Announcing the Falk Laboratory School Parents and Caregivers Endowed Fund for Enrichment!

Fanny Edel Falk Laboratory School is pleased to announce the establishment of the Falk Laboratory School Parents and Caregivers Endowed Fund for Enrichment (FLEFE) through an anonymous gift of nearly $136,000. 

The new endowed fund will allow the school to enhance the educational experiences of students and provide opportunities for development to the school’s faculty and staff, now and for many years into the future.

Each year, faculty and staff of Falk Laboratory School will be invited to submit proposals for enrichment opportunities that are not envisioned in the normal operating budget process. These proposals will be reviewed by Falk’s director and division directors to identify the proposal(s) with the greatest impact. When Falk’s Endowed Fund for Enrichment matures in 2025, its annual income will help to fund the identified initiatives while its principal will grow in perpetuity.

While the Endowed Fund for Enrichment is new, the monies establishing the fund date back more than 60 years, to the establishment of The Falk School Fund by the Falk School Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) in 1962. The PTA (which has since been replaced by the Falk Parent Organization) created the Fund to enhance Falk’s educational program and operations. The Fund was used for non-operating expenses not included in the budget, with examples ranging from partial support of the WonderLab to the Imagination Playground blocks now found on the rooftop terrace, along with guest speakers and even a ping pong table.

The gift to form the Endowed Fund liquidates the monies held in the Falk Fund, which was held in a local bank and managed by the Falk School Fund Board of Trustees, and transfers them to the full control of Falk Laboratory School. Anonymous trustees elected to gift the funds to Falk in hopes that the monies can serve the best interest of Falk faculty, staff, and students, now and well into the future. The elected parent representatives on Falk’s School Board will serve as stewardees of the fund.

In this way, the creation of the new Endowed Fund bridges the generosity of past generations of Falk families to current and future generations of Falk students and their families.

“This fund honors the contributions of Falk families from as far back as 1962, which will continue to support Falk students present and future,” says Dr. Jill Sarada, director of Falk Laboratory School.

The Endowed Fund is Falk’s sixth endowed fund, joining the Marshall Family Resource Fund; the Donna Priore Fund; the Sanford Robinson Jr. Memorial Fund; The Rao Family Student Excellence Award; and the Excellence in Teaching Scholarship Award. However, it is Falk’s first endowed fund that is available to all faculty and staff, with its benefits accruing to all students.