Told that their schools stood to lose 13 teachers to state budget cuts, a group of Los Gatos parents refused to roll over.

Instead they mounted a blitzkrieg fundraising drive to raise $1 million -- in 10 weeks, no less. Over the weekend, they announced success to an elated community.

``There was lots of cheering,'' said Rusty Ingram, one of the leaders of the Save Our Schools campaign. ``There was tears and joy and kids hugging their teachers.''

Like school districts across California hurting from the state's fiscal crisis, the Los Gatos Union School District started girding in March for more than $800,000 in cuts this year and next that would have affected math and science instruction and programs for struggling readers.

Then the Save Our Schools drive was launched, and families in the affluent community were asked to give $600 apiece to save teaching positions and programs. By the time the campaign concluded last week, organizers had exceeded their $1 million goal by at least $30,000. And they're still counting checks.

One education leader cautioned that many of California's poor communities could not hope to replicate the results of the Los Gatos campaign.

``For us to raise anything like that would be literally impossible,'' said Larry Aceves, superintendent of San Jose's Franklin-McKinley School District in the Santa Clara County fairgrounds area. ``We're a blue-collar community. It isn't that our community is not committed to education. They just don't have the money.''

But the news of the Los Gatos campaign's success lifted spirits in other school communities where fundraising drives are under way.

``It gives us hope,'' said Jill Hitchman, a parent in Santa Cruz County's San Lorenzo Valley, where parents have joined to raise $400,000 to prevent the closing of a national Blue Ribbon school because of budget cuts.

Organizers of the SOS campaign attributed their success to the personal touch: Every classroom was assigned a parental ambassador who personally tapped the classroom's other parents.

``At the end of the day, it's that one-on-one that makes a difference,'' said Steve Friar, one of the organizers.

More than 50 percent of the families in the district of five elementary and middle schools gave or pledged money. The business community and those without children in Los Gatos schools kicked in as well.

Several checks for $10,000 rolled in, with the average donation about $700, said Ingram, who declined to say what the largest donations were or who gave them.

Leaders of the campaign stressed that the ranks of donors included people who lost their jobs during the dot-com crash and are now struggling financially. Among such donors was Zsa Zsa Taylor, a single unemployed mother of a Los Gatos fifth-grader. Taylor wrote a check for $300 and pledged another $300.

``Los Gatos has been really good to my son,'' Taylor said, explaining her donation. In addition to saving 13 teachers' jobs, the more than $1 million raised in Los Gatos also means that other programs in the elementary district will be spared.

The district's superintendent, Mary Ann Park, said the district is working with the Los Gatos Education Foundation, which organized the drive, to identify the other programs that would be spared the budget ax.