Should our children be used as door to door sales people for schools?

No

1 of 1

by Tracy Smith

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Children should not be used as door to door sales people for the schools. This school year is just passed the first grade card of the year. Already we have been asked to sell twice for each kid. The schools hype the kids up with prizes that are cheaply made or a one in a million chance of getting. The schools are using child labor to make their budgets meet. Going door to door requires an adult supervisor. What about the kids that have a sitter because parents have to work? They usually end up going door to door by themselves. Very unsafe for children to be dong.

Then the items the schools are selling are high priced. It cost fifteen dollar for three pound tub of sugar cookies that are suppose to make seventy two cookies. Considering you can get a dozen sugar cookies for about a dollar, that is over double what the price would be in the store. A long time ago they used to sell a dollar candy bars. This was back when candy bars were fifty cents. Paying a dollar for a candy bar that you got right then was not so bad. Then it was an even up trade, with no worries about delivering later. Some parents said the school would send the boxes of candy home with the kids. Then the kids would eat the candy forcing parent to buy what they ate. It would have been better if the parents pick up the candy from the school themselves.

Kids no longer sell just once a year. They go from selling one product to the next. I don't hear of schools having school carnivals anymore. That was a fun event for the whole community and the school made a profit. Now they put the pressure on the kids. They inform the kids of the punishments if they don't make enough money. They may not say it is a punishment, but when you tell kids you'll have to drop a class or activity if they don't raise enough money, it is a punishment for not raising enough money.

Once a child does go door to door selling. Then the parents have to worry about the delivery. School have stop taking returns, so once it is order the parent is stuck with it. My child sold 20 tubs of cookie dough. Most of them to my co-workers. The school originally said the money was due when we delivered the cookies. Then they sent home notices asking for early money collection. I refused as it was double duty on my part to try to collect and they deliver the product another day. When we pick up the cookie dough we had to sign a slip guaranteeing the money in a week to the school. I didn't mind only having a week. I minded that I was responsible for people who didn't have the money for their orders. I couldn't just return the product. This would have been no big deal if it was a dollar candy bar, but it was fifteen dollars per tub of cookie dough.

This experience has gone all wrong this year. I have to pay for five tubs I didn't have in the budget. My kids will never sell for the school again. If they want a prize I'll take them out to game room for fun and prizes. It will save me time and money.

Schools need to come up with another way to make money. The are laws against child labor. That is what door to door selling is: work. I support a tax to help the school as long as the school is going to use the tax for what they need, not lining their pockets.

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