So what ARE you willing to pay for?

I hate school fundraisers. Preservative-riddled cookie dough, overpriced wrapping paper, infinite opportunities to annoy friends and relatives to buy crap they never wanted in the first place... It's the bane of every parent's existence! A lot of parents, myself included, totally refuse to do them. (Erin's current school doesn't do them.) There are other, better, ways to raise money for a school. Some principals have taken to having a "Money Bomb" or "Fundraiser Gala" at the beginning of the year, where parents donate money and if they donate enough, there will be no fundraisers. Others have different events, or charge for no-uniform days, or ice cream days, dances, or pizza parties. There are many ways to raise money.

Erin's school relies on donations. I joke about how the tuition is the only thing that's free there, but really, we don't mind. The fact is, somebody's got to pay for the costs of running the school, and I'd rather just donate money than be asked a million times to sell crap that nobody wants anyhow. The money has to come from somewhere, and one way or another, it's coming from the parents' bank accounts, so I'd rather just give it up front and forget about it for the rest of the year.

I know this other mom who has two kids in high school and one about to finish Elementary school. She was complaining up one side and down the other yesterday about how they expected her to pay for her daughter's share of a barbecue at school, and how they had to pay to for a free-dress day, and how they had to pay for tickets to the dances and football games, and stuff like that. She called it, "the most money hungry school in the world". OK, understood. They're asking for a lot of money. I asked her if they also fundraised a lot. She said no, they'd done one fundraiser that wasn't a big success, and I told her, "Well, the money's got to come from somewhere. If the fundraiser didn't do it, then how else would they get it if not from these cheap fundraisers with wide appeal?" Every kid in the school will pay $1 to shed their uniform for a day. That's a quick $500 right there, with absolutely no overhead cost. You have a school-wide barbecue for lunch that same day, charge $4 a plate, and probably make $500 more! It's actually very smart, and each family is only out $5 per kid on that day. It's easy to get small donations like that, and being a public school, it has to be kept like that because if they did what Erin's school did and said, for example, "You will donate $50 for supplies, $50 for grounds, $300 for music, $75 for athletics, etc....." then the parents would tell them they were nuts. Erin's school is in a different position because anyone who doesn't like it can leave, and those who want to be there take it for what it is. In a public school, small donations are easier to get, and they have to come with something (like a barbecue plate, or the privilege of not wearing a uniform for a day).

This mom did not like hearing that somebody has to donate to the school, and since her kids are reaping the benefits of being there just like every other kid, it should be her just as much as every other parent. It's really true, though. What do people expect? They want this great education without doing anything at all for it. They want to be able to throw their kids on a bus in the morning, and forget about it all day long until the bus brings them home in the afternoon, never contribute a dime, and put in absolutely zero effort. If there is one thing I've learned in the few years Erin has been school-age, it is that that does not work. You get what you give. We've given more (time, money, effort...) to VDF School, and gotten more out of it than we ever imagined we could get out of a school. You get what you give, and somebody's got to do it. Why NOT you?