Sorry, That's a Fee, Not a "Donation"

A few days ago I got this letter from one of the kids in his/her backpack:

Quilt Project

The XX graders have been working on drawing and coloring quilt squares all year to make their individual quilt of XX grade memories. The quilt consists of a pillow protector case and batting placed inside. Each student also received a box of special fabric crayons in the beginning of the year to color their pictures.

Donation for completed quilt for your student is $6. Please place donation in envelope.

Thank you,

The XX Grade Team

We had no notice of this in the beginning of the year. We weren't given a choice to opt out, or to see if we could purchase the supplies ourselves cheaper than $6. And I don't know about you, but that letter looks like a demand, not a request, and in my book, that makes that $6 a fee, not a donation. It's not even worded particularly politely. Will I not receive my child's quilt if I don't pay the $6? I'm not willing to risk that particular child's disappointment to find out, but I do have a blog where I can publicize things that piss me off, and use it I will.

I know that MCPS schools are not allowed to charge fees for anything related to instruction, due to a lawsuit regarding provision of a free education, and that's why they are calling it a donation. But if you are trying to get around that, a "Would you please make a donation to defray the cost of materials for our project? Whatever you can afford would be wonderful, but the total cost of all materials works out to about $6 per student. We greatly appreciate your help." would have been much more appropriate. Had I seen that, odds are good that I might have donated a lot more than the $6 for my kid; we can afford it and I am well aware that we live in a fairly economically challenged area. But they aren't going to get the chance to find that out. Way to shoot yourselves in the feet, XX Grade Team.

Comments

[Lisa @ Boondock Ramblings]

Yeah, that's a fee...I agree. They could have put it in a lot nicer way for sure. I guess they don't teach tact in college anymore.

[SciFi Dad]

The way they did it was not cool.

However, (and this is just playing devil's advocate) if they gave the opt-out choice and/or the choice to buy your own materials, wouldn't one or more of the following situations applied:

1. Parents opt out completely, leaving their child with nothing to do while class does this task.

2. Parents opt to buy their own supplies, and end up with inferior and/or inappropriate ones for the task at hand.

3. Parents opt to buy their own and cannot afford to do so, leaving their kids in the same group as #1.

I suspect (and I may be completely wrong) that if you don't pay, you're still getting the quilt. The $6 will likely come out of either the teacher's pocket or the school's petty cash if they do that.

Like I said, the letter sucked. But, I can understand why they went about it that way.