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Volunteer Corner: Johanna Monforte

Joanna Hartman
Sierra Sun

Measure A is the $98-per-parcel tax that every parcel (house, business, land parcel) in the district pays. The money goes directly to the school district. Our job as the Citizens Review Committee is to make sure the school district is spending the money equitably through the school sites … This is the 17th year of the parcel tax.

We make the budgetary recommendation to the school board on how to allocate the funds that are collected. We did surveys early on to see what the public would support, what we could supplement in our school district from what the state was giving us.



Other places in the state were losing P.E., music, etc. Seventeen years ago people got organized to supplement those things within the school district. Like our middle school would have no music program if it wasn’t for Measure A, and I don’t think we’d have any P.E. in elementary schools. I’m just continuing the base work. There are administration representatives, teacher representatives and community representatives from each school site that are part of the Citizen Review Committee.

I mostly volunteer with VIP (Very Interested Parents) which does dances, the orientation for the 5th graders coming into the middle school so they can get familiarized … We had a ski swap this year. I’m also on the site council for the middle school, like a Citizen Review Committee on the site itself. Just another check and balance thing to connect the community with the school.



I’m an avid skier. I graduated from North Tahoe in 1979, so I’ve been up here for 31 years in total. I went away to college at the University of Colorado and came back.

I started out as the community representative from Tahoe Lake Elementary, and then I continued going to the meetings and have been involved with the last two campaigns. It’s one of those things where you get involved a little bit and realize how much stuff is going on. Then I started volunteering for committees. And the more you know the more you realize you can make a difference and there’s a need for you to be involved. There are people who are very positively charged in this community.


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