MBEF Raises Record Money for 2019-2020 School Year

By Clare Beezhold

News Editor

The Manhattan Beach Education Foundation announced in early August that the 2019-20 school year grant is the largest ever at $6.5 million. 

MBEF’s increase in grant funding for this school year is due to an increase in overall donations to the Annual Appeal last year, a larger disbursement from the MBEF Endowment. The endowment is an organization that works to provide a sustainable funding source for the Manhattan Beach Unified School District.

“Our community is astonishing, innovative, intelligent and extremely generous,” MBEF Executive Director Hilary Mahan said. “I credit our parents, business leaders, educators and board of directors with the achievement this year. Their dedication to strengthening the public schools in Manhattan Beach and supporting our students is clearly meaningful to our community.”

Manhattan Beach Education Foundation was founded in 1983 and is used to raise money to improve Manhattan Beach public schools. It is the only parent organization in MBUSD that is allowed to pay for teachers and staff at Manhattan Beach school sites. MBEF is a California nonprofit and public benefit corporation and directs the funding to the District with specific grants that reach all students K-12. 

“I can’t wait to see what MBUSD does with the grants,” junior Brynn Shapiro said. “We are really lucky to have an organization like MBEF that helps raise so many funds to help our schools.” 

At Costa, the grants went toward enhancing math instruction by providing math resources and professional development,  according to Dale. It went to science and math teachers on special assignment (TOSAs) who have a period where they work with science and math teachers to build curriculum and assessments. The grants also pay for extra counseling services and the librarian’s salary, and it supplements the music and performing arts services at Costa. 

“We do not provide funding to the District arbitrarily – our over 30 person volunteer Board relies on the grant guidelines to determine the annual grants each year,” Mahan said.