Anyone's PTA do Boosterthon Fundraiser?

[Anonymous]

^ teacher here. Yes, they go into each room each morning, get the kids riled up when handing out the crappy "awards" for reaching a previous goal, and reminding them that they need to be asking friends, relatives, neighbors, and they go over the sales pitch with them.

My kids aren't in school to be salespeople, so we simply didn't participate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ teacher here. Yes, they go into each room each morning, get the kids riled up when handing out the crappy "awards" for reaching a previous goal, and reminding them that they need to be asking friends, relatives, neighbors, and they go over the sales pitch with them.

My kids aren't in school to be salespeople, so we simply didn't participate.

Thank you for the information. I still don't understand how this is allowed to happen in public schools. I am planning on writing a note to the teacher asking my child to be sent to another classroom during this time. My son is in kindergarten - he is in school to learn how to read and write not to learn how to beg for money.

[Anonymous]

Our school does its own "in house" run called "laps for learning." It is similar to "readathon" or other programs that we did back in the day. In fact, now that I think of it, I kind of wish they'd do a readathon, too. Maybe they switched to running to combat obesity? I digress.

Anyway . . . they don't contract through a company. The PTA organizes it, and hits up the usual neighborhood businesses and restaurants for little prizes to award the kids for things like most money raised, most laps run, raffle for participating, etc. Kids are asked to collect donations, which can be per lap, per minute, or just a set amount. 100% goes to the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our school does its own "in house" run called "laps for learning." It is similar to "readathon" or other programs that we did back in the day. In fact, now that I think of it, I kind of wish they'd do a readathon, too. Maybe they switched to running to combat obesity? I digress.

Anyway . . . they don't contract through a company. The PTA organizes it, and hits up the usual neighborhood businesses and restaurants for little prizes to award the kids for things like most money raised, most laps run, raffle for participating, etc. Kids are asked to collect donations, which can be per lap, per minute, or just a set amount. 100% goes to the school.

Sounds great! All the people who complain about Boosterthon coming to their school should volunteer to spearhead a similar type run at their school. They can organize it, hit up businesses for prizes, help to collect money, set up the run, find other parents to help volunteer at the run, whatever else needs to be done.