Last week, we praised the efforts of the Los Gatos Education Foundation and urged residents to support its effort to raise $1 million to save teachers' jobs and educational programs at the elementary and middle schools.

But the LGEF does not generate funds for the high school—that's the job of the New Millennium Foundation. And while the LGEF was in the home stretch of its drive to $1 million in the early days of March, that "other foundation" was doling out the dollars it raised over the past year to support students at the high school level.

The New Millennium Foundation showed up at March 1 staff meeting at the high school with its checkbook open. The foundation distributed nearly $110,000 in grants to teachers in many different departments, funds that promise to enhance the learning process for the high school students.

The beneficiary of most of that financial support this year was the math department at the school. Math students have recently moved into a new building on campus, and the NMF grant of $75,000 will go a long way toward outfitting those new classrooms with much-needed, state-of-the-art equipment.

More than 80 percent of the $75,000 grant will go toward the purchase of two wireless computer labs. The portable computers can be used in any classroom and will feature geometry software that will provide students a hands-on approach to learning.

With the $110,000 donation this spring, the New Millennium Foundation has now presented the high school with more than $367,000 in grants in its three years of operation. The major recipients of the grants include the science department (nearly $100,000), the math department ($75,000), athletics (more than $55,000), information technology (more than $55,000), performing arts (more than $25,000) and social studies (more than $17,000). Significant grants have also been given to the English department, journalism, the library and industrial technology.

The community owes a debt of gratitude to foundation Chairwoman Joanne Rodgers and her New Millennium Foundation committee. Bond dollars may pay for new buildings and state funding may pay the salaries of the teachers and administrators, but it is through the efforts of these hard-working volunteers that the tools necessary for a quality education are provided for students at the high school level.

Their work, however, is not done. The presentation of grants is just the end of one part of the cycle—now the work begins to raise funds so that similar grants can be presented in 2005.

The New Millennium Foundation, like the Los Gatos Education Foundation, needs the annual financial support of community members in order to maintain the high quality of public education that we've come to expect in Los Gatos.