Walking for Science teachers (and Art Teachers, and Music Teachers...)

There are some things about living in Utah that are not as nice as the same things were living in Texas. The public education system, in my opinion, is one of these things. In Texas the kids had Spanish, Music, Art, and P.E. with a paid certified teacher. Until last year in our local Utah School district the kids had P.E. with a parent volunteer and music, art and science were up to the classroom teacher. No spanish, at all, until Jr. High

So, I'm pleased to see that our elementary school has ponied up (through a generous grant from the PTA aka the parents) to hire specialists to go into the classrooms and cover these subjects. That's great, I'm really happy to see it being done...

but now we've got to pay for it.

And here, we pay with one annual fund raiser. The Walk-A-Thon/Carnival/Silent Auction/Basket raffle/late night outdoor movie fund raiser. This involves many mothers (and fathers too) spending hundreds and hundreds of hours gathering donations and promoting a day dedicated to making some big bucks. It also involves children asking parents, neighbors, grandparents, bishops, dance teachers and swim coaches to "sponsor" them as they walk around the massive school playing field and earn so much per lap (Porter was our star walk-a-thoner this year, he completed 21 laps). The kids wait until the night before the pledges are due and then start making phone calls. Then we show up to support the walking. And we go back in the evening to buy over priced corndogs and play silly expensive carnival games all in the name of raising money for the school. The money gets raised, and we get to bid on some cool silent auction items and hang out as a neighborhood at the school. But lots of time and effort has been expended; families lay down their lives for a few weeks so the massive event can unfold.

So this brings me to one of the other things that Texans can do better than Utahns. Fundraise. Texas parents write letters, telling the families and businesses in their school's boundaries how much money it takes to provide the services they are going to provide and then we write our checks for as much as we can afford to support those services. End of hours spent. Money raised. Done.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am all about fun school carnivals and getting the dollars gathered-but why not let the carnival be a "not for profit" reward for the money that was raised through writing and mailing out letters? I ask you in the name of the $5 corndog we will buy for dinner tonight and the $2 a ticket fish pond game we will play why not? Letters written+money sent in vs. Dj's, auction items, baskets compiled, food concessions organized, etc. etc. etc+hours of time and energy = the same money raised. I guess not everything's bigger Texas.

Have a wonderful weekend. If you are a Texan, be grateful you wrote your check and won't be spending your Friday night at a little school carnival. You can spend your $5 on the State fair corny-dog instead ;)