OT: Just need to vent

Dianne Lewandowski wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

This isn't anything new. When I was in high school 30 years ago we had candy sales for clubs, and the marching band had an annual hoagie sale for band uniforms, all in a fairly affluent Main Line suburb of Philadelphia.

Dianne, I totally agree with you. I am the mother of a Cub Scout, and I was shocked when they sent home popcorn flyers and I saw the cheapest item was $10. I refused to try to sell the neighbors the stuff. My DH tried to sell it at his office, but had no takers.

Each scout had a percent of his profit (I don't recall offhand how much) put toward a trip to the USS Yorktown this coming June. Frankly, I prefer just to pay my son's way.

I don't participate in school fundraisers either. That stuff tends to be overpriced as well. I don't like selling stuff door to door in general, and there are so many fundraisers every year! So far this year, I have been asked to sell popcorn for cub scouts, sally foster for the school, and entertainer books, again for the school. And I think the school has one more fundraiser later in the year!

Cris

Dianne Lewandowski wrote:

But it used to be the clubs and special interest groups, not the

Unlike you, I am "on the inside" in both GS and the PTA - and reviewed the last two years fundraisers selections as part of that committee in the PTA. I have the raw numbers for my troop profits on the current sale. On average, each item costs the final buyer $7 and my troop nets $4. On cookies, we get $2 per box; a girl depending on her sales gets at least 10 cents a box credit to pay for uniforms or summer camp. Now - out that profit, a one night stay at a GS approved campground for my troop of 15 is $100, and food is another $200 or more. Patches, pins and badges are expensive; an average trip to the council store for awards runs to $150 or more. (just Brownie pins alone will be 1.35 for each one. I made the tabs myself to save the troop money, badges are $1.25 each) More than a few of my parents are in tough straits.

Frankly, I think my school system wastes millions every year. There is no need for 15 speech therapists for 6 schools (one kindergarten, 3 elementary, one middle, one high). Or 10 English as a Second Language teachers (this is not a town that has a huge number of immigrants, they can't afford and frankly I don't know how much longer I can either.) One of these $50K a year teachers has hall monitor duty; not exactly a job that requires a masters degree. ( I know who this one is and I sub at the high school). I have the new line item budget; I could go on for hours. The gifted and talented program has been cut; ditto the AP program and vocational classes. But we do have a "state of the art" computer system, 8 IT professionals and school webpages that got hacked two days ago and got a worm that shut the whole thing down for a week. You would be sickened - very little of the school budget goes to actually teaching students.

BUT - I have to pay out pocket for workbooks and the "independent reading" books (old name - assigned reading list). The PTA buys the playground equipment at the elementary schools. The few texts DS has are ancient (over

I loved selling cookies and calendars. I do pick and choose which fundraisers I support and which ones DD or DS goes out door to door to support. Scouting is first, next is school programs, last is sports.

You are right there. But I don't see the same evil you do.

Cheryl

LOL

I don't doubt it, I'm happy to help out, but please stop sending those catalogs home with my kids!!

Caryn

That must be it, because it's the same here....people at work have been sniping, snooping, and snipping at each other for the last 10 days! One person (a long-time employee) has been particularly bullying and most of the rest us are hoping she gets fired as a result.

Joan

Never judge what another persons knows or doesn't know. You have no idea what I "know". Your tone took on a judgmental slant. You probably have more up-to-date information, and I'm sure it varies from marketer to marketer, region to region. I used to know the profit margins from many of these fund raisers. I was on a school board. Granted, that's ten years ago or more. You probably have more up-to-date knowledge for your area, and I trust the numbers you were stating. But I don't believe that's always the case.

I think I purchased my own badges when I was a girl scout. Maybe not. Too many years ago to remember. But I do remember purchasing my pin. Times were hard when I was in brownies and girl scouts. Sometimes a relative had to help out with these things.

Sounds to me, from all you stated, that your district needs a good housecleaning.

Evil is a strong word, don't you think? I was just venting. There just seems to be so much selling. And the goods are cheap compared to the price spent. Even the girl scout cookies taste like cardboard these days. Which is another reason I'm hesitant to purchase these things and would rather just give out cash for the "cause".

Call me a curmudgeon, I guess. Dianne

Exactly! We sold stuff for cheerleading, journalism, band, chorus, student council (for homecoming events), and such but never had a school-wide sale. Students who didn't want to sell stuff could choose not to be in events or to have parents pay an "equivalent" amount for them to participate.

With all the staff time it takes to run these sales, the schools should c> But it used to be the clubs and special interest groups, not the

Maybe she will. This week my younger daughter finally triumphed. She has had to work with a boss for a year who was cheating on his wife with a has been female boxer. He gave her a job in the office, even though she knew nothing about geography or container shipping. Then he started filtering off parts of Joanna's job to her, mostly the parts she enjoyed the most.

