NORTH COUNTY -- Behind most music programs, art festivals, field trips and elementary physical education classes these days are parents who pay for them -- sometimes reluctantly.

In the last decade, parents have played an increasingly vital role at inland North County schools by filling the financial gap between what cash-strapped school districts can afford for their students and what parents want for their children.

Some parents aren't exactly happy about dishing out the dough, though, saying they're feeling more pressure today from school districts to save programs that have given way to budget cuts -- something they're finding increasingly difficult to do in a sagging economy.

A dozen parents from Valley Center to Oceanside said last week that their associations had given thousands of dollars more than ever before to schools, and that parents have put in thousands of hours more as campus volunteers.

"We are picking up more things," said Jay Petrek, the Parent-Teacher Association president at San Marcos High School, adding, "it has been driven home pretty thoroughly that parents need to take a more active role in financing services."

For many school districts, it's the parents and not school leaders who are now organizing art and music programs, especially at the lower grades, as well as family events and school assemblies. And at some campuses, parents have taken on the financial burden of funding all field trips.

Several parents said last week that they were also buying equipment -- an electronic phone message system for one district, for example -- and classroom supplies that in previous years had been funded by classroom budgets for teachers.

The expenses and fundraisers are largely unavoidable, parents said, given that they're the ones pushing districts for more supplemental programs and activities.

Even so, many parents said last week that they were frustrated that districts and schools have turned to them to fund more and more programs and to buy stuff they feel the state or federal government should be providing.

"(Parent-Teacher Association) members are getting tired of being seen as the big cash cow to provide for those programs," said Lorene Joosten, a member of Poway Unified School District's Palomar Council PTA and various school-based groups for the last nine years. "We have been at 110, 120 percent for a long time now."

Rising to the challenge

Parent-Teacher Associations, parent organizations and other nonprofit, volunteer-based groups have been an integral part of school communities for years.

The pressure on parents to fund supplemental programs that were once a staple on most campuses has intensified with constraints on funding and resources, educators said.

In recent years, state and federal funding for music and the arts has dwindled, costs for everything from salaries to energy have risen, and the focus on many campuses has turned to improving English and math skills, they said.

As a result, district and school officials have said they're forced to rely more on parent organizations for help in keeping music and other supplemental programs going during tight financial times.

Poway Unified board President Linda Vanderveen described the growing need for parental support as a numbers game. With increased testing requirements and fewer dollars to go around, districts don't have the "wherewithal" to pay for all the services they did in the past, she said.

"If we don't have the money from the state for some of the things that we are all in agreement about being beneficial to students, we are going to have to turn to people for help," Vanderveen said.

But many contributors are burning out quickly.

In Valley Center, financial support from parents has already dropped off over the last two years as parents find themselves pulled between multiple obligations, said Amy Archipov, the president of the Teacher-Parent Club. For next year, the club expects to raise about $138,000, down from about $200,000 in previous years.

Parent leaders at other inland North County districts said last week that while their contributions have grown by several hundred to several thousand dollars this year, they're also expecting a dropoff in support for the next school year.

In Oceanside, Angela Ripsco, the president of Reynolds Elementary's Parent-Teacher Organization, said she expects the group to bring in less money this year than in the past, largely because of the sagging economy.

"Because of what's happening with the economy, (parents are) really watching where their money goes," she said.

Parents said they collected anywhere from $10,000 to nearly $100,000 per school in the 2007-08 school year.

At San Marcos High, for instance, parents donated $50,000 to the school to pay for technology upgrades, including the addition of electronic smartboards and liquid crystal display projectors, Petrek said.

Meanwhile, Petrek and others said parents are also spending more time on campus.

At Poway Unified schools, parents logged 313,627 hours volunteering in classrooms and on campuses in 2007-08 -- up from the roughly 304,000 hours logged the previous year, Superintendent Don Phillips said.

The demand on parents' time and pocketbooks is not expected to change in the near future, district officials and parents said.

For the 2008-09 fiscal year, which began July 1, all four inland school districts adopted budgets that cut services and programs, including school busing, elementary libraries and discretionary funding for sites.

Superintendents and trustees said that parents again will be called upon to help form car pools, provide printing paper and tissues for classrooms, among other things.

"I said to my husband, 'Are they going to want us to sponsor a desk and a chair next?' " said Bernardo Elementary School parent Gina Conkle.

Conkle said she was frustrated and feeling taken advantage of by the Escondido Union School District when after years of sponsoring science programs and field trips and buying classroom supplies, the district cut the position of the school's full-time librarian for next year.

'Own worst enemies'

Several parents said last week that they were not surprised that districts turned to them for more help, saying it was because parent organizations have become more sophisticated in fundraising and are even more determined to keep programs, field trips and traditions in schools.

The bake sale fundraisers of the past have been replaced with silent auctions, galas and arts festivals that sell student works and bring in thousands of dollars to fund multiple programs in one event.

For every fundraiser, the goal is typically to garner enough money to support three different causes, a former parent group leader said.

"I would say we volunteers are our own worst enemies," said ex-Poway Palomar Council PTA President Mary Andrews, explaining that parents get "excited about a program at school" and make the drive to keep it going.

"We can say no. … Sometimes it's good to let go of a program."

Contact staff writer Shayna Chabner at (760) 740-5416 or schabner@nctimes.com.

Staff writer Stacy Brandt contributed to this article.