It's beggin' time!

My dad was a high school band teacher when I was a kid, so fundraising crud was always going on. And I went to a Catholic grade school, so we were doing the crapselling for that. And then there was the mandatory Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts crapselling. All with cheesy prizes.

By the time I was in high school, my parents were sick of it. If I had a choir trip or my brother and sister a band trip, mom would just ask how much it cost and write a check, rather than screw around with fundraisers.

Unfortunately, they really play on the competitive nature of little kids, so you probably can't get away with doing that with Victor at this point. Even if you buy him an equivalent prize, he'll be unhappy, since he's not WINNING it. :/

I'm not too sick of the fundraisers at this point, since it generally comes once a year. But another thing that does irk me a tad is when parents are asked to "donate" school supplies (markers, pipe cleaners, papers) for the classrooms as well. It's certainly not as if the teachers don't know where to find this stuff -- especially when they give out instructions on what stores and what supplies they're looking for -- but it's the underlying "I don't have the funds for something as piddly as this" that's the symptom of the problem.

Don't have a problem with competitive kids right now, since my son's happy if he just gets the shiny spiffs like the others do, but I do wonder if the time spent on these promotions couldn't be better spent in actual edumacashkonal stuff instead.

--R.J.

Teachers don't get funds for student school supplies, actually. A lot of times they have to supply the students out of their own pockets...and even leaving aside that beginning teachers tend to have pretty empty pockets to start with, it can add up fast over an entire class.

"Teachers don't get funds for student school supplies, actually."

Now that be whack.

--R.J.

They don't get ZERO budget, mind you. Usually. But they rarely get anywhere near enough money to cover what they actually need to have in order to do their jobs, especially at the elementary level where there's so much more arts and crafts stuff to do. Sometimes they make a devil's bargain and accept kits from business "donors", but these kits tend to be thinly veiled advertising (like a counting kit that has kids count images of Coke cans).

It's a little easier at the secondary school level, since most of what kids need consists of textbooks and notebooks, and a lot of schools just have separate fees for those who want to take art courses (and students have always had to pay in some way to be in band, either renting or buying their instrument).