Mark Munger
I'm Mark Munger, and this is a Manager's Special from Siouxland Public Media. The Sioux City Public Schools Foundation is searching for new leadership. Jonathan Blum, the interim director, is leading the search. We began our conversation talking about the particular challenges a new leader will face.
Jonathan Blum
From a broad 30,000 foot level, the attacks you know, on funding for public education are, are very real and, and very destructive at times, to the way that schools can provide great education to the students, including my daughter. It's very important to me. So trying to fill in these gaps between the public funding and what it needs to really serve the students and give them what they really need is real, and the gap keeps getting larger. So at that level, this private fundraising and corporate and community support for the Foundation, which directly supports the public school district, is more important than ever.
Mark Munger
Can I go back to the beginning of that answer, which is a great answer, when you say that the immediate challenges that public schools are facing for funding? Can you articulate the most immediate challenges right now.
Jonathan Blum
I mean, we're not even keeping up with inflation on the funding that comes from the State. The State seems to continue to centralize some of those funding decisions at the state level, rather than here in our local communities. And it becomes very difficult. There were the, the for lack of a better term, the vouchers where private schools are now receiving funding from state resources, which makes it you know, there's only one pie, and taking taking a piece out of that pie for non-public school related expenses is going to hurt. It's going to hurt every time, but it's becoming more and more expensive just to give these kids a great education. It's different than when you and I, and I'm not gonna try to age us or anything, but we had books that we opened up, right and, you know, those were not cheap, but now we have to have almost every kid from pre-K on have a device that they're able to work on and maintain. This just continues and continues to escalate in cost.
Mark Munger
Yeah, I think the way we protected our materials was by making a cover out of brown paper sacks for our books. That has certainly changed.
Jonathan Blum
I was exposed as a non-artist with my my grocery sack art.
Mark Munger
In the conversations you're having, do the donors raise concerns that are contemporary?
Jonathan Blum
I had a great experience as a public school student, and, you know, just to pay it forward a bit, should be our fundamental mission here as a society, to, you know, to increase the well-being of the next generation. And that is a lot of what the driving concern is, you know. Let's make sure our kids are all right. But other than that, I mean, the nonprofit fundraising world is in crisis, I don't use that term lightly. I don't resort to hyperbole on this. The stats are showing 85% of nonprofits in this country are anticipating a greatly increased need for their services over the next year, but we're looking at somewhere around 54% of them that don't even know if they can cash flow through the next three months.
Mark Munger
Jonathan Blum, interim director of the Sioux City Public School Foundation, talking to me about their search for a new director. I'm Mark Munger. This is a Manager's Special from Siouxland Public Media.
