What sort of fundraising are you opting out of? (Surely not funds to arm the teachers.)

No, not arming the teachers, thank GOD. Jax is backwater, but luckily, not quite that far gone. It's whatever the hell the PTO is doing to supplement funds for the school. Thing is, we live in an area with fairly high taxes, with a great school system (Top 15% nationally) yet we still had to suffer budget cuts that have cut the in-school elective options and now require early release Wednesdays for the middle school in addition to the elementary school.

I shouldn't bitch much-- the kids are in great schools and they're going to benefit in a few years from going to a brand new high school that just opened this week. There's a lot to be said for that, but still, it chafes my knickers a wee. I'll get over it.

javachick, it was an amazing class. The 'Trivial Pursuit' just added the perfect final touch.

we even had light-up buzzers.

oooooooo, jealous!

"When I was in school the only fund raising we did was for extracurriculars like Girl Scouts and band."

Power to the band and girl scouts fund raisers! I sold more stuff for the two of those things than I care to remember. These days the band at my school seems to favor cookie dough, pizza kits and candles.

(Surely not funds to arm the teachers.)

Like I said..."The Lottery" and rocks, lots of rocks.

We did band fundraisers, selling Little Ceasar's Pizza at lunch. But any sort of PTA fundraiser would have failed, miserably. Too poor a community. My mom still spends oodles on supplies and she's not in a regular classroom anymore. That I make so much more than her, 11 years out for me, over 20+ for her, is just sad. And I could make even more if I were not in academia, and I don't have a Masters like she does.

In elementary/middle school, we had CCD fundraisers for church and band sales for (public) school, in which I remember selling citrus fruit and loads and loads of chocolate bars. In (Catholic) high school, the big fundraiser was the annual raffle ticket sale, which they finally in my sophomore year handed over to a very smart nun who came up with incentives that generated enthusiastic selling from us students. Namely, if you sold $20 over the quota of $40, you were able to wear jeans to the two weeks of classes we took at the guys school (while they shut down ours for the humungous fundraiser in which they turned our school into a series of nightclubs). More than that was other rewards, but just the chance of wearing jeans instead of the plaid skirts in front of the boys got just about everyone to sell those $60 of tickets.

Durbin is introing Obama now. There'll be a short video after, then he'll be on. Say about 5 minutes or so.

I sold a shitload of candy in high school, but I'm pretty sure it was to pay for my varsity jacket and senior class trip.

Oh, I forgot all the take-home tamale, enchilada and taco fundraisers. YUM. Those were mostly off the books, though. Even if they were held in the school cafs. God, I miss those. So damned good.

Guess whose Tivo just locked up?

Ah, but I remembered I can bypass it....

For Chorus trips, we had Bowl-a thon. W sold cheese for band, and candy for the school paper. I never really sold much of anything, because I hated it. I believe the whole school sold magazines for yearbook.

The candy thing was great, because you just carried the box to class, and people would just buy it. I mean, it wasn't like you had to go up to anyone or stand behind a table or whatever.