school carnival controversy

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/soci...-help-poor-students-excluded-schools-carnival

I'd like to hear some takes from you guys on this. I'm pretty mind-boggled on multiple levels by this whole affair.

 

Mom or dad spent the $10 on beer and cigs.

 

If it is on school property, on a school day, everyone should be able to attend.

 

seems like it was ran like a field trip. Seems to be a damned if you do and damned if you don't kind of thing.

 

When situations like this arise in education, I always ask myself what would my dad have done -

There would have been no carnival or he would have made sure every student could attend.

 

That's kind of my feeling on this. And a potential solution is rather obvious: be transparent about the total cost, have a suggested 10 dollar donation along with updates about where the funding levels are. If there is looking to be a shortfall, let people know. Folks tend to step up.

But why is this on school time? And is a carnival that only netted 2-3k in fundraising really the best way to raise funds, when at 10 dollars a head it clearly cost at least a few thousand to put on?

 

Carnival day doesn't bother me near as much as turning 2 to 3
k profit and having kids crying and screaming over 10 bucks.

 

I bet they used it as a spring festival/ field day.

 

It's gross, for sure. I don't have any kids but if I knew there was a situation like that here locally I'd still toss 20 bucks into the bucket. Needlessly punitive. And Oldvol is right (and echoes the little girl in the article): the parents clearly don't care. But that doesn't mean the kids deserve to suffer more disappointment than is already their birthright.

I hate society. I know I'm a socialist commie bastard, but it just makes me ill to think about kids being brought up in situations where no one is fighting for them to have a good childhood and make something of themselves. Just a cycle of misery. I don't have a solution. Just sad.

Most years Denver County has some measure on the ballot for increasing funding to schools. I get that just throwing more money at something doesn't necessarily help a problem, but every time I check "yes" because it seems like such a small thing. And yet if I had kids here, I'd probably look for a private school because the Denver city schools are so bad. And that can't change without a change in the culture at home.

 

Yup.

 

I'm sure that New York city has a lot of requirements that aren't cheap either.

We use to have this kind of thing at my school through a fundraiser but we're too poor and couldn't sell enough to win it. I started buying water sprinklers, water balloons, and 6mm plastic making a huge 100 foot long slip and slide. I'm sure that's not an option there.

 

If you can't scrounge up 10$, you suck as a human being.


-roughly paraphrased from Tim Wilson

 

Perhaps, but that isn't the kids' fault. If the school is making money off of this deal, they could let those that could not afford it in.

 

Half-assed planning on the front end. Everyone involved in public education would know that a certain percentage of parents couldn't/wouldn't pay. Do an outreach ahead of time for "scholarships." If the administration was too lazy to do the legwork, I'm sure they could have found volunteers for that too.

 

Why not make admission free and charge for the individual rides and games? That's what they do here.

 

i'm agin' anything that takes the children away from time spent bustin' rocks, JMO GBO VFL

 

Every time mine ask "are we gonna be doing anything today??" I tell them we'll be copying out of the phone book.

 

Whole situation is ****ed up. I hate to see kids punished because of financial situations that they had no control over. My wife used to work at a low income school. Every year, they would have a Secret Santa shop set up so kids could go by things for themselves or small gifts for their parents. Watching a bunch of first graders in tears because their parents couldn't or wouldn't send them money broke my heart. That happened her first year there. Every year after that, I'd make sure she went to school with enough cash to give every kid $10 to spend. For some kids, it was just extra money on top of what they brought, but for others it would make there day. Then it would break my heart again to watch some of them try to use that $10 to buy gifts for everyone in their family instead of something for themselves.

 

You can't be serious with this???

 

They charge kids 25 bucks to go on field trips here. That's a hardship to some families. Especially if they have multiple kids. I don't like it and never have.