I’ve read about things like shaving the principal’s head and making the principal sit on the roof of the school in a lawn chair for the entire school day. These things sounded fun and unique, and I really didn’t see the harm.

But, now I’m wondering about that. In recent weeks, I’ve come across a handful of news articles that are reporting incidents of principal fundraising torture that perhaps go a bit too far. But, then again, maybe I’m way off-base here, and you might not agree. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Here are four separate cases:

An elementary school in Alabama recently held a fundraiser for the Red Cross Heroes Campaign. Students were told that if they met their goal, they would have a chance to duct tape their principal to a wall in the school gym.

Well, the students held up their end of the bargain. So shortly after the end of the fundraiser, the student body gathered in their gymnasium. The principal stepped up onto a bucket, which was placed next to a wall. Then each student was handed a two foot long strip of duct tape. They formed a giant single file line, and one by one, each student placed his or her tape over the principal’s body.

When every student had accomplished this task, a couple of teachers removed the bucket, upon which the principal had been standing. Because he was secured so firmly against the wall, he did not fall, when the bucket was removed. The reporting website said that the kids howled with delight (at their little display of sadism). Hmmm.

(Take a minute to watch the video of this event, embedded below. I, myself, felt a little differently about this after having watched the video.)

The second event took place in my old hometown, Saline, Michigan. Here, the elementary school students were participating in an American Heart Society fundraiser. Their reward for meeting their goal was the opportunity to pour green slime over the heads of their principal and a few of the teaching staff. Of course, the students met the goal, and the sliming was on.

According to the newspaper report, over 700 students got to take a turn at teacher target practice. The American Heart Society said that their program “Hoops for Heart” promotes the value of healthy habits and empowers students to contribute to their community’s welfare”.  Really?  By shooting hoops and then pouring slime on the heads of people they are supposed to respect?  Hmmm.

A third case of principal torture (or denigration) happened at an Oregon elementary school. Here, the students raised over $3,000 for their school’s PTA in a jog-a-thon. Because this amount surpassed the stated fundraising goal, the principal agreed to be hit in the face by three cream pies and then be washed down by a fire hose.

In the newspaper report, while the principal was being hit in the face with the pies, the students began chanting, “Pie in the face! Pie in the face!”

Once he was being hit with the water cannon, the students changed their cheer to: “Hose him down! Hose him down!”

The principal was a good sport about this and was quoted as saying, “They earned it, all $3,000 worth.” Hmmm.

The last incident I read about maybe isn’t so bad, but I still wonder about the implications of it going forward. At a middle school in Pennsylvania, the students were challenged to raise money to help out a number of disadvantaged families in their community. Well, as you can imagine, the students met their goal and as a reward, they were treated to a Sumo wrestling match between their school principal and vice-principal. Each man agreed to dress up in those inflatable sumo suits.

The principal won two out of three matches and was declared the champion. Students were said to have been screaming, yelling, and stomping during the bout. The newspaper reported the student body was “ablaze with excitement”. Hmmm.

Conclusion

Well, I hate to come off sounding like a party pooper. I really do like to have fun myself. In fact, once, when I was a school principal, I held a pizza and ice cream party for the students, and I created a new sandwich idea. I plopped a scoop of vanilla right between two slices of pepperoni pie. I ate it and encouraged everybody else to try it too, so I guess I can be accused of promoting gluttony.

However, is being duct taped to a wall by students, being hit in the face by pie and then hosed down like an animal, having green slime poured over your head by 700 kids, or participating in a sumo wrestling match the best ways to earn the respect of the students? Are these individual cases going too far?

Does a principal have a harder time disciplining students, when the students have seen him pinned down in a fat suit? Or hosed down in the parking lot?

I, myself, am struggling with these questions. What do you think? Please let us know in the comment section!

P.S.  Dedicated readers of this blog might have noticed that three of the four cases I cited in this post were school fundraisers for outside groups, not for the school itself, a practice that I’m not very fond of.

I was reading an article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune this morning about the dire straits that private schools are finding themselves in during this economic downturn. Parents are struggling to find ways to afford expensive tuition rates, and schools are seeing many families depart for the free option- public school.

As a former private school principal, I used to grapple with these same worries. So, I remember that over the summer one year, I sat down and brainstormed all the ways I could think of to keep our current students and even attract more.

As I mentioned at the top, not all of my ideas have been well-received.

So, I was thinking…

In our town, there are two public elementary schools that have approximately 500 students each. A HUGE number of these kids are driven to school and then picked up in the afternoon by parents. That means the line of cars before and after school stretches for blocks. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth in this town over the problem. I’ve heard parents say that they regularly wait 30 to 40 minutes just to pick up or drop off their child.

On the other hand, my little private school had a wait of approximately zero minutes. Parents really didn’t even have to stop- they could just slow down and the kids could jump out. Well, that’s an exaggeration, but you get the point. Pick up and drop off at my school was a breeze.

Hey! I thought, I could tell parents that there was no waiting and no lines over at our private school. I further thought, what if we assigned a dollar amount to people’s time. For argument sake, let’s say you decide your time is worth $10 per hour. Let’s also say you wait exactly one hour each day in the pick up/drop off line. In one week, that equals five hours, or $50! Our school year lasts 180 days, which comes to a grand total of $1,800! Can you believe that? Now, our tuition at the private school was $3,300 per year. If you take away the $1,800, your “bill” comes down to only $1,500! That’s over 50%! Now, you’re not really saving “real” money in my dreamed-up scenario, just time and frustration, but the quality of life is important, too!

Then I thought, I could ask the people who lived on the streets where the cars backed up, if I could stick some yard signs in their lawns saying something like, “If your kids went to — School, you’d already be at Starbucks” or something like that.

I thought it was brilliant. Unfortunately, nobody else did, and my dream of the perfect marketing slogan was crushed…  If anybody else out there appreciates my untapped genius, please feel free to run with this awesome plan!

Photo by: The Pug Father

9. You cut out the box top label on the cereal box BEFORE your kids can get the toy.

8. You had to purchase a stand-alone freezer, just to store all the cookie dough you’ve bought.

7. You’ve memorized the “Cash for Class” codes for all of your children’s schools at every grocery store in town.

6. Your family has to play “Guess What Kind of Soup We’re Having Tonight” because you’ve prematurely removed all the soup labels and turned them in.

5. You volunteer to take a shift at the bake sale for the school in the NEXT TOWN OVER.

4. Other parents at school see you coming with your clipboard in hand and quickly head the other direction.

3. You place bid sheets in front of your children’s Christmas presents.

2. You have the state raffle license office’s phone number on your cell’s speed dial.

1. TopSchoolFundraisers.com is set as your browser’s homepage!