ASB Budgeting Issue with School BBQ’s

Introduction

The Associate Student Body of my old high school has been facing a problem for as long as I can remember. The ASB has been fighting a dilemma of underfunding for years now, and it has really put a hold on the high school experiences of many different kids at school. The problems I am referring to stem from the low attendance rate, which leads to underfunding for all departments of the school. Personally I was in many different organizations throughout my high school career. I played sports, sang in the choir, and even was elected Vice President of the entire school. My experiences at the high school were much different than that of the average high school student. Typically in your average high school class there are more than 500 people just in a single grade, at my high school I graduated with 17 others in total. Our school was small and underfunded, but it provided me a great education. Spending my almost my whole academic career at this school (2^nd Grade – 12^th Grade) I can definitely speak on behalf of the school and say with confidence that some aspects of the school were incredible while others were lacking terribly. ( Marguerite, 2009)

The particular aspect that I feel most needs to be addressed at my old high school was an issue with the ASB not being able to attain any funding for school wide events. The ASB at the beginning of the school year started with an average budget of between $500 and $1000 dollars. This was usually a bank left by the ASB of the previous year to help get the new ASB off to a running start. This amount of money is trivial when we realize that with this money has to be used to run most of the school events, and by the end of the year you have to have the same amount of money you started with. The initial funding of the ASB was usually used to purchase snacks and food for school wide events. Each day the ASB was allowed to sell snacks at the 15 minute break during the day. The snacks being sold usually consisted of candy bars, muffins, chips, soda, and water. These were mandated to be sold at a low price averaging between 50 and 75 cents per items. These low prices allowed students to be able to snack on something in the middle of the day for a low price. However with prices like these the ASB made little profit. (Calleros, 1995)

Usually with small profits which were limited further by the amounts of sales which averaged between $25 and $100. The ASB pulled in daily revenue, but frequently most of the money was put back into product costs. This left the ASB underfunded and unable to plan certain high school events such as Homecoming, Spring Formal, Sadie Hawkins Dance, and more. The ASB was not granted any tuition funding from the school and was therefore unable to plan nice events that the high school students deserved. To combat this problem the ASB initiated school wide fundraisers by sending “grams” during the holidays. Students were able to send letters from other students by buying gram from the ASB who then distributed the grams with a piece of candy. This made some initial profits for the ASB, but didn’t amount to the $1000’s of dollars needed to plan events that the ASB was responsible for. (Spaulding, 1918)

Finally the ASB came up with a way to make money that both the students enjoyed, and was profitable. The ASB began to do BBQ’s one Friday a month and ran them for profit. Students were able to purchase hamburgers, chips, and drinks, and more for a low price that offered the ASB some room to make some money. This BBQ’s proved to be very profitable for the ASB, and began to run BBQ’s on multiple Friday’s a month. Soon thereafter the school contested the BBQ’s because students were no longer buying the school provided lunches. The school was making money off of the lunches, but it was minuscule compared to the amount that the ASB was able to make for its Friday BBQ’s. The ASB’s funding was again cut off. This cutting off of funds left the ASB dry without money. This forced the ASB to charge students outrageous prices to come to dances and other events. Outraged by this I decided to write a proposal that outlined why the school should either provide a yearly budget to the ASB for events or allow the ASB the opportunity to make money from the school wide BBQ’s.

 

Behind the Scenes

The job of the ASB

 

The purpose of the ASB is to plan and provide for school related activities. The ASB has worked tremendously hard to provide an environment enjoyable to high school students of Calvary Christian School. The ASB currently has enough funding to run day to day school wide activities, however with the recent limiting of the school wide BBQ’s the amount of funding for after school activities has dropped. The ASB cannot provide decent events for high school students.

 

The needs of the ASB

 

The ASB needs to be provided with the ability to subsidize its own events or it needs to have funding provided by the school. The ASB has in the past ran BBQ’s for profit and been able to subsidize after school events by acquiring funds from the students who wish to have a good school lunch. Currently the school provides lunches each day of the week for a price of $4.00 per lunch, however recently the ASB has been debunked of its Friday BBQ’s because it has been dipping into the school’s lunch revenue. The ASB brings in an average of $400 in revenue each Friday it has a BBQ, however the school averages about $100 in revenue from its daily BBQ’s, this amount to $500 a week, or $400 a week if the ASB runs its BBQ’s on Fridays. The ASB would like to purpose that it be allowed to run its Friday BBQ’s or have the school subsidize the ASB its $400 a week.

