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snowy · 11-02-2009, 06:44 PM

In this day and age, schools have to do anything and everything to raise funds. At least your school has a willing partner in McDonalds. Would you rather take your daughter to McDonalds for a Happy Meal or buy five rolls of wrapping paper or subscribe to three magazines? Really, I think this is one of the easiest fundraisers for parents to participate in that I've seen.

Furthermore, McDonalds has changed its ways a lot when it comes to feeding children. All McDonalds ads that pander to children now feature the healthy options in the Happy Meal--the Apple Dippers instead of fries, Chicken McNuggets, and milk instead of a soda. A child can eat a well-rounded meal at the Golden Arches these days.

Your argument is ridiculous in that a single meal from McDonalds won't hurt anyone--and denying your school this fundraising opportunity will. I think you should do a lot more research into this before you go spouting off at the PTA meeting and come up with a better argument than "McDonalds will give our kids Type II diabetes" and "Your kids will become part of a fast food nation." The latter is really up to parents to discuss and decide.

If there's no room for corporate influence in schools, then urge your locality and state to fund schools adequately so that PTAs don't NEED to do this kind of fundraising. Even though this is a PTA sponsored and organized fundraiser, I would guess that the majority of the money goes to pay for school activities and so on that were once givens, such as field trips. As much as it sucks, if we want to offer anything outside of the general curriculum to our students (the general curriculum, and what it entails, obviously varies widely from place to place), we have to fundraise to be able to provide those opportunities for all students. Here, most of our fundraising focuses on providing extra money for the arts and music, additional materials for science classes, and scholarships for field trips. Perhaps your real argument should focus on how relying on PTAs for fundraising creates an uneven playing field between schools, depending on the activity level of the given PTA.

11-02-2009, 06:44 PM	#3 (permalink)
snowy Kick Ass Kunoichi Location: Oregon	In this day and age, schools have to do anything and everything to raise funds. At least your school has a willing partner in McDonalds. Would you rather take your daughter to McDonalds for a Happy Meal or buy five rolls of wrapping paper or subscribe to three magazines? Really, I think this is one of the easiest fundraisers for parents to participate in that I've seen. Furthermore, McDonalds has changed its ways a lot when it comes to feeding children. All McDonalds ads that pander to children now feature the healthy options in the Happy Meal--the Apple Dippers instead of fries, Chicken McNuggets, and milk instead of a soda. A child can eat a well-rounded meal at the Golden Arches these days. Your argument is ridiculous in that a single meal from McDonalds won't hurt anyone--and denying your school this fundraising opportunity will. I think you should do a lot more research into this before you go spouting off at the PTA meeting and come up with a better argument than "McDonalds will give our kids Type II diabetes" and "Your kids will become part of a fast food nation." The latter is really up to parents to discuss and decide. If there's no room for corporate influence in schools, then urge your locality and state to fund schools adequately so that PTAs don't NEED to do this kind of fundraising. Even though this is a PTA sponsored and organized fundraiser, I would guess that the majority of the money goes to pay for school activities and so on that were once givens, such as field trips. As much as it sucks, if we want to offer anything outside of the general curriculum to our students (the general curriculum, and what it entails, obviously varies widely from place to place), we have to fundraise to be able to provide those opportunities for all students. Here, most of our fundraising focuses on providing extra money for the arts and music, additional materials for science classes, and scholarships for field trips. Perhaps your real argument should focus on how relying on PTAs for fundraising creates an uneven playing field between schools, depending on the activity level of the given PTA. __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau