Fundraising Vent (again).

I mentioned a few posts back about all the fundraising my little ones school has been doing. Well, the school has been offering rewards to students and teachers with the highest participation. These are not the rewards that the fundraising companies offer for selling their products, these are from the school in addition to those prizes. There was gift certificates (GC) given to the teacher with the first class to achieve 100% PTA participation. Cam's teacher won that and received GC for a store in the mall. An ice cream party is given once a month to the class with the highest participation on spirit night at a local eatery. Cam's class won in September. There is a pizza party being given for kids who sold at least 3 fundraiser coupon books and $15 and $25 GC to Target were given to kids who sold 10 and 20 books in addition to the pizza party and a free coupon book valued at $20.00. The announcement today was the school received over $6,000 for the sale of the books (the school got 50% of each sale). The teacher of the class who sold the most received a $75 GC to some store in the mall. Yes, SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS went to a teacher who had nothing to do with the amount of coupon books her class sold.

Why is the school putting all this money into gift certificates for teachers??? And is it necessary to give gift certificates to kids who sell X amount of coupon books? Why isn't the pizza party and the prizes from the companies enough? I would like to know how much they ended up spending in Target GC for the kids who sold the required amount, and how many free coupon books they gave out. The school had to pay $10.00 for every free book they gave out.

I wouldn't be so concerned about this if the school wasn't asking for money on a weekly basis, or asking students to supply the ridiculous amounts of supplies that we had to purchase at the start of the year. I spent $10.00 for a school shirt at the beginning of the year so she could wear it on Fridays with jeans instead of her uniform. Now they are doing T Shirt Tuesday and if you purchase a T-Shirt with your childs grade on it then they can wear them on Tuesday's. We were given the information today (first time I ever heard about it) and we have until the end of the week to buy one. The letter stressed that this was the only time to buy them. Last week they sent home letters to purchase special Veterans Day shirts for a special program they are having for Veterans Day. The money is due this week for those as well.

Of course you do not have to buy these shirts and I don't think the Vet shirts are that big of a deal for one day so we won't be getting one of those. But I will be buying the Grade shirt because I know the majority of the kids will have them and I don't want my daughter to feel left out every Tuesday for the rest of the year.

I want to know why I had to purchase Dry Erase markers for the teacher to use on the board and plastic baggies for the kids to bring things home in, but the school has $75.00 to give to a teacher to buy what she wants for herself??? And trust me, that is not all I had to buy. If you didn't see the list, click here and scroll about half way down. This is our first year and I am learning and trying to do what is asked. Next year I will be doing things very differently now that I know what to expect.