Hmmm...we do something sort of similiar with ice cream. We sell ice cream 5 days a week to the children (certain grades get it on certain days). We have a volunteer at the school every day from 11-1. Would it be possible to hand the popcorn out in the cafeteria from a table that has been set up in there. The child could just come up and hand you their ticket? We have ice cream tickets (they buy one for $5 or $10 from the school office and we punch holes in them. Teachers keep up with the ice cream tickets of the little ones).
would it be possible for one volunteer to come in a little later in the morning to take care of the rest of the details with the popcorn?
Shelly
I am relatively new to the boards as far as posting goes but have been reading for about a year. I will try to make this long story short...
My son is in a new school this year (same district, different grade levels). Somehow I ended up raising my hand and saying I would LOVE to be the PTO president. LOL. And I do love it for the most part. My problem right now is a handful of teachers who seem to be trying their hardest to make things as difficult as possible.
I had been warned by many people that some of the teachers were real sticklers and they wouldn't do one single thing outside of their union contract. I thought that would be ok and in some ways I can even understand that attitude. But, as many young lovers feel, I thought I could change them with a little TLC and extra attention.
Now, 2 1/2 months into the school year they are acting much more warmly to myself and many of the other parents who volunteer but they are still throwing up roadblocks in undermining ways that are starting to make me crazy!
Quick example-every other Friday our PTO sells popcorn to the kids for a quarter. They haven't done this at this particular school for a number of years so we wanted to bring it back. Our principal was all for it but said we would have to work around our teachers because they are not allowed and would not take quarters from the students. Fine, no problem. We set up a table before school on Friday and sell tickets to 400+ kids in the space of 25 minutes. It's hectic and frenetic but it has been working so we'll keep doing it.
We make the popcorn and deliver it to each teacher's classroom in a box with the correct number of bags for their students. The teachers are then asked to pass the bags out at some point during the day to the students who have tickets. Some of the teachers have decided they don't want to do this and the principal is looking for a way to appease them by suggesting we hand the popcorn out at lunch recess.
Hmmmm....sounds fine except for the fact that we are working with a small number of willing volunteers who get to school at 7:30 on those Friday mornings. We make all the popcorn and have it packaged and delivered by 10:30 and then we head for home. I think it's a bit unreasonable to ask any of those people to hang around until 1:00 or even to come back just so they can hand out popcorn to the kids because the teachers are choosing this issue to be a pain about.
I am sorry this is so long and I can't fully explain it all here. If this were our only issue it would be nothing. For some reason today was just not the best day for the principal to bring this to me. Fortunately she emailed this information to me so I have the weekend to calm down before replying.
The popcorn is such an easy fundraiser and the kids get so very excited and I thought the teachers were excited about it too so please, help me see a silver lining here? I think I am just too close to it because myself and another gal were the ones really pushing to get popcorn started again so it feels like they are attacking my baby in a way.
Thanks for listening. I just needed to get it off my chest.
