The school district where I work supplies everything the students need for class. I am not exaggerating in the least when I say everything. Pencils, erasers, pens, paper, notebooks for journal writing, folders, crayons, markers, rulers, compases, scissors, glue, protractors, tissues, etc. all supplied by the school. It irritates me that the school district could simply require students’ parents to buy their own children’s basic school supplies, eliminate the purchasing department responsible for these supplies entirely, and use the money saved for programs that are supported by fundraisers. This would hardly be a hardship on most parents–$20 at the beginning of the year, a few bucks a month after–and would save my school alone more than ten grand a year.
Skyblukat, do the fundraisers go to support the basic education program, or for extra-curricular activities? I entirely agree that the basic education program should be provided to families without additional support from fundraisers, and also that any fundraiser should be entirely voluntary (as it is where I teach).
But funding has steadily decreased for extra-curricular activities such as cheerleading and sports, so in order for these activities, which I think are very valuable, to exist, let alone thrive, an alternate source of funds has to be found. There are three ways I can see to find these funds, and all have problems:
1: Private sponsorship: Usually, the company sponsoring the activity will want their name on it somewhere, as in the scoreboard at my high school that was paid for by the local Pepsi bottler in exchange for the prominent Pepsi logo on it, and the right to have only Pepsi machines in the high school cafeteria for four years.
2: Donations from the families: Some families cannot afford the cost, and others object to paying for any service provided by schools.
3: Fundraisers: The problems with these have been listed above.
