Yeah the first thing I think is donation too. But they (and by they I mean Great American Opportunities -> our PTA -> my kid’s teacher) have the kids so worked up about all the colorful prizes that my kid didn’t even care if I made a $50 donation straight to the PTA, she just wanted a $8 roll of wrapping paper. I told her the school would be lucky to get $4 from that but she didn’t care. They kids don’t give a shit about what the fundraising is for, they just want prizes. I looked up one, a “hover soccer ball” cost $15 on eBay, but you had to sell 25 items to get it as a prize. If each item conservatively sold for $5, that’s $125 worth of sales they have to make to get a $15 piece of junk. She’s genuinely distraught that I don’t want to buy anything. What does this have to do with education?
You should see this large glossy catalog that the fundraising company gives every kid. It’s beautiful and no doubt very expensive. They must be raking in the money, using our schools and kids to do it.
Ever wondered how much a kids book must really cost when you look at companies like my ex employer Scholastic Book Fairs
Over 3,000 employees and only about half of those are building the fairs. The schools staff them and actually sell the books to the kids. The marketing and promotional materials departments are several hundred employees alone.
Some of the larger schools in my area did over $20K in sales, kept $5K or so for themselves. Many of the books they sell cost us as little as $0.40 for a book retailing at $3.99
What bothers me is the huge margin the original seller of the merchandise makes. They charge the school $5 for a item worth $2, then the school turns around and sells it for $10. My theory is, I could give $5 to the school, buy whatever it is at the $2 retail value, and be $3 ahead.
I’ve been forced to participate in these things when I was a scout leader and a PTA officer, but whenever the little league or whatever tried to give my kids a couple of cases candy bars to sell I always asked what the margin was, donated that, and told them to keep the candy bars.
Bingo. My kids’ school has a booster club that’s a fund-raising machine. You know what the money goes for? Little extravagances like having a nurse in the building every day and a music instructor who comes in once a week. Stuff that the school district used to pay for when I was a kid.
You want fewer annoying school fund-raisers? Support better funding of public schools.
I’d just like to roundly and vehemently curse each and every one of you that beat me to all of the lines I came up with in regards to the $1/$1 thing. Darn you all to heck.
65% of our tax money in this county already goes to the schools. Our problem is we’re top-heavy, too much administration.
But that aside, this particular fundraiser is for “$25,000 for assemblies, school beautification, and our artist in residence program.” Not exactly nurses and music classes.
But the part of this fundraiser I object to the most is them asking the kids for their family member’s addresses. My kid came home acting like this was an important assignment, when it’s really just a marketing scheme aimed at the relatives of school children.
I know some children who were sent home the first few days of either kindergarten or first grade with the order forms for fundraiser merchandise. At that age, the kids can’t possible manage to fill out the forms and count the money, so basically, the school is telling the parent to do the work. One could at least argue that older children can learn something by handling the money completing the form. (But then again, there’s something insidious about turning grade schoolers into salespeople.)
And the problem I have with Girl Scout cookie sales is that very little of the money goes to the local troop (about fifty cents, as far as I can tell). It may sound sexist, but I think they’d get more money if they held a bake sale.
Omg I miss those! In elementary school I’d always get excited when the new order form came out and I could go home and beg my mom to buy me 934943 books (she did, because hey, they’re books!) and when the fair came to school I was in heaven. Well until I was in Student Council and worked the book fair gift wrapping.
Well watch the website i linked for CAWSE events, every 6 months or so they open up the warehouses for 50% off cover price. There is a warehouse pretty much within a few hours drive of most of the 48 states. If you’re that dorky you might get a little kick out of watching them being built as well :D.
Also of note, the order forms come from Scholastic book clubs, not book fairs. They were our evil cousins, slower, cheaper, and better able to shield themselves with an impenetrable phone tree, all the while charging you for the books you forgot to return…
Around here, high school students can’t even graduate unless they do some pointless fundraising (I mean pointless as far as actual useful life skills go). So they come to my door, selling “gourmet” candy for $7 for a box I can buy at the local discount grocery store for $1.50…you know, 10 “turtles” or other similar candy, with way too much packaging and way too little other content.
