LEF’s purpose is to support the students and teachers in LISD schools.
Lee has been a longtime LISD parent with all four of his sons attending LISD schools and graduating from Marcus High School. He served in various positions with LEF, the last one being the vice president of communications. In addition, Lee previously served as the LISD director of marketing.
Lee spoke with Community Impact about LEF’s purpose in the district and how he plans to use his skill set in this role. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
When and why was LEF formed?
LEF was established as a public, nonprofit corporation in 1990. The first executive director was Janet Luttrell. Our mission statement is to enrich the quality of public education in the 13 communities served by LISD by being a vehicle for securing private funding benefiting LISD teachers and students.
When and why did you become the executive director of LEF?
Not only do I have passions for LEF and LISD, I have experience with both. I was on the board of LEF for eight years, and I've been on staff at LISD now for seven years.
I was in the corporate world for over 30 years, mainly in the telecom industry, I didn't have a college degree and was very successful. I was retired when our former superintendent, Kevin Rogers, asked me if I'd be interested in working in the school district, so I did. I had already decided that I really wanted to go back and get my degree. So in my 60s, I went back to school in 2016 and got my bachelor's in organizational leadership. Because of that, I got the director of marketing position, which is the position I really wanted. It required a degree, and that led me right into the executive director of LEF, which also requires a degree.
What is one of your nine month goals?
In nine months, I want to bring in some creative themed-based marketing programs to expose people to LEF. I want to use the experience I have from owning media companies ,and as the director of marketing with LISD, to create a big video archive of scholarship recipients' interviews showing where they are now and with our teachers— showing what they did with the teacher grants.
How does LEF benefit LISD?
We have broken the nonprofit’s efforts into four categories: senior scholarships, teacher grants, campus grants and staff fellowships.
We usually award 400 scholarships a year ranging from $500 to $10,000 each. We normally do about $300,000 a year in scholarships. We had 1,000 applications last year.
Teacher grants provide funding for many things, including innovative curriculum. LEF awards over $100,000 in teacher grants every year. Campus grants are issued to principals and assistant principals and are basically project oriented to improve curriculum, campuswide involvement or achievements. Staff fellowships are given for staff to continue their education. We offer fellowships up to $1,000 for that.
When do you feel successful as it pertains to LEF?
I've heard a lot of our volunteers and staff say that the best days of their entire involvement with LEF is seeing those teachers’ faces when we go to the schools in big groups waving pom poms and blowing whistles to give the checks. There are tears, the kids are screaming—it gives you goosebumps. The [big] event in May, when we give the scholarships, the house is packed. I say those too, but to me, in addition to that, success is by signing the deals on the dotted line with our contributors ... that will be long-term financial support for LEF. They are our life blood, they are the fuel that makes our engine go.
What is one of your nine-month goals?
In nine months, I want to bring in some creative themed-based marketing programs to expose people to LEF. I want to use the experience I have ... to create a video archive of scholarship recipients' interviews showing where they are now and interviews with our teachers that show what they did with their grants.
