The secret world behind school fundraisers and turning kids into salespeople

Maria Lares is arguably the heart and soul of Villacorta Elementary School in La Puente, California. She has taught at the school for over 30 years and has always been part of the parent-teacher association.

“Actually, the PTA means a lot to me,” she says. “I’m an immigrant, and when I came here, my parents worked 12-hour days. So they never went to school. So, as a teacher, I said, ‘Uh-uh, PTA is my baby!” And has been for all these years.”

According to Maria, the main task of the school PTA is to fund activities that make school fun for children – for example, pizza parties for honor roll students, organizing a large reptile show for children or help paying for the 6th birthday. students have to go to science camp for a week.

This year, Maria’s number one priority is for the PTA to raise enough money to send every child in school on at least one field trip.

It’s been three years since the whole school wore one. The school failed to raise funds on time last year and did not participate in field trips the previous two years due to COVID-19. This year, Maria is therefore determined to organize school trips. And she’s looking forward to a field trip in particular for her first graders.

“I like to take my class to the beach. On a boat ride,” she said. “They’ll tell you, ‘I’ve never been to the beach!’ They had never been on boats before.”

The beach is only 40 minutes away, but 90 percent of this school’s students are economically disadvantaged and 20 percent are unhoused, so many of its students have never seen the ocean.

To pay for a beach trip and all other school trips, the Villacorta Elementary School PTA raises money through its own fundraisers, such as nacho and T-shirt sales. But these don’t generate huge amounts of money, so once or twice a year they will go through a school fundraising company. These companies hold flashy assemblies where they show students all the prizes they could win if they sold enough chocolate, popcorn, or wrapping paper.

Now, almost all schools offset the costs of field trips through fundraising. Wealthy schools also raise money to help cover the cost of their most expensive trips.

But why is this system? Why do schools let companies in to turn children into small salespeople?

Public schools derive their official budget from local property taxes, as well as state and federal funding. Technically, schools receive more money per student today than they have historically.

For Villacorta Elementary School, the district receives about $4.5 million annually. That’s about $16,000 per student at this school, which is a bit more than the national average of $14,347, according to 2021 census data. But it’s not like the principal gets all that money to spend. The district actually spends almost all of that money on things like teacher salaries, benefits and the cost of operating the building. What the principal can spend is closer to $1,200 per child. And because it’s public funds, there are many rules on how he can spend that money.

“It’s kind of a give and take,” says director George Hererra. “If I invest (the money) in school trips, then I lose somewhere.”

But when the PTA raises money through fundraisers, like selling cheesecake or chocolate, it’s not part of the school’s official budget. These are not “public funds”. This money can therefore be used for anything. Which is very valuable for a school.

Marguerite Roza, a school finance expert at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, said it might be possible to simply change the rules on how school money can be spent. And, she added, if a school really wanted to prioritize field trips in its official budget, it could. No fundraising with the PTA is necessary.

In fact, of the $1,200 that the principal receives per student, approximately $500 could be spent on school trips. That would be enough money to send everyone in the entire school on about 17 field trips a year. But that’s not what this director does.

George chooses to spend his budget on purchasing a teacher’s aide for his students who are learning English and an attendance clerk to try to solve the school’s attendance problem. The registrar calls parents when a student is absent to ask why their child is missing school.

“For me, my decision is very academic. You know, what intervention do we need? Should we hire an intervention teacher? Should we provide after-school tutoring?”

And choosing to prioritize your budget this way could be tactical.

School finance expert Marguerite Roza says it’s much easier to ask parents and the community to participate in activities such as field trips than to ask parents to donate money to pay the student’s salary. an attendance clerk. The PTA could raise money for this instead. But schools across the United States are instead choosing to raise money for fun school benefits because it works. People like to donate money to this kind of cause.

But that means the fundraising never stops.

Each year, the Villacorta PTA aims to raise $20,000. To achieve this, they organized around ten fundraisers: a popcorn drive, a Mother’s Day boutique, a jogathon but with bubbles called a “bubble run”. For a fundraiser, the teachers worked at McDonald’s for a day. (The teachers prepared the fries and the principal served cookies.)

One of the biggest fundraisers, the Bubble Run, was essentially a jogathon with bubbles. The students got the community to donate money.

When the school uses a fundraising company, the company takes a cut of everything the students sell. In Villacorta’s experience, the company usually gets 60% and the school 40%, which is not the best deal. But businesses help the school raise more money through fundraising.

After a year of fundraising, Maria’s school was just short of its $20,000 goal. The sixth graders were the first to go on an excursion. They went to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California. But all the other classes still have to go on their field trip; The trip to Maria’s beach for the first graders has yet to take place. Fundraising therefore continues.

Their next fundraiser begins March 18. They sell gummy bears and peanut brittle and chocolate covered popcorn.