Future Business Leaