Frequently Asked Questions
The suggested donation amount is $750 per student. We understand that every family has different circumstances, so please contribute what is comfortable for you. No donation is too small, and if you are able to give more, please do! Every dollar counts and will make a difference in our community goal. We are striving for 100% participation!
We can process donations via credit card and check. If your employer participates, you can also ask them to match your donation; you may need to provide your donation receipt.
Some employers also have their own giving websites you can use to donate (see below for more details). Important: If you give through your employer’s giving site, make sure you report your gift to be counted toward the Classroom Competition!
WVPTO may publish a thank-you list with donor names (but never amounts given), and your display name can be customized if you register an account. If you don’t want to be listed, you can tick the “anonymous” box, and we won’t put your name on anything public. Your name will still be in our records for tax purposes.
Register a WVPTO portal account! When you log in, you’ll see an option to set the name we should use to credit you. You can change this to “Jane & John Doe” or “The Smith Family” or whatever style of credit you prefer.
We use your email address to match donations to our Konstella class rosters for the Classroom Competition. If you donate on this site or report your gift using the same email address you use for Konstella, you should see your donation boost your kids’ classroom participation rate immediately!
Important: If you gave through your employer’s giving site, make sure you report your gift to be counted toward the competition!
If you used a non-Konstella email address when submitting your donation or reporting your outside gift, you can get your donation counted by following these steps:
- Register an account using the email you used to donate.
- Click the link in the activation email you receive and add your Konstella email address using this form.
Or email us at directdonation@wvpto.org and we’ll get you set up. We can help if you’re not yet on Konstella or if you need to adjust your class assignments there.
If you have an account, you can see which class(es) you’re backing in the Classroom Competition by logging in and clicking “Supported Classrooms” in your WVPTO portal account. If you don’t see your classes listed, you might have a different email address you use for Konstella, or you might not have your class assignments set up in your Konstella profile — email us and we’ll check that for you.
After donating through your employer’s giving site, make sure you report your gift to be counted toward the competition! We use your email address to match donations to our Konstella class rosters. If you report your gift with the same email address you use for Konstella, you should see your donation boost your kids’ classroom participation rate immediately!
If you used a non-Konstella email address when reporting your outside gift, you can get your donation counted by following these steps:
- Register an account using the email you used to donate.
- Click the link in the activation email you receive and add your Konstella email address using this form.
Or email us at directdonation@wvpto.org and we’ll get you set up. We can help if you’re not yet on Konstella or if you need to adjust your class assignments there.
If you have an account, you can see which class(es) you’re backing in the Classroom Competition by logging in and clicking “Supported Classrooms” in your WVPTO portal account. If you don’t see your classes listed, you might have a different email address you use for Konstella, or you might not have your class assignments set up in your Konstella profile — email us and we’ll check that for you.
Many employers offer a giving program where employees can donate to a qualifying nonprofit through a company-specific website. Often the companies match the gift, so it’s a convenient way to give! If you do this, your donation will be processed by your employer’s donation service (a common one is Benevity) and pooled together with other gifts before we get it after a month or two. Your donation receipt will come from your employer/service. Important: If you give through your employer’s giving site, make sure you report your gift to be counted toward the Classroom Competition!
If you give on donate.wvpto.org directly, we will process your donation and issue your donation receipt from WVPTO by email.
To donate to the PTO, please select “West Valley Parent Teacher Organization” and not “West Valley Elementary”.
“West Valley Elementary” goes to school/district. For example, if you donated $175 via ParentSquare at the beginning of the school year, it went to the school/district. You can reach out to the principal to learn more about how those funds are used.
For your donation to reach us, you must select “West Valley Parent Teacher Organization”. Our budget mostly goes toward school Specials staff (Art, Recess 101, C-Lab, Library) and Instructional Aides, as well as community events and general school/classroom funding support.
Yes, your donation is tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. The West Valley Parent Teacher Organization (WVPTO) is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Our Tax ID is 46-5663137.