I feel for the kids. They’re just doing what they’re told. But I hate opening the door to them. It reminds me vaguely of ‘The Chocolate War’. Ugh.
It’s another reason I’m glad I’ve chosen homeschooling. My children will not be used in this fashion. Yes, I shoulder the cost of extras like music lessons, art lessons, and all other lessons myself, but…I shoulder them myself. I don’t have to beg, plead, and badger others to help pay for it too, selling things for way more than they’re worth, using guilt as a lever.
This is the first I’ve heard of collecting family names and addresses. I would be up in arms about that, if it were me. But I get to avoid that too.
What kills me is the fact that these kids will get a prize if they sell the most.
The prize is something like a pencil or pretty eraser.
I tell my kids that I will give them two dollars each to spend at the dollar store if they throw out the fundraiser form.
I go on to explain that the school makes its money off of the taxes that we pay and if they cannot control spending and exorbitant costs then they have to re-think their entire plan. I went to a catholic school, so this entire public school blowing wads of money on ‘frivolous’ stuff’ chaps my bottom.
All my kids hear is: Two bucks to blow at the dollar store.
First of all, I’m always amazed by the number of people who will vote against a small tax increase for school funding, but who will spend more on fundraising crap than the tax increase would cost them.
Second, for teachers and office staff, some of these fundraising programs are a nightmare. (I’m sure silenus can contribute to that part of the discussion.) Orders and payments have to be collected and distributed, assemblies have to be held to explain what to sell and how to sell it, and kids are often preoccupied with the whole fundraising drive. All of this cuts into instruction time.
Third, I refuse to sell stuff to Opal or anyone else. I did not participate in the last two fundraisers at daycare.
I hated doing this as a kid, good thing I only did it a couple of times. Why can’t they do things like car washes and the like? What I don’t get is where the hell is all my money going to now? The taxes around here have double and trippled, yet they still don’t have money? I know when my kid goes to school I’m just going to ask how much they need per kid and give them the money.
We live in an urban/surburban area, so our school (K-5) has quite a mix of kids from different economic backgrounds.
This what our PTA does with all that fundraiser money:
-Pay for school buses for field trips and the field trips themselves (1-2 outings for each grade)
-Present each incoming Kindergartener with a book, pair of scissors and a pack of crayons.
-Run a science fair
-Bring in an author (Steven Kellog last year) that the kids love
-Have community and family building events
-Have academic nights to support the kids who need remedial and enrichment
-Give each teacher $50 at the start of the year to buy supplies (they spend $100s of their own pocket money as it is)
-Provide books as prizes for the teachers to give out for good behaivor etc etc.
Playground toys (balls, jump ropes)
These activities add so much to the school. We keep fundraising to a minimum (once in the fall, once in the spring). Without it, our school wouldn’t be as wonderful as it is.
I know it sucks, but I can’t imagine taking these activities away from our kids, especially the ones from the families that struggle so hard.
We hope each family particpates only as much as they can. Many families don’t participate in raising money, but have the time to come in and volunteer- and that’s great.
I’ve never had the kid (first grade now) bring anything home that needed to be sold to outsiders. Our PTO seems to specialize in stuff aimed at the parents.
And, for the record, she started school on the 23rd. The ‘Mum sale’ came home the 25th.
Preach on, sir! Fund raising may be a necessary evil, but why do it in a way so as to make our kids shill for some corporation?
Last time we did that, my wife made a tray of homemade brownies for a girl scout troop. She was NOT PLEASED to see the entire tray offered for something like $2.50 - a price that didn’t come close to covering her ingredients, not including her time. Never again.
When faced with fundraising pleas for our kids’ activities, our immediate reaction is “How much is the buyout so I can cut the check?”
I’m not sure if I dislike the hawking of overpriced merchandise more or less than the sponsoring of pointless marathon activities.
I hated having my kids do fund raisers–so would make a donation equivalent to the profit expected from each child. One year the school put so much pressure on the kids to sell that my daughter sneaked out without permission. The school got an earful about peer pressure and how they were contradicting their own “just say no” lessons. We got an apology.
The band did one really fun fund raiser that we did participate in. They sold…TOILET PAPER. We ordered it whole sale…sold it for about what the local stores did. It was fun, useful, and made money. So…try something people really use…
