As early as September, the West Contra Costa school district warned of a $20 million budget deficit coming next school year. That's a huge number for any school district, especially one that already cut $14 million in the spring for this school year. A shortfall that large could only end in painful cuts to popular school programs such as sports, music and libraries.

Anybody who has picked up a newspaper or turned on the TV news in the past month knows that that's exactly what happened. The final number was slightly lower than first predicted, $16.5 million, but the impact was felt around the district.

Virtually every news outlet in the Bay Area reported the outcry from parents, students and teachers. Donations and offers to help poured in from the Oakland A's, the Safeway Foundation and one anonymous donor who gave half a million dollars. The donations rose above $644,000 last week.

But why did it take so long for people to pay attention to the district's tough fiscal spot? It wasn't until after a parcel tax failed and the cuts were on the table that people turned out in droves to school board meetings to fight for the endangered school programs.

"I don't think people thought they would really do it," said Cathy Travlos, who works in the Kensington Elementary computer lab and has a daughter who attends El Cerrito High.

Cutting sports seems to have brought everybody out, she said, although more money has been raised to help restore the libraries than any other program.

And what about Livermore, Antioch and Vallejo, three other East Bay districts in such dire fiscal condition they are closing schools and slashing jobs and programs? The Vallejo school district also has been forced to ask for an emergency state loan to keep its doors open next fall.

Cuts in those districts have been met with a more muted response from the news media and the larger Bay Area community.

"I know there has been some resentment about that," Sally Esser, head of the Parent Faculty Club at Arroyo Mocho Elementary School, one of two Livermore schools set to close at the end of the school year.

At the same time, she said, "we understand a lot of people are in trouble, and there's only so much money to go around."

The Livermore Valley Educational Foundation has raised about $131,000 so far, less than it had by this time last year, Esser said.

"We need a greater proportion of the population to be aware and trying to help out," she said. "It takes time to build that kind of awareness and automatic support."

For school districts that are in deep financial trouble, however, it will take more than donations to solve the school finance problems. With no relief from the state's fiscal crisis in sight, more cuts are probably on their way. Waiting until the last minute to react to the cuts will not prevent them or save school programs.

Esser and Travlos agree that people who care about schools need to lobby the state and federal government for changes to the complex way schools are financed.

"We have to figure out how to change the whole funding structure because it's so messed up," Travlos said. "It's hard to know what you can do in your own little district."

"You have to be realistic and you may not make an amazing difference," Esser said. "But everybody can make a difference."