Help me understand boosterthon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter brought home a popcorn fundraiser for her club, we found out the vendor takes 50 percent. Scholastic book fair takes about 65% of the profits. It's a dirty business all in the name of helping schols

I hate the Scholastic book fair also.

Our PTA does a Buy Nothing fundraiser where all the money goes back to the school. It has been successful for us!

[Anonymous]

OP, if you are going to complain, please make it a point to (1) go directly to the PTA, not "above" or elsewhere first and (2) volunteer your own time and energy to find/staff something different. It's not an easy job and sometimes PTA leaders take opportunities that are manageable with the level of volunteerism in the community (or lack thereof).

[Anonymous]

It's a big scam

[Anonymous]

It's crazy this is legal. MCPS should ban donations to individual schools. Donations go countywide or nowhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, if you are going to complain, please make it a point to (1) go directly to the PTA, not "above" or elsewhere first and (2) volunteer your own time and energy to find/staff something different. It's not an easy job and sometimes PTA leaders take opportunities that are manageable with the level of volunteerism in the community (or lack thereof).

OP. This is taking the discussion somewhere else. Are you with the PTA? You don’t think it’s unfair for kids to be treated differently like that? Rather than being defensive and saying why don’t you do it yourself, you could at least acknowledge that there is a (much broader) problem with boosterthon.

[Anonymous]

Yes, children get prizes for their fundraising. The prizes are give daily during Boosterthon personnel visits to classrooms. They hype the kids up and get them totally derailed from learning leaving teachers to pick up the pieces.

Technically, the rewards aren’t based on parental giving, as the kids are encouraged to hit up *everyone* they know (and not given much guidance about appropriate boundaries around that).

Yes, PPs are correct that Boosterthon keeps an obscene portion of the donations.

All third-party school fundraisers are terrible, but Boosterthon is particularly awful. It hijacks the learning environment, engenders crummy feelings about being hit up for cash, and doesn’t make much money for schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's crazy this is legal. MCPS should ban donations to individual schools. Donations go countywide or nowhere.

Our taxes already go countywide. Happy to support local school.

[Anonymous]

It's easy as an outside company comes in and runs it and takes a portion. Just donate money if you prefer and don't participate. We never participated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's crazy this is legal. MCPS should ban donations to individual schools. Donations go countywide or nowhere.

Absolutely NOT! All funds will go to title I schools, others got nothing. I already paid tax dollars on things I don’t support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, if you are going to complain, please make it a point to (1) go directly to the PTA, not "above" or elsewhere first and (2) volunteer your own time and energy to find/staff something different. It's not an easy job and sometimes PTA leaders take opportunities that are manageable with the level of volunteerism in the community (or lack thereof).

OP. This is taking the discussion somewhere else. Are you with the PTA? You don’t think it’s unfair for kids to be treated differently like that? Rather than being defensive and saying why don’t you do it yourself, you could at least acknowledge that there is a (much broader) problem with boosterthon.

PP here. Comment was not intended defensively -- just trying to give you some constructive advice on how to be heard if you raise the issue.

[Anonymous]

Totally thought this was a push to get people to get the booster shots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is our first year at MCPS so we’re new to this. The school (well the PTA to be precise) recently organized a boosterthon to raise funds for the school, which is of course fine. What really surprised me was that after saying that this is to benefit the school community, everyone contributes what they can, etc, it appears that kids got rewards based on what their own parents contributed.

Am i the only one that thinks this isn’t right? Yes it seems all kids get at least a small little something. But I heard some kids talked about how much their parents paid per lap, complaining (crying even) why their parents didn’t pay more, and got very upset when they saw their friends take home much larger gifts. Just really baffled that something like this happens in what’s perceived as one of the wealthiest areas. What are we teaching the kids with this - you’re as good as what your parents can pay???

It's a crappy system for the reason you listed but also because it teachers children that unless there's something in it for them- why bother? Raising money for school is a good civic duty that they should do for free. Not because they get some junky trinket. I stopped participating in those by dcs 3rd grade

[Anonymous]

Boosterthon puts employees on site for a week or so before the event. The payroll is a real cost.

If your PTA doesn't want to do any work to raise money, Boosterthon will do it for you. There are many ways for a PTA to raise money without resorting to them, though. It just takes a lot of (free) parent time and effort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boosterthon puts employees on site for a week or so before the event. The payroll is a real cost.

If your PTA doesn't want to do any work to raise money, Boosterthon will do it for you. There are many ways for a PTA to raise money without resorting to them, though. It just takes a lot of (free) parent time and effort.

Just curious, what do those employees do exactly?

[Anonymous]

Getting prizes for doing charitable works is not an expectation we would like our children to have