A letter addressed to my Mermaid's school principal - 'cuz THIS is how I roll:
(oh, and names have been changed to protect the innocent...) :)
Hello Mr. Principal ~
First off, CONGRATULATIONS on the significant increase in the math proficiency level of [Shady Tree Elementary's] students last year! What an extremely commendable feat for you and your teachers! As a Mother and a Student of the Philosophies of Childhood and of Education (as separate entities that intermesh in a most critical way), I appreciate how much work you all put in to accomplishing that increase.
My daughter, [The Mermaid], is in [Mrs. Lovey’s] first grade class. [My beautiful Mermaid] absolutely adores [Mrs. Lovey] and (for the most part ... she *is* a kid ...) looks forward to attending school every day. I, too, am impressed with [Mrs. Lovey] and am honored to have her assist me in educating [my daughter] into a whole, well-rounded person.
I’d like to address a concern I have. Because the tone of email communication can sometimes be mistaken, I’ll start by saying that I’m coming from a friendly place.
School has been in session for just one month and the FIFTH fund-raiser was sent home with my daughter this week. ( #1: Teacher request for parent donations to classroom, #2: Coupon Books, #3: School Carnival, #4: Request for Donations to Silent Auction, #5) Cookie Dough.)
Also, there has already been 1 Scholastic Book Order Form and, now, the Book Fair. Finally, school spirit day is every Friday, with lots and lots of suggestions (schoolwide) to purchase school-logo’d clothing to wear each Friday.
In comparison: to date, there has been ONE parent-teacher conference. There has been ONE field trip. The take-home library books have been distributed for ONE week.
[My Mermaid] attends school to receive a valuable education. She is not attending school for elementary job-training, nor to learn how to become an efficient sales representative, nor to feel personally responsible for securing adequate funding for her school.
She is six.
All of this fundraising bothers me. In my opinion, it is exploitative. I feel like it exploits children by seeing them as little more than a free workforce to raise exorbitant salaries for [Our] School District (and DOE) Executive salaries. Due to disclosures by the DOE and [Our] School District themselves, I am aware that some of those are six-figure salaries. (don’t get offended ... hear me out please ...)
Of particular concern to me is how these fundraisers (I’m speaking specifically of the Coupon Books and the Cookie Dough) set my child up to feel like a failure.
First, she attends a school assembly where she’s promised riches and gold and prizes beyond comprehension (as cheap plastic trinkets are to a six year old) if she can just sell a bunch of crap.
Then, she comes home to her poor Mother (I support my family of 5 on $260/month) who cannot afford to buy anything (and, frankly, who simply DOES NOT USE OR WANT what’s being sold).
Next, still inspired by the MLM-esque assembly, she traipses around the neighborhood ... the neighborhood where every other school-aged child is peddling the same wares.
Finally, she approaches her grandparents – the same grandparents who have SEVEN grandchildren attending [Shady Tree] Elementary ... all of whom are, yet again, hawking the same stuff. (Not to mention her grandparents’ OTHER 35 grandchildren who have things of their own to sell).
After extensive effort, and after following all of the advice and tips she’s been given, and after literally pouring her heart and soul into making a overpriced sale in order to win a twenty-five-cent plastic piece of garbage, she emerges defeated. She is left believing that to sell something as “awesome” as pre-portioned cookie dough is easy for everyone but her... because that’s what they told her at the assembly.
She has learned a poignant lesson that nobody cares about her goals nor about her desires and that she is unable to MAKE things happen in her life. Consequently, a beautiful and innocent piece of her dies.
She is six.
For the record: I will not allow her to be exploited, nor to feel downtrodden because those who are in charge of the education system in our country are unable to handle their money efficiently. If [Shady Tree] chooses to hold any further sales-training assemblies, please notify me in advance so I can remove my daughter from the school premises.
NOW ... with that being said: I am also aware that [Our State] is at the very bottom rung of per-capita money for students. I am aware that teachers make an average of about $6.00/hour to pour their blood, sweat and tears into loving and teaching the children whom they are honored to host for a year in their classrooms. I most certainly do not think that any of this fundraising is some sort of wicked conspiracy on your part, nor on the part of your teachers nor PTA. It doesn’t change, however, that I think it is a horrible, horrible thing to focus so much energy into raising money.
You people are educators – not salespeople.
The children are students – not peddlers.
