Many schools organize fancy fairs, raffles, waffle sales or flower sales to fund their coffers or finance various activities such as school trips or cultural outings. The tradition is so well established that it is rarely questioned. Every year, many parents put their hands on their wallets willy-nilly to support their child(ren)’s school. Yet, in a number of cases, schools overstep their rights by imposing illegal pressure on children and their parents. Nicolas, dad of a sixth-grade primary school pupil in Brussels, paid the price this week.
“My eleven-year-old son and the other pupils in his class received booklets of raffle tickets from their teacher for the school fancy fair which is to take place soon. Each booklet is worth seven euros. school, he explained to me that the teacher had threatened to punish the students who would not sell any, “he says. “There has always been a certain pressure on children to sell this or that object in order to get money into the coffers, which indirectly comes down to asking parents to pay. Of course I’m going to buy tickets for my son, but this pressure has been formulated very clearly. In addition, there is not really an educational purpose for the sale. If it was to raise funds for a charitable cause to which the children would be made aware in class, or even so that a school trip would cost less overall, there would be no problem, but it is not not the case here. And threatening children with sanctions for that I think is wrong.he says.
For the League of Families, this is clearly an abuse on the part of the school establishment, or rather the overzealous teacher.
“Forcing a child to sell raffle tickets is completely illegal. If a school begins to require students to bring money back to school, we are talking about disguised school fees and it is totally prohibited. If a school wants to organize a raffle, it must emphasize the optional nature of the activity and can in no way force the students”says Merlin Gevers, project manager at the League of Families.
Not all schools operate this way, however. “There are schools that put pressure on pupils and parents to buy a certain number of things, but at home there is no raffle or fancy fair. We organize activities at Carnival and a Christmas market, but We limit ourselves to that. It also happens that students sell lasagna or other to lower the price of a school trip, but it is always on their initiative. It is never the school that puts the pressure. plus, school trips are not mandatory.”testifies Amir Hamidovic, director of an athenaeum located in the province of Liège.