Shakedown

DH & I just returned from B's school auction. Despite having moved here four years ago, this is the first time we've attended. We were very impressed by the organization, and the multitude of ways they've found to get more money out of the parents :-) We got off pretty lightly, mostly because we don't have enough $$$ to bid on the big-ticket items. In addition to the entrance price (which did include a tasty dinner and lots of wine), we purchased the following fixed-price items:

A set of note cards with B's self-portrait on them ($15). Yes, the school is selling us our own daughter's artwork.

A black & white 8x10 portrait of B ($65). A photographer shoots the kindergarteners and fifth-graders every year for the auction. Neither of our kids attended kindergarten here, but we also purchased M's fifth-grade portrait two years ago (without actually attending the auction). Now that we have two, I supposed I should probably get around to buying frames for them.

A ticket to the "Fifth Grade Girls' Farewell to G--------" party in June ($50). One of those things we wouldn't want her to miss, despite the price, since I'm pretty certain all of her friends will be there.

Some of the live auction items that would have interested us if we had the money:

Dinner & movie with B's teacher (sold for $1,500). (One of the other fifth-grade classes had two parents in a bidding war, and that one went for over $5,000!!!)

A week in a Florentine villa (sold for $3,200). We would have tried bidding on it if it had been available in July, since we're planning to be in Italy, but we couldn't have gone that high.

Since California's school-funding system is such a mess, parents in wealthy communities like ours have to dig into their pockets to pay for things like arts education, P.E. teachers, and librarians. And parents in non-wealthy communities just have to do without :-(