POINT BLANK: Water For Profit??

W. Nugent

The Underground Economy In Our Public Schools

By Winston Nugent   

The underground economy or black market is 1.) a market where all commerce is conducted without regard to taxation, law or regulations of trade, or 2.) an expression used to describe a market exchange that goes unreported either because it is illegal or because those involved want to evade taxes.

I had reservations about writing this article simply because a part of me realized that certain things happen or occur in our territory that sometimes baffle justification. However, when I consulted my journalistic instinct, I couldn’t bare to abuse my conscience.  So, putting aside my contradictions let me say, I had no choice but to tell this story which involves the education of our young people and the exploitation of them by those who are supposed to be teaching them not only right from wrong, but lessons to prepare them to face an unpredictable and undaunted future. 

This story started just recently when I had cause to visit one of our public high schools. While I was there I got thirsty. I needed a drink of water. As I was searching for a water fountain, which I couldn’t find, I saw a student walking towards me. I stopped the student and asked where the drinking fountains on the campus were located? The student pointed in a direction that seemed a mile away. 

When I looked at the distance to get to the water fountain, I turned to the student and said;

            “Excuse, is that the only water fountain that is close by?”

            “No,” the student said. “There is another one, but it’s all the way down to the vocational section.”  I supposed the student saw the disgust on my face, because the student added that there was a classroom where I could go to buy a bottle of water for $1.00.

            “They are selling water in the school?” I asked surprisingly.

            “Yes,” the student said.

            “Where?”  I asked.

            “In Room 302.” 

I walked away from the student and decided to walk the mile to the water fountain instead of spending $1.00 in a school for water. When I finally reached the water fountain, I was shocked and disgusted. The water fountain was filthy, old and rusted. When I squeezed the button for the water, it barely flowed through the nozzle area. In reality, to have gotten a drink of water from this fountain, you might have had to use a straw, or place your mouth over the hole. However, no one in their right mind would want to drink from this fountain especially in the advent of the H1N1 flu virus.  In my mind, I said to my self, not even my dog I would have allowed to drink from this disgusting thing. How in the world a school with a population of some 1,500 students or more be subjected to such a condition? No wonder they are selling water! 

Still thirsty, I decided to walk to the vocational section to check the other water fountain. It also turned out to be a disgrace. Now, this is where my mind began to click. That deductive area of reasoning in my mind began to speculate and as a result, several questions began formulating in my mind. Is this a deliberate set up? Is the school’s administration in a conspiracy of deliberately sabotaging the drinking apparatus systems in the school, where students are unable to get free and clean drinking water and now must resort to buying water?  Why does the school administration allow for the purchasing of water when such have already taken care of by tax dollars? Is the Department of Education aware of this underground economy running in our public schools?

Not suffice to say, I decided to purchase something to quench my thirst. I had no choice but to spend $1.50 for a Gatorade from the soda machine located by the cafeteria wall. By this time it was lunch period. As I was walking down the long corridor, I saw a group of students parading out of a classroom with several boxes of pizzas. They set up a table, spread out the pizzas along with coolers of sodas and other drinks and began selling. In my mind I was wondering if they don’t serve school lunch anymore? 

Not wanting to cause any aspersion, and to make sure that I wasn’t judging these activities as something out of order; I further decided to investigate what appeared to be an underground economy. The major premise under which I decided to approach this research was to ask myself, is this activity only taking place in this school or is such activity prevalent in other public schools?  To my surprise, I found out that such economic activity was indeed prevalent in most of our public schools, particularly in our elementary and junior high schools. 

Now, let’s be fair here. The activity of selling things in school can be something of importance and for a good cause. It could be for supplementing a class or a school project, or in a normal setting, say for instance, on the high school level, students in a business class who were studying bookkeeping, accounting or business management, could conduct the sale of goods and services because they could learn the practicality of how a business is conducted. However, in this circumstance, such was not the case. These children were not learning to sell, save, and invest in anything. This underground economy in our public schools was simply for self gain; an opportunity for greedy, selfish and corrupt individuals to make money by creating and exploiting a situation for the basic biological need for water. 

Now, let’s take this scenario for example: 

One can purchase a case of water which holds 24 bottles at a cost of about $3.25. You then bring it to your school and sell 1 bottle for $1.00. That’s a net profit of $20.75. Let’s say you are selling this water at one of our high school with a population of approximately 1,500 students. Now, the average student might drink 2 bottles per day that would be $2 x 1,500 students which comes out to be $3,000 per day. As you might not know, the school’s calendar has approximately180 days in regards to instruction time. As you can see from this scenario, with 180 school days x $3,000 (bottles of water sold per day) one would realize a gross profit of $540,000. Now, does this qualify as an Underground Economy? You decide. 

The significance of the above scenario is that I am only speaking of the sale of water in just one high school. What about the other products that are being sold in other schools such as chips, sodas, juices and possibly candies, just to name a few? While some of these activities may be beneficial to some schools in one way or another, how many of them are legitimate?  Do the proceeds from these sales benefit the football team, the volleyball team, the track and field team, a scholarship, buy supplemental books, the school band, or for educational field trips? 

If the schools were using the above scenario, as I have said before, for purposes of educating these students in the “art of business” by showing them that they don’t have to be just consumers, but that they could also be business managers or entrepreneurs, then the activity of buying and selling in the public schools could be something enterprising.  However, what I have seen and now know is that such activity is being done solely for the economical gain at the detriment of our students. Clean, fresh drinking water in our public schools should be free of cost, and the reason for that, is that, we the parents have had already paid for such through our taxes.

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