School Family

Hope that headline is clear enough, but - man-oh-man! — I really can’t stand it when regulators go crazy and good intentions go way, way too far. That’s what’s happening in California, where new, increasingly egregious food regulations are being phased in.  The end result?  Basically the end of bake sales.  And the end of a whole host of additional perfectly fine traditions and habits at schools.

One of these schools has no more dessert at lunch.  That nice office secretary who’d always have a peppermint for you when school was feeling particularly difficult in some way?  That peppermint is gone, too. (Thank God for the peppermint police!) The kids can’t have a hot dog sale that they used to have to fund a trip.  Well, I suppose they could, if the hot dog was vegan.

(Note: before my vegan friends get up in arms.  I have no problem with your vegan hot dogs.  I’ve had a couple. But regular ol’ hot dogs are not causing obesity.)

What about parents making choices for their kids? A slice of pizza for lunch isn’t child abuse. A bake sale isn’t criminal.  And — heck — my buying a box of hi-fat cookies from the Sally Foster catalog is none of your darn business. It’s as if we’re equating Christmas cookies with guns and ammo.

I’ll stop.  But I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  Same thing happening at your school?  As parents, how can we step in and bring sanity back?

(Cross post from my PTO Today Blog.)

I hope we don’t start taking programs like BoxTops for Education (General Mills) and Labels for Education (Campbell’s) and Take Charge of Education (Target) for granted.  This article in the Boston Globe today about how much BoxTops is giving each year just in Massachusetts reminded me to take a minute to offer a simple… thanks.

Yes, these are marketing programs. No doubt. And there are critics who think that any marketing that touches schools in any way is somehow taking advantage of kids. To me, that’s hogwash.

These companies have about 9,000 options of where to spend their marketing dollars and where to focus their community support, and they choose to support schools. Good for them. They could run 10 more ads on American Idol or buy a Super Bowl ad for a million or two. Instead, they put those dollars towards schools. I certainly hope they get more for their marketing dollars by doing this (I bet they do!), but I can guarantee you that a lot more good — like field trips and playgrounds and teacher support and new computers and yadda, yadda) — has been done through these collecting and school support programs than ever has been done with a Super Bowl ad. 

I know clipping that BoxTop or saving that label or pulling out the “right” card can become rote, but it’s worth every now and then remembering why we’re doing that and why it’s still worth it.  And maybe even thanking those guys every now and then.  (If you don’t have a blog, I’m sure your support at the store will suit them just fine. )

It’s a fair question (and one of my pet peeves) asked by this Detroit Free Press blogger: why do the first two weeks of school have to be fundraising ground zero? 

I know the two biggest reasons: 1) Schools need the money more than ever; and 2) there’s almost a race to beat the other fundraisers that will be dipping into parents’ pockets, but I still think a bit of patience is warranted. Wow me. Get me (and the kids) to love school. Impress us with your commitment to education and our families and kids.  Make me love you.  And then ask me for my $10!  Not vice versa.

If you’re a features writer for a local paper, here’s my response to the column you’re about to write trashing all fundraisers. (It happens every year.) I wrote it for our ptotoday.com site (for PTO and PTA leaders), but it works over here, too.

What’s your take on the influx of fundraising?

It’s certainly a trend, one this Hartford Courant piece captures well. What is it? Districts (or, more often, supporters of the schools in a district) setting major-league fundraising goals and using much more sophisticated tactics (bye-bye bake sales?) to buoy stressed school budgets. Good trend? Or bad trend? That remains to be seen. From my perspective, it’s hard to see any efforts that bring more support to our schools as a bad thing. Your thoughts?