Parent Post

While this is a small event......I am again frustrated by the lack of fairness shown to each group trying to raise money in our district. It has been district policy to turn in your fundraising efforts and have them approved by the Superintendent BEFORE acting on them. This was to limit the number of fundraisers and to help with not crossing the lines of others trying to do the same thing.

Two examples of this are:

1. the junior class used to have an auction that raised money for prom - now all the elementaries have one and make the high school one too small to raise much money in comparison.
2. the cheerleaders are to sell the ONLY calendar - why did Rose Union NOT submit activities for the district wide calendar (I asked specifically on this – Principal Riggs refused) and sell just for Rose Union events? Why is that fair? That took a lot of fundraising efforts away from the cheerleaders’ only big fundraiser. It also limited families who now had to buy 2 calendars because they have kids in MS, HS and at RU - the point of only one group doing a DISTRICT WIDE calendar was to prevent that.

Why the favoritism? Or is Superintendent Wilkinson once again not keeping things straight? We all donated to RU - we have all helped them - but then to have Principal Riggs show such separatist ways by excluding their activities in the district calendar...... are we only good enough for our money?! And now I hear (my children don't go there - friends do) that PV is asking permission for a third fundraiser........an auction no less!

Why should one school get to have an extra fundraiser while the rest of us are limited? And when their kids are in MS and HS - they too will see how difficult it is for the small groups to make money for their activities because the elementary schools over do it! Can you find out any answers? As parents, we only hear gossip or what the administration believes we want to hear. How about the truth for a change?

Our Reply

This is a bigger issue than one reply. We will be posting a three part series starting tomorrow to try and clear up some of the confusion surrounding fund raising. But here are some immediate answers to your questions.

As far as we know Superintendent Wilkinson has been consistent will the district’s policy on fundraising and has gone out of her way to make sure that everything is done to keep any conflicts for fundraising from developing. One example of this was over the summer there was a group calling local businesses and soliciting ads for the school directory. The group calling was not associated with the Band Boosters who put out the school directory. Superintendent Wilkinson investigated the situation and made all of the necessary decisions to rectify the situation.

We have heard that Superintendent Wilkinson vetoed Prairie Vale holding an auction. After PV was denied, it was the PV PTO that was going to hold the auction. We heard but have yet to confirm that the Executive PTO denied PV PTO’s request to have an auction.

Your examples (conflicting auctions and multiple calendars) are classic examples of schools within the district doing what is best for them without any regard to the rest of the district. As we said before when will we be one district instead of five individual schools? There is a whole lot more to this story as you will see over the next three days.

How does the Fundraising Process Work? >>

Post your comments >>