $1,000 in donations from families at the neighboring feeder school, Noelani Elementary. The effort was spearheaded by Noelani parent Lex Smith, who heard about a lack of donations at their partner middle school and launched an effort to help, pulling in parents like Laura Pennington.

"Private schools such as Punahou and 'Iolani have long been able to benefit from the support of their parents and especially alumni," said Pennington, who spent an afternoon shopping for banquet prizes, including almost 100 gift cards for the Stevenson eighth-graders.

"Not so highlighted," she said, "has been the generosity of public school alumni who give so much back to their schools."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.