WRTG 394

Week 5 Assignment

Formal Research Based Proposal

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Body of the proposal

Conclusion

Introduction:

The Associate Student Body of my old high school has been facing a problem for as long as I can remember. The ASB has been fighting a dilemma of underfunding for years now, and it has really put a hold on the high school experiences of many different kids at school. The problems I am referring to stem from the low attendance rate, which leads to underfunding for all departments of the school. Personally I was in many different organizations throughout my high school career. I played sports, sang in the choir, and even was elected Vice President of the entire school. My experiences at the high school were much different than that of the average high school student. Typically in your average high school class there are more than 500 people just in a single grade, at my high school I graduated with 17 others in total. Our school was small and underfunded, but it provided me a great education. Spending my almost my whole academic career at this school (2nd Grade – 12th Grade) I can definitely speak on behalf of the school and say with confidence that some aspects of the school were incredible while others were lacking terribly.

The particular aspect that I feel most needs to be addressed at my old high school was an issue with the ASB not being able to attain any funding for school wide events. The ASB at the beginning of the school year started with an average budget of between $500 and $1000 dollars. This was usually a bank left by the ASB of the previous year to help get the new ASB off to a running start. This amount of money is trivial when we realize that with this money has to be used to run most of the school events, and by the end of the year you have to have the same amount of money you started with. The initial funding of the ASB was usually used to purchase snacks and food for school wide events. Each day the ASB was allowed to sell snacks at the 15 minute break during the day. The snacks being sold usually consisted of candy bars, muffins, chips, soda, and water. These were mandated to be sold at a low price averaging between 50 and 75 cents per items. These low prices allowed students to be able to snack on something in the middle of the day for a low price. However with prices like these the ASB made little profit.

Usually with small profits which were limited further by the amounts of sales which averaged between $25 and $100. The ASB pulled in a daily revenue, but frequently most of the money was put back into product costs. This left the ASB underfunded and unable to plan certain high school events such as Homecoming, Spring Formal, Sadie Hawkins Dance, and more. The ASB was not granted any tuition funding from the school and was therefore unable to plan nice events that the high school students deserved. To combat this problem the ASB initiated school wide fundraisers by sending “grams” during the holidays. Students were able to send letters from other students by buying gram from the ASB who then distributed the grams with a piece of candy. This made some initial profits for the ASB, but didn’t amount to the $1000’s of dollars needed to plan events that the ASB was responsible for.

Finally the ASB came up with a way to make money that both the students enjoyed, and was profitable. The ASB began to do BBQ’s one Friday a month and ran them for profit. Students were able to purchase hamburgers, chips, and drinks, and more for a low price that offered the ASB some room to make some money. This BBQ’s proved to be very profitable for the ASB, and began to run BBQ’s on multiple Friday’s a month. Soon thereafter the school contested the BBQ’s because students were no longer buying the school provided lunches. The school was making money off of the lunches, but it was minuscule compared to the amount that the ASB was able to make for its Friday BBQ’s. The ASB’s funding was again cut off. This cutting off of funds left the ASB dry without money. This forced the ASB to charge students outrageous prices to come to dances and other events. Outraged by this I decided to write a proposal that outlined why the school should either provide a yearly budget to the ASB for events or allow the ASB the opportunity to make money from the school wide BBQ’s.

Proposal:

To: School Principal

From: Name Here (Previous member of the ASB)

The purpose of this memo is to ask for funding for the ASB and its school related activities. The ASB has worked tremendously hard to provide an environment enjoyable to high school students of Calvary Christian School. The ASB currently has enough funding to run day to day school wide activities, however with the recent limiting of the school wide BBQ’s the amount of funding for after school activities has dropped. The ASB cannot provide decent events for high school students.

The ASB needs to be provided with the ability to subsidize its own events or it needs to have funding provided by the school. The ASB has in the past ran BBQ’s for profit and been able to subsidize after school events by acquiring funds from the students who wish to have a good school lunch. Currently the school provides lunches each day of the week for a price of $4.00 per lunch, however recently the ASB has been debunked of its Friday BBQ’s because it has been dipping into the school’s lunch revenue. The ASB brings in an average of $400 in revenue each Friday it has a BBQ, however the school averages about $100 in revenue from its daily BBQ’s, this amount to $500 a week, or $400 a week if the ASB runs its BBQ’s on Fridays. The ASB would like to purpose that it be allowed to run its Friday BBQ’s or have the school subsidize the ASB its $400 a week.

In the past the ASB was able to run BBQ’s and subsidize its cost for 3 annual school dances. The average cost of these dances was around $4500 each that must be provided for by the ASB. This is to keep ticket prices low and around $40 per individual who wishes to attend any dance. These dances usually have around 100 attendees and results in a total cost of around $8500 for an event. These events are held 3 times a year. Previously the ASB was making on average about $1600 a month from school BBQ’s however now that the funding from BBQ’s has been removed the school dances can no longer be paid for by the ASB. Over the course of 3 months of BBQ’s the ASB was able to provide for the costs of the school dances. However now that the BBQ’s are being stopped the ASB can no longer afford to provide for the BBQ’s. I would purpose that the school would either decide to subsidize the ASB’s school dances at the cost of $4500 per dance or allow us to continue having the school BBQ’s to fund our events.

I would further propose that if the school is truly upset about the revenue being lost from the lunch meals that the ASB would pay the school a dividend of $100 a week to be able to perform the school BBQ’s. This would be a comprisable point between the two arguments at stake. This way the ASB is still able to make an average of $300 off of its weekly BBQ’s, and the school does not take a $100 week revenue hit.

The ASB can no longer provide school dances for the students without some sort of compromise on this issue. Please consider funding our school dances or allowing us to be able to conduct the weekly BBQ’s. Without these school dances, morale of students would decrease and could possibly end up with even less students being able to come to the school. Right now the school is running most of its extracurricular programs with an extremely low budget. The ASB would like to be able to continue the dances without impacting the school’s budget at all.

I hope this proposal finds you well and you would consider allowing our Associate Student Body to continue running our weekly BBQ’s.

Thank you for your time and support,

Name Here

ASB Vice President

Conclusion:

In conclusion I would hope that the final matter of this issue to be decided would be that the school principal allows the ASB to continue to host the weekly BBQ’s for the school. With these BBQ’s the ASB would be able to raise the funds necessary for the extracurricular dance, and it would donate money to the school so as to not interrupt the weekly revenue flow from the lunch plan.

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