 

The past funding of the ASB

 

In the past the ASB was able to run BBQ’s and subsidize its cost for 3 annual school dances. The average cost of these dances was around $4500 each that must be provided for by the ASB. This is to keep ticket prices low and around $40 per individual who wishes to attend any dance. These dances usually have around 100 attendees and results in a total cost of around $8500 for an event. These events are held 3 times a year. Previously the ASB was making on average about $1600 a month from school BBQ’s however now that the funding from BBQ’s has been removed the school dances can no longer be paid for by the ASB. Over the course of 3 months of BBQ’s the ASB was able to provide for the costs of the school dances. However now that the BBQ’s are being stopped the ASB can no longer afford to provide for the BBQ’s.

 

 

What we ask

 

The proposal of the ASB

 

The ASB would purpose that the school either decides to subsidize the ASB’s school dances at the cost of $4500 per dance or allow us to continue having the school BBQ’s to fund our events. The ASB would further propose that if the school is truly upset about the revenue being lost from the lunch meals that the ASB would pay the school a dividend of $100 a week to be able to perform the school BBQ’s. This would be a comprisable point between the two arguments at stake. This way the ASB is still able to make an average of $300 off of its weekly BBQ’s, and the school does not take a $100 week revenue hit.

 

A breaking point

 

The ASB can no longer provide school dances for the students without some sort of compromise on this issue. Please consider funding our school dances or allowing us to be able to conduct the weekly BBQ’s. Without these school dances, morale of students would decrease and could possibly end up with even less students being able to come to the school. Right now the school is running most of its extracurricular programs with an extremely low budget. The ASB would like to be able to continue the dances without impacting the school’s budget at all.

 

 

Conclusion

A friendly agreement

The ASB would like to be as civil in its request for funding as possible. We would like to assume that the school realizes how much of a burden it creates for the ASB when it takes away its funding. The ASB cannot carry out its fundamental duties when it doesn’t have the necessary funds to do so. By keeping the ASB well-funded and happy the school provides the ASB with the opportunity to make the students happy with their experiences at school. Without money for nice events the ASB gets blamed, and therefore the school gets blamed for “lame” events.

The final decision

The final decision lies with the principal and the school board. The ASB hopes that we find favor with the school board by either allowing us to continue funding ourselves via school BBQ’s or that we would have an approved monthly or yearly budget set aside for school wide functions. The money is there for the school BBQ’s and the ASB is willing to do the work, we just ask that you and the school board are willing to let us. The ASB would hate to see its primary source of funding dropped. Please consider the hard working students of the school and how much they deserve to be rewarded for the effort that they put into their school work. (Finn, 1993)

A reminder

The ASB is more than willing to donate a percentage of its profits to the school lunch system so that any revenue that was previously being generated by the school lunch system can continue to be made. This should be a reasonable solution so that the school continues to generate its monthly lunch revenue, and the ASB is able to fund its school functions.

Recommendation

I highly recommend the reimplementation of the school BBQ’s. This ensures that both the school and the ASB continue to receive the money necessary for both parties to retain their budgets. The school cannot expect to have happy students without a happy ASB. With the Reimplementation of the BBQ’s the ASB will be more than happy to continue to serve the student of this great school.

Works Cited

Marguerite, R. (2009). Breaking down school budgets.Education Next, 9(3), Retrieved from http://educationnext.org/breaking-down-school-budgets-2/

Spaulding, F. (1918). The making of a school budget. The School Review, 26(9), 684-695. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1078320

alleros, C. R. (1995). Training a diverse student body for a multicultural society. Retrieved from http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/berklarlj8&div=12&id=&page=

Finn, J. D. (1993). School characteristics related to student engagement. The Journal of Negro Education,62(3), 249-268. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2295464

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