I don't think your price is expensive and I would totally pay $10 for my kids to do the stuff you described, so I think $7 is a great deal. BUT I'm not a teacher trying to work it out for several kids. I also *think* that an even lower price could work out as a loss for you and then you could be expected to do several tours in the future at this cost. (Of course, we are city slickers here, and I'm thinking my kids don't really know where their meat actually comes from! I need to find a farm I guess.)
that doesn't sound like a lot of money for what they'd be doing here, field trips like that are always paid for by the parents.. they send home the permission slip and the cost is on there... if there's admission charges, then it's the parents who pay it, not the school...
I offered without the pumpkin and they "NEED" the pumpkin... <sigh> The thing is that 16 kids for me to handle even with parents "helping" is a lot... usually I limit to 15 TOTAL people because of my personal capabilities so this was stretching it. Being our 1st year doing tours and stuff (and we've had quite a few) I think it worked out fine that we are considered too expensive for them. When we ran a computer store, people used to complain about our labor rate of $50/hour & eventually it went up to $75/hour. We would just explain that they were more than welcome to take their business elsewhere and I think I'm running into the same thing. We just can't back down because I know the amount of work and prep-time involved for me to do a larger group. The few school groups we have had were ok - just the parents weren't very helpful making it a lot of extra work for me... no you can't chase the chickens - a rooster will come after you and possibly attack you because he is protecting his girls..... and the parents didn't "get it" Oh well - at least you all for the most part don't think it's too high.... makes me feel a little better!
Okay all the field trips my daughter ever went on I had to pay for. The public school did not provide anything at all - ever. Either you payed and signed the permission slip or your kid didn't go. Usually field trips were betwee $5 - $10. Usually $10. I thin your price is totally fare. People always want something for nothing.
our friends charge 100 an hour! for computer stuff so you are a cheap family, that school needs to call around and find out what the going rate is they are just trying to get you to go down, dont let them just cause you are a nice person!
that is cheap I think you should go for it.. you are never going to make everyone happy anyway. and 7 dollars for everything is nothing.. I would pay that in a heart beat..
Good grief. I have NO idea what happened in my earlier post, but I edited it to where it (hopefully) makes sense now.
Oh for the computer stuff we are talking all about 5+ years ago - not recent Yep I feel better after 'discussing' it with other moms who usually have to pay for this stuff.
When my children attended ps, we had to pay for their field trips to the pumpkin patch and other stuff. I also should add the school was an inner-city school, poor parents to begin with (including us, lol). I think $7.00 is fair and they are getting a lot for their money. I would gladly pay that if we didn't live so far away. We own a business too, it seems the people who can afford to pay, complain the most. Your not gonna make everyone happy. Life goes on.
I think your price sounds good. We did the same sort of thing last year, I can't remember what I paid. I think it was $6 or $7, I just remember it was an odd number and we were scrambling at the gate to have correct change. Lisa
Sounds reasonable to me. These same families will spend 30.00 at McD's loading the family up on garbage. They spend 5-8 dollars a piece for Movie tickets. Movie rentals. Drinks in a bar/restarant. And the list goes on. These are the same folks that have kids with cell phones, ipods and other expensive toys that keep on costing more and more. For a couple of hours of entertainment and some take home stuff to boot, it seems like a bargain.
Remember also, if somebody wants it bad enough they'll eventually cough up the money! We've had a few customers say, "you take too long and your prices are high. I am going someplace else!" So they did and they said, "Your quality is sooo much better than the others, I'll pay your prices and wait a little longer." :lol: (This seems to always be the case for custom stuff too!
Oh the kid yesterday who came out yesterday wanted to "run around, catch a chicken & put it into a microwave until it became chicken nuggets" So yeah - I think kids need to get out more.
LOL That's hilarious. I can't speak for others but while my kids may think that there's some type of chicken nugget tree on the farm, they also can explain in detail how to navigate a subway or explain the flora and fauna in Central Park and talk ad nauseum about some of the exhibits at the Metropolitan museum of art. I figure it's all relative.
You know, I would gladly pay that price, as a homeschooling mom arranging that is no problem because I would drive. However schools need to budget in the cost of bus services for the field trip. Many districts sub-contract out to companies like Laidlaw for all their bussing needs. Here in our district the school was charged approximatley $75-100 per bus for only a 2-3 hour field trip. For a class of 16, that could add between another $4.68 to $6.75 to the trip. Unless teachers and Chaperones are expected to pay bus rates as well to attend, they typically have to add it on to the kids balance because many parents don't like to attend a field trip with their kids when they also have to pay. My friend wanted to go on a field trip with her kids... then she was told she would be charged the same rate as the kids, She declined because she was not about to pay in order to have to watch a group of 5-6 kids on a field trip. She felt if she had to pay she should not be required to babysit others. Makes sense. Adding that in, that would make a simple field trip to the farm closer to $12-14 a child and honestly, as a part of a field trip I would NOT pay that much for my child to simply visit a farm. Some schools have great fundraising programs like the PTO to help subsidize that added expense for field trips, Many schools don't. Our schools don't because the teachers are so drained they don't want to put that added effort in, and our parents most simply did not care. The kids here go one 1 field trip a year. Anyway, like I said, NO $7 isn't too much... added in to other expenses, It would add up to too much.
I still say even with all the stuff I have read up there, being a preschool/day care teacher for many years we charged a flat fee of 10 each year and kids got all that, plus we carpooled, so why cant people do that? Even if they DID do a bus or something they coudl factor in 10, total.. of course Im from California and the west coast so maybe we are more apt to pay more?