My request is this: Knowing that [Shady Tree] (like, unfortunately, pretty much every school in the country) needs money ([My Mermaid] has come home and told me so several times ... that her school doesn’t have enough money to buy her books and things), perhaps there are some more creative ways for you to raise funds than at the expense of violating your students’ rights to be children. Some other ways that enhance, rather than rob, their self esteem and dignity.
Here are some ideas I have:
1) I think of your Marathon Gig last year, Mr. Principal, – what a SUPER COOL idea! I don’t remember if you asked the parents to sponsor you in order to raise funds, but that would’ve been great.
2) [A Neighboring Elementary School] did a 5K race last year as a fundraiser. $5 entrance fees and optional T-Shirts to buy ($5 to register w/o T-Shirt, $15 to register with). They also sought community sponsors whose names were on the back of the T-Shirts. I, with all of my children (all of whom I gladly paid an entrance fee for) ran the race. IT WAS PACKED ... Grammas, Grampas, Aunties, Uncles, Neighbors, Siblings ... EVERYONE was there ... Heck – my family alone brought 38 people (we only represented 5 students at Northridge). Oh, and it was fun, too! People got to exercise, to hang out with community members, some got to win, and no one had to purchase (nor handle the disbursement of) any crappy product. Also, 100% of the proceeds (including community sponsorship monies) went to the school. (As opposed to the 45% you’re gonna get from those yucky cookies).
3) As a KUDOS: Your School Carnival is a FANTASTIC idea. Keep it up with that one. I had NO PROBLEM paying $3.00 for a $.25 meal, nor in paying for tickets so my kids could run around the field and get a star spray painted on their hair and toss a ball for a tootsie roll. It involved creativity on the planners’ part, volunteer energies from the community, and fun interaction from the kids ... how great is that ? ! ? ! ? !
4) A No-Fundraiser Guarantee: Create some sort of “official” packet to send home with kids promising that if each family donates $ X.xx, there will be no hawking of third-party garbage all year long.
5) A school-run walk-a-thon or jump-a-thon (or some other “a-thon”). I’d GLADLY give money to sponsor a kid jumping rope for 3 hour straight. Heck! I’d give them $15 to do it! I also wouldn’t feel any reservations in coercing my friends and family to sponsor my kid, either. (And, in contrast, I assure you I *will not* pass any fundraiser catalogs on to them - ever). In fact, I’d love to jump WITH my kid as she “earned” her “sponsorship money” – I’d pay another $5 to be a jumper myself. Oh – what if it were done in teams (divided by, say, classroom) and each team got a community sponsor to do T-shirts or banners or whatever ... or some sort of benign (winner/loser-free) competition to see which team could come up with the craziest theme within which to do their jumpathon / walkathon efforts.
6) OH – what about a student garbage-collection-a-thon where sponsors pay a certain amount for a student to pick up X lbs/oz of garbage throughout the community? That’s a COOL idea .... You could make a huge deal about weighing the garbage bags as they’re turned it and commenting on how much more beautiful our Earth is now ....
7) Maybe a Sale of Great Services where the students go out and offer to do work to earn money, then choose to donate their proceeds (or a percentage of their proceeds or whatever) to the school? This can build character, can enhance community relations, and can teach the students about sharing a portion of their wealth ... (this one is a rough idea and would require a bit of tweaking ... but I’ll be it can be done ....)
8) What if you got a chorus (or a few chorus-es) together who sang Christmas Carols at a Mall (or at Walmart, or at the Library, or wherever) throughout December ... and just had a “tip jar” out in front of the group with a sign saying that 100% of proceeds go to STUDENTS at Aspen Elementary.
9) It might be nice to create a school newspaper that parents can subscribe to for $15/year (with the guarantee that every single student in the school will have at least one submission published). Every month a new edition would come out and it would be PACKED with essays, art, poetry and pictures BY the students. (What a cool idea! Think about the ramifications on reading and writing that could have)
10) and, well, those were ideas off the top of my head. I was gonna shoot for an even 10, but, well, I’m just one woman with 30 minutes to write this note.
I admit, I may be out of line ... I certainly don’t know any rules or regulations about any of this stuff, nor what your resources or limitations are, (I do know that you have a pretty nice-sized PTA, though!) but I wanted to offer some solutions rather than just voice my very serious concern. So – for what it’s worth, those are my thoughts!
Thanks so much for your time, and remember, please, to give me notice enough to remove my child from the school during any future fundraiser propaganda assemblies.
Sincerely,
~['da Renegade Mama]
aka: 'da Mermaid's Mama
