MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Monongalia County Board of Education has plans to address a policy towards how schools can use crowdsourcing as part of their respective fundraising efforts.
After three representatives of parents on the parent-teacher organizations addressed the board to call for a formal discussion to discuss a policy that prevents crowdsourcing from being used to raise funds during their regular meeting Tuesday. Board Member Christina Fattore Morgan was the first to move to have a formal discussion on the policy at a future meeting, which was later unanimously agreed upon by the rest of the board. Among the parents who spoke were those with children who attend Brookhaven and Mountainview Elementary Schools.
“I think it’s all but two of our local elementary schools in Mon County that would be impacted by this and are being impacted by this,” said Mountainview Elementary School PTO representative Rebekah Aranda. “We really appreciate having a dialogue about it, and sitting down and having a meeting, we’re not opposing the board, we’re just looking to have a conversation.”
According to the parents in attendance, the biggest issue related to the crowdsourcing policy stems from the inability to use third-party providers such as Booster, which have supported fundraising efforts as high as $30,000 in a single year. This is supported through not only a traditional method of hosting a school-specific ‘Fun Run,’ which is an activity-based fundraising event, but also a chance to offer students prizes and for students to create their own online requests for funds, which then can be donated by anyone from across the country if they’re willing. If the recent enforcement of the policy continues, there’s a possibility that tens of thousands of dollars could be left on the table for select Monongalia County elementary schools.
“I think we’re looking at small local fundraisers,” said Aranda on how much the crowdsourcing policy would impact future PTO fundraising efforts if such enforcement continues. “You know, bake sales, someone mentioned spaghetti dinners; I think that’s what we’re back to. Our capacity would be significantly limited to what we can raise and what we can do for our kids.”
Similar ‘Fun Runs’ have been hosted at Mylan Park Elementary School and Eastwood Elementary in years past. All six PTOs that operate at the Monongalia County elementary schools endorsed the need to at least review the policy.
For the Monongalia County School System, along with the BOE, the conversations related to crowdsourcing have been ongoing for over a year. Originally passed as a policy back in 2020, discussions with concerned PTOs from at least four elementary schools related to the desire to use crowdsourcing avenues for funding took place related to similar programs, which were rejected after Monongalia County Schools administrators looked at the third-party vendor for the specific fundraiser. This is expected to be discussed, among the examples listed by the PTO members from Brookhaven and Mountainview Elementary schools on Tuesday.
“We discussed that at the beginning of last year with a group of parents that had concerns about it,” said Campbell on the discussions related to crowdsourcing by school PTOs. “But this is not just a school administrative mandate or a board office mandate; it’s board policy that says we can’t crowdsource.”
While no action was taken by the BOE during the meeting, at least two members vocally supported at least a discussion on the crowdsourcing policy during the end of the meeting. This included both Fattore Morgan and Monongalia County Board of Education Vice President Jennifer Haggerty, who expressed concern over its potential impact on future PTO involvement for each county elementary school. With plans to meet with parents of the schools in the coming weeks, there’s some level of support on an administrative level that the policy could receive a significant lookover.
“I think it’s important for us to support PTOs,” said Fattore Morgan. “PTOs are working hard, so we need to think about, we talked about parent involvement, we need to think about how we need to keep parents involved and how to make it easier to stay involved.”