She was approached by a company she worked with a few years before this one and offered a can't refuse offer, so she accepted and put in her resignation. Instantly Montreal contacted her, begged her. The upshot was, she is now the manager, she had been asked to stipulate what it would take to keep her and she put in all the things she could think of, right down to wanting a blackberry etc. and it's all hers :) I received a blow by blow account of all the emails as they happened, it was all quite thrilling. At least sometimes, right triumphs. We are wondering how he is explaining all this to his wife - I suggested he probably is whining and saying Joanna slept with Bruno (the Montreal manager) - that would seem about right for such a weasel :)

Thanks to all for commiserating with my %^*(#@ day yesterday. I had my wine and bath which were truly relaxing. No chocolate until today in the form of the G.S. cookies. Busy, busy, busy was again the word today at work, but with a much improved mental state. And the sun even made an appearance. Now I am off, with my much improved state of mind, to do some serious stitching.

Anne (in Ellicott City, MD)

Plus add in the fear of tampered foods, either intentionally or accidental as a result of poor hygiene, or food allergies. We're no longer allowed to send homemade foods to school for party treats. And my 8 year old has a classmate with a nut allergy so no peanut or peanut butter items allowed either. Rules out an awful lot of Halloween candies!

One city we lived in, the PBS station made the big announcement daily for a couple weeks before Pledge Week, "we need to raise X dollars; if we've gotten that much before Pledge Week starts, you'll see all the Pledge Week programming with NO interruptions." They had, apparently, made that promise 10 times in the past and 9 of those times got all the money they needed before Pledge Week started.

As to how we got in this situation, think back to when we were in school. There was one principal, one assistant principal, they shared a secretary; a couple guidance counselors, who also shared a secretary; and a part-time attendance clerk. Now I swear there's one $100,000/year administrator for every 10 students, and each one has his/her own secretary. The money just doesn't go as far when you're spending most of your budget on administration, instead of classroom supplies.

One of our poorer school districts in this area fired a superintendent, buying out the rest of his five-year contract. A year or so later, they rehired him, and paid him a second time for the years of his contract which had already been bought out! It's stunts like that which make the taxpayers loathe to vote the schools more money. WE try to send the message "spend what you have responsibly", and their response is to keep spending irresponsibly and expect the kids/parents to pay for all the classroom supplies which used to be paid out of the school's budget, send the kids out to raise money through guilt so they don't have to fire an overpriced administrator or two (which would come to the same amount of money).

K, I think Dianne's point is that this ISN'T a club/band/team selling stuff once a year to raise money for their own purposes, but that it's now become the *school* selling stuff every single month to fund basic expenses that should be covered by taxes. Constant sales, on *top* of the traditional Band Hoagie Sale, and the French Club Candy Sale, and the Newspaper Magazine Sale.

I also did the PTA thing a few years ago. Gift wrap sale netted 50% return to the school on all sales. Of course, the stuff was at least twice the price of what you'd pay at a Hallmark store and way way more than WalMart. And there were some gift and food items in those catalogs as well. The school easily netted 2 grand to 25 hundred a year on that sale alone.

Our current school does a magazine drive and the school gets 40% of all sales. And from what little research I've done, the subscription prices are the same as or a little lower than if I were to subscribe directly through the publisher rather than through the clearinghouse that runs the drive. I believe last year the net proceeds was around 14 hundred.

I will absolutely agree with your comments about why we need to do this much fundraising in the first place, however. It would be wonderful if the schools would receive enough funding from state taxes to not need to do this stuff. In the school where I was PTA secretary, we used those funds to buy oscillating fans for all the classrooms because the air conditioning systems were minimally functional and we weren't getting capital improvement funds to be able to repair/replace. We also purchased small refrigerators for the kindergarten and preschool classrooms so they could keep their mid-day snack supplies cool. Something that isn't truly *needed* but that the teachers really appreciated. We gave every single teacher a sum to use any way they chose for their room. Most of the teachers reported using it for

Amen to that. Instead of the kids selling a gazillion candy bars for each computer, just go directly to the local computer store(s), office supply store(s), large businesses, and well-off people and ask for each to donate one or more computers.

Or work it out that 20 computers, wholesale, = $10,000, divided by 1000 kids in the school = $10 per child, and the parents can come up with that money any way they like. The employed ones can donate the $10 cash, and the ones for whom money is tight can announce that on Saturday the 16th, they are available for hire -- the people in town who have the cash can "rent" a parent or teen to rake leaves, babysit, do the ironing, wash the car, for $10 payable to the computer fund.

Exactly! And most schools had a "sports fee" - covered uniform and bus trips as needed. Booster clubs took care of field expenses and referees and their ilk. That is now in our school budget. But field trips to the theater or a museum are not.

Cheryl

Don't start. Supposed either a principal or a town school official wants to make it a peanut free school system. YES - I know there are people with deadly allergies to peanuts, but what about the mother who can't afford anything else.

Cheryl

The PTA tried that a few years back - I wish that had been the result.

Cheryl

Interesting - all three councils I've been affiliated with (admitted all New England councils) have done the "cookie dough". I paid half my camp fees one year.

I hate the junk for $$$ raised scheme. Wrong message all the way around. Some charities do it also - a shirt for level 1, a ball and shirt for level

Cheryl