Chuck E. Cheese Field Trip

On my son’s sixth birthday our family went to Chuck E. Cheese for a little fun during a regular public school day. My kids had the day off of school due to our move and resettling. We were surprised to find Chuck E. Cheese full of elementary school aged children on a fundraising field trip. Apparently, Chuck E. Cheese has a fundraising program where they will give the school 15% of what is spent.

Maybe I’m looking at this wrong, but this doesn’t make any sense. If you need more money to educate a child, why would you take a day of educating away from children for a measly 15% of what is spent on some food and games.

Based on a quick look online, I discovered that the cost to educate each child in Ontario comes out to $25-30 per day and that is a conservative number.  So in order to cover the cost of educating each child on this field trip day, each child would need to spend about $175.  We all know that isn’t happening.  Plus if you consider that many districts need to cover the cost of transportation of children to the field trip location, I wonder how profitable this ends up being.

I think Chuck E. Cheese has a good thing going here.  Not only do they increase their profits, but they expand their customer base.

I know that schools do quite a fit of fundraising and extra funds come in that wouldn’t normally come in, but when the cost of educating a child exceeds what you will get, it seems lacking in common sense.  Now if the class has another reason for visiting Chuck E.Cheese and simply utilizes the fundraising benefits, I can see how that might work.  But I think fundraising has been so entwined with school culture that it seems like a normal thing to take a day away from the classroom to engage in fundraising.

What do you think?  Please share in the comments.