How Our Schools Are Funded: A 4-Part Series

Three Streams, One Great Education

Part 1

Ask anyone why they moved to Lafayette and you’ll hear the same answer: the schools.

Here's what many families don't know: state funding doesn't cover all of it. Our districts are among the lower-funded in California, and the basic funding they receive falls thousands of dollars short per student of what our schools actually cost to run.

Lafayette's education is built on three streams. State funding provides the foundation. Local parcel taxes and community giving through LPIE make up the difference — and both of those exist because this community invested in them.

Take away any one stream, and the education our kids receive changes.

Over the next three weeks, we’ll take the local pieces one at a time — what each does, what it doesn’t do, and why our schools need all of them. Two minutes each, no jargon.

— The LPIE Team

Today’s Education, Every Year: The LPIE Annual Giving Campaign

Part 2

The Annual Giving Campaign is LPIE’s engine for today. Every year, gifts from families like yours directly fund people and programs across all six Lafayette public schools:

•   Credentialed art, music, and science instruction

•   Wellness and counseling support

•   Expanded advanced placement and elective courses

•   Technology and classroom resources

•   Supplies in every department

•   Academic intervention for students who need it

Here’s the key thing: this funding is spent the same year it’s given. It renews every summer because the needs renew every summer. That’s not a flaw — it’s the design. The Annual Giving Campaign goes wherever today’s students need it most, in the year they need it. And it reaches everyone: 100% of students in Lafayette’s public schools benefit from LPIE-funded people and programs each year.

Today’s Education, Every Year: The LPIE Endowment

Part 3

Think of the LPIE Endowment as an orchard, not a harvest. When someone gives to the Endowment, that gift is planted permanently. The fund is invested and grows. When distributions begin, only a small portion will be paid out each year, so the original gifts keep working, year after year.

It’s the same model great universities use, and it does something the annual campaign can’t: it creates a permanent, self-sustaining source of support that doesn’t depend on any single year’s fundraising — or on Sacramento.

The annual campaign answers the question “what do our students need this year?” The Endowment answers a bigger one. It was built to create new opportunities — new programs, new possibilities, and investments our schools couldn’t otherwise reach — and to keep creating them for students who haven't started kindergarten yet. That was the vision of the foundational families who established it: today, tomorrow, and beyond.

Thanks to visionary early donors, as of September 2026, the Endowment has grown to over $15 million — and it is still building toward the point where it begins making annual distributions to our schools. Every gift moves that day closer.

Three Streams. Four Different Jobs.

Part 4

State funding is essential, but it isn't enough for the education our community expects — and how much our schools receive isn't something Lafayette decides.

Parcel taxes are local, voter-approved dollars that stay in our community and are dedicated to supporting our public schools. Lafayette students are served by two school districts, each with its own voter-approved local funding measures. In June 2026, the community renewed this support by approving Measure H for the Lafayette School District, and this November, voters will consider Measure W for the Acalanes Union High School District. Together, these local measures help narrow the gap between state funding and the cost of providing the educational programs our community values, though they do not close it entirely.  

The LPIE annual campaign funds today’s people and programs in every school — given and spent each year, reaching 100% of students.

The LPIE Endowment funds what’s next — a permanent fund built to create new opportunities in our schools, for this generation and every one after, without depending on any single year’s fundraising.

Each one does a job the others can’t. State funding can't stretch to the education our community expects. Parcel taxes can’t fund beyond their ballot language. The annual campaign can’t promise anything beyond this year — the Endowment is the only one built to, and it’s the only one whose job is what comes next. Great schools happen when all four jobs get done — and every one of them exists because this community invests in it, year after year.