It’s that time of year again: the time when we get the pleas for donating to The Fund at school. The Fund is designed to funnel money into more than a dozen different programs at the elementary school, including:

• Class size reduction for K-3
• Art
• Music
• Physical education
• Custodial services
• Technology
• Library assistant
• Reading programs

Of course, all of the items on the list would be nice to have if we still had state funding or got enough money from donors, but the fact of the matter is that there’s never enough money in The Fund to cover everything. This leaves a lot of donors feeling dissatisfied because their pet project, the thing that they wanted more than anything, ended up getting cut.

Rather than having a general fund that tries to be everything to everyone, I think that there should be Kickstarter-style funding drives for the individual programs. So if you, the donor, feel very strongly in favor of music education, you can put all of your money behind that funding drive. Or you could divide your donations between art and reading.

Like with Kickstarter, there could be fundraising updates for donors. We have 10 days left to raise $1,500 to meet our funding goal. Tell your friends and neighbors… When the deadline comes, you’ll know where things stand and will know with certainty that you gave it your all, and that your pet program wasn’t cut arbitrarily.

Are there any schools that do this?