Real Teacher Talk: About Those School “Fundraisers”

Let’s have some real teacher talk about those school fundraisers.  {Many} school fundraisers are annoying.  I am so disgusted with all of it:  The prizes, the competition, the hype.  I understand schools need fundraisers in order to  purchase things they need that are not covered by the budget.  However, that will never change the fact that I can not stand the approach utilized by some of these “non-profits.”

 

Before I begin, I want to express these two things:

•  I am grateful for every dollar a school gets from fundraising.
• I understand schools need money and have little time to organize, so they have no choice but to allow these non-profits into the schools.

However, I still have an opinion on how fundraisers are conducted.

Here are 10 reasons why I feel {many} school fundraisers are annoying:

 1.  There is nothing worse than packing 800 screaming kids into a multi-purpose room and getting them super amped up.

2.  I loathe getting  a classroom set of packets and shiny flyers with tiny and unclear instructions, guidelines, and restrictions.

3.  Or the parent phone calls that follow.

 

4.  Tracking, counting, and recording cash and change isn’t a fun start to the day.

5.  The “prizes” aren’t even that great.

6.  Some kids don’t get anything, and that is really not okay.

7.  So here I am buying a little something for my kindergarteners who didn’t get anything, because they are too young to understand.

 

8.  This system manipulates our students and makes them competitive

9.  Schools get to keep what percent?  We all know where the rest of the money is going.

10.  What happened to old school fund raisers that don’t require a third party?

 

I would like to thank an anonymous teacher blogger and good friend for giving me the inspiration to write this post. Unfortunately, she can not write it due to conflict of interest;) Whether you are on the school fundraising train or not, I just thought I would express my frustration I have year after year of “dealing” with these companies.  I guess in a perfect world, we would have time to coordinate these fundraisers without needing those big companies.  I would love to know your thoughts, or if you have any fundraiser ideas! Please be sure to leave a comment, or say hello!

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