Yes, we send receipts to your email address, and you can download them by logging into your account dashboard. Please make sure to keep a copy for tax purposes.
Our Classroom Competition this year ends on October 22 at 11:59pm, but if this time frame doesn’t work for your family, we gratefully accept donations year-round.
In some schools, the PTO only handles community extras and events. We do those too, but WVPTO also covers salaries for several support staff at West Valley:
- 100% of our Art program
- 100% of Recess 101 (P.E. and leadership)
- 100% of C-Lab (STEAM/maker class)
- An additional +50% Library time
- An additional +200% for Instructional Aides for math/reading intervention
These staff costs are not covered by CUSD; and given the Bay Area’s cost of living, salaries make up the large majority of our budget.
On top of this, the district only provides ~$77 per student to the school’s general fund for supplies and service costs for the year. This amount has not kept up with inflation or cost increases. WVPTO provides an additional ~$16,000 in general funds for classrooms and the school ($500 per classroom and $5000 for the school).
West Valley is fortunate to have a dedicated art teacher in award-winning artist Ms. Sanchez. Students experience art projects using a variety of techniques and materials – including ceramics – culminating in a spring Art Show to celebrate their growth over the year. Art at West Valley is 100% parent-funded.
California requires elementary students to receive 200 minutes of physical education every 10 school days (that’s 20 minutes a day on average). But this isn’t funded or staffed by the district until 4th grade — so without parent support, lower grade classroom teachers have to do it all.
Recess 101 is 100% parent-funded and well-loved by the students at West Valley! With the program, we get a dedicated staff member, Coach V, who runs a number of activities each day:
- Older students can join the Recess Leader Program and take on leadership roles. They learn to manage equipment, lead games, organize tournaments and clubs, and help resolve peer conflicts.
- At recess, Coach V leads a diverse range of games and sports-based activities designed to build skills, boost confidence, and encourage active participation.
- Once a week, students go to a Recess 101 physical activity class and practice and learn the rules of various games.
- Over the year, we have games and sports tournaments with the primary goal of encouraging participation, fostering teamwork, and nurturing a spirit of healthy competition.
West Valley’s creative/design program is parent-funded. C-Lab includes a dedicated maker space on campus and biweekly sessions with Mrs. Chew, who received a Superintendent’s Award last year for her excellent work! Students explore hands-on activities that bring their main curriculum to life in a new way. C-Lab projects are designed to help kids practice “The C’s of Creative Lab”:
- Collaboration – working together with others to create something amazing
- Communication – sharing and exchanging ideas clearly
- Creativity – using your imagination and original ideas to make something new
- Critical Thinking – solving problems and making decisions by observing, experimenting, reasoning, and reflecting.
With our librarian, Mrs. Gudan, students learn essential library skills – how to check out and return books, use the computer catalog, find books by call number, use Dewey decimal categories, and more. Read-aloud storytimes (picture books for younger kids, excerpts from chapter books for older ones) expand kids’ worlds with books they might not otherwise encounter. Mrs. Gudan works with teachers to coordinate library books with their curriculum.
Intervention IAs serve identified students who need support in phonemic awareness, phonics, reading and math in small group settings. Historically the district has provided instructional aides to school sites based on perceived need, which means our school has only received one or zero positions.
Note: In 2025-2026, CUSD has committed to provide our school with one intervention IA, and WVPTO has committed to support two more for a total of 3 intervention IAs. However, CUSD has not hired to fill the district position or one of our two PTO positions, so we only have one intervention IA as of this writing. Unfortunately, we have very little control over district hiring, and it seems they are having trouble filling open positions. As a parent, you can request more information on this from the principal and the school district.
Nearly 80% of our budget funds staff for our school day programs: Art, Recess 101, C-Lab, Extended Library, and Instructional Aides. Personnel costs have been rising sharply, so it costs more to keep the same programs we love and expect at West Valley.
