DATE: Saturday, November 8, 1997            TAG: 9711070014

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B6   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   48 lines

VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOLS PINT-SIZED SALESMEN

The Virginia Beach School Board may curtail PTA fund raising by banning prizes as incentives for pint-sized sales people.

We strongly support such a measure and urge the board to vote to end prize incentives when it decides the issue on Nov. 18.

School fund raising has gotten out of hand in recent years, with some PTAs operating as many as three major sales drives a year. Children across the city are selling everything from overpriced gift wrap to candy to magazines. Prizes awarded for high sales spur many children to canvass their neighborhoods despite a school policy forbidding door-to-door sales.

Much of the impetus for this School Board resolution came from the recent murder and sexual assault of an 11-year-old New Jersey schoolboy who came to harm while selling door-to-door in his neighborhood.

According to a story in Thursday's Pilot, the representatives of one of the companies providing products for school sales cautioned against eliminating prize incentives. Such restrictions would slow sales and cut back on revenue for schools, he said.

School Board member Nancy Guy pointed out to the board three instances thus far this year in which children were taken from class to attend fund-raising-related assemblies.

``By any standard, this is wrong,'' she said.

We agree.

Schoolchildren are not Fuller Brush salesmen in training. And fund-raisers that promise wonderful prizes like bicycles and toys but require the parents to do the selling are dishonest by their very nature.

Yet we recognize that PTAs rely heavily on such fund-raisers to provide their schools with worthwhile extras like field trips and computers that are not included in the school budget.

By resorting to fund-raisers to finance ``extras,'' the economic disparities in the city are amplified. Schools in affluent neighborhoods are likely to stage extraordinarily successful fund-raisers while those in poorer neighborhoods often see anemic returns and thus have fewer ``extras'' for poorer students.

There must be a better way.

The best solution would be for the city and state to fully fund schools and render such sales unnecessary. That is unlikely, so the School Board simply must implement a policy that firmly forbids door-to-door sales, removes tantalizing prizes as incentives for children and terminates sales pitches during school hours.

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