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Banning the Bake Sale
Ontario school councils that try to engage and involve parents through fundraising activities will find their efforts seriously curtailed on two fronts.
First, those Parent Reaching Out Grants have had their application deadline date changed. On May 6th, the Parent Engagement Office announced it was changing the deadline for school councils to apply for their maximum $1,000 grant. It has been moved up to June 11th from October. So now school councils are scrambling to come up with ideas for how to spend that $1,000 on engaging parents who aren’t even at the school yet!
Second, in a long list of banned behaviors and products, the Ontario government has now banned bake sales and pizza days. PPM 150 was primarily aimed at banning unhealthy foods in school cafeterias and vending machines, but it also extends the ban to traditional fundraising events like school bake sales and pizza days. Read it here. There is a loophole, however, where up to 10 days may be deemed “special event” days when pizza and bake sales would be permitted. While many parents have termed these activities more like fund-RAIDING, school councils just might have to focus on their REAL purpose—student acheivement and school accountability.