THank ScottMom, yes very helpful.

Given you are a computer tech magnet, how are the programs funded? Do big corporations help with software?hardware? (as in computers, applications, etc) or is this all handled the normal way?

Is there a fundraiser <total blue sky question> that your school/kids/parents could do that would raise more money with the same amount of work? - Again, my research for my group is based on maximum profit/ongoing profit with the same effort put into it today. - thank you again all for your responses.

FM-Tx,
I guess I should tell you we are a computer tech magnet school but in a low income area. By saying we are helping with the new tech stuff I mean we purchased 2 DVD players for the school-one that can run into every classroom and one that can be chacked out because we didn't have any, we are working on getting our television studio updated because our school got new stuff when it opened 8 years ago but the district hasn't updated anything but the computers. We are also working on purchasing equipment to do a video yearbook for next year that we are hoping will pay for itself in the first 2 years. We also help pay for food and supplies on nights that the teachers stay to learn the districts new software and nights that we introduce parents to the new tech stuff their students are learning. I hope this helps.

Our fundrasiers meet our goals, but that may be because, as a really small school, we set our goals in the extremely realistic range! We hold a two big fundraisers in the fall--a food catalog sale and a fall market, which is a combo of cafe, silent auction, flea market, and bake sale. The latter is by far our biggest money maker, bringing in about $7,000. The rest of the year we toss in a couple of small sales--butterbraids and Little Caeser's usually--because the families want to reorder what they've liked in the past.

We spend our money in four areas of need: teacher appreciation (which includes $$ at Christmas, a luncheon during teacher appreciation week, and a classroom wish list), family care (meals and a card when a family loses a member, gains a member, or is struggling with illness or disability), library (we buy new books), and the playground fund (which, God willing, we'll be DONE WITH after this year!). We stretch our money until it snaps, but seem to get everything accomplished that we feel lead to take on.

Hope this helps!

Yes, very helpful. I appreciate your replys. I think the "new" technology stuff is what I'm honing in on the most. Our school is very up to date, but I'm sure unless (like most) they continue with Fundraisers, they won't be able too.

thank you.

We have two "major fundraisers" and a lot of little ones during the year.

In Sept. we've always done Innisbrook (a wrapping paper/gift catalog) and it's been very good - nice stuff, we make about $25k profit (we're a suburban school with about 600 k-5 students). Then in spring we do a fun family event (DJ, dancing, pizza, a few games & a silent auction) and make about $5000 from the auction.

Ongoing we do cupcake fridays ($800/year), skate city nights, stuff like that just to supplement.

So we usually end up with a budget of around $30k to work with. We give 50% of that to the teachers (based on their classroom sales with the fundraiser) to spend as they see fit, as long as they spend it that year on those students.

The other 50% we spend on general stuff - we supplement the technology budget for the school, buy new refrigerators and floor mats as needed, basically stuff that's not in the school budget.

So yes, the stuff we do meets OUR financial needs but we could not support the school without the district funds of course... does that help?

We use fall and spring catalog fundraisers as well as 3 extra nights at local businesses like skating parties to meet our needs. We are busy adding lots of new technology stuff right now that is requiring more than what we have needed in the past. Last year our fall fundraiser turnout was so good that we could have worked off for the year but instead we came into this year with a nice cushion which has been very helpful.