For various reasons, California school districts in general and ours in particular are underfunded. Please reach out to CUSD or your local representative to learn more about what is driving the costs.
For the time being, the programs that WVPTO funds, like Art, Recess 101, and C-Lab, are considered “extras” by the school district, so they don’t cover them. We as a parent community believe these are important parts of an enriching elementary experience; parent funding allows us to keep these valuable opportunities at our school.
Similarly, the district allocates intervention Instructional Aides to the school sites based on perceived need. Our school has historically been allocated one or zero intervention positions, but we as a parent community believe our students are served better with wider access.
Many companies match employee contributions to 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. This can instantly double your donation! Some companies also donate at an hourly rate for volunteer hours served.
You can ask your employer for a match any time you donate time or funds to WVPTO (e.g. Walk-a-thon, Direct Donation, classroom volunteering). Your company may have a yearly cap on how much they’ll match — ask your HR/Benefits department for your company’s guidelines.
Usually, companies have a giving website where you search for the organization you want to give to. WVPTO is already set up for most of the big providers, but if your company’s doesn’t list us yet, please ask them to add us! They will usually ask for this information:
Name: West Valley Parent Teacher Organization (WVPTO)
Address: P.O. Box 2032, Sunnyvale, CA 94087-2032
EIN / Tax ID: 46-5663137
Important: “West Valley Elementary” (the school/district) might also be on this list, but their donations are not used for WVPTO programs. For your donation and match funds to reach us, you have to select “West Valley Parent Teacher Organization” and not “West Valley Elementary”. Check the tax ID if you’re not sure, or email us at directdonation@wvpto.org.
Each company’s process may differ, but in general, the steps are:
- Check to see if your company participates.
- Many companies use a third-party provider such as Benevity, BrightFunds, EasyMatch, and YourCause. Check if you’re required to make your contribution through the designated website; if so, be sure to use your company’s unique URL to log in.
- Search for West Valley Parent Teacher Organization (WVPTO) in the organization listing.
If WVPTO is not listed, you’ll have to ask them to add us. This is usually a quick process — here is our information:
Name: West Valley Parent Teacher Organization (WVPTO)
Address: P.O. Box 2032, Sunnyvale, CA 94087-2032
EIN / Tax ID: 46-5663137
- IMPORTANT: West Valley Elementary (the school/district) is often also on this list, but their funds are not used for WVPTO programs. For your donation and/or match funds to reach us, you have to select “West Valley Parent Teacher Organization” and not “West Valley Elementary”.
- Report your contribution here so it can boost your kids’ classrooms in the Classroom Competition.
Check the details with your company’s HR/Benefits department.
Here are some companies that we believe offer corporate matching benefits to their employees:
- Abbott
- Abbvie
- Adobe
- Airbnb
- American Century Investments
- Apple
- Applied Materials
- Aramark
- Avago Technologies
- Boston Scientific
- Broadcom
- ByteDance
- Cadence
- Cisco
- Citrix
- Cloudera
- Dell
- Elastic Inc
- Gartner
- Genentech
- Gigamon
- Guidewire Software
- Hewlett Packard
- Illumina
- Intel
- Intuit
- JSR Micro
- Juniper
- Kaiser Permanente
- Marvell Semiconductor
- Merck
- Micron
- Microsoft
- Netflix
- Nordstrom
- Nutanix
- Nvidia
- Oath
- Oracle
- Palo Alto Networks
- PayPal
- Pure Storage
- Qualcomm
- Ring Central
- Roblox
- SA Photonics
- Salesforce
- Samsung
- SAP
- ServiceNow
- Sony Electronics
- Symantec
- Synopsys
- Thermo Fisher Scientific
- TiVo
- Verizon
- VMWare
- Walmart
- Workday
- Yahoo!
- Zoom Video Communications
If your company is not on this list, please check with your HR department — let us know if they do participate and we’ll add them.
If your company is on this list but no longer participates in corporate matching, please let us know so we can remove them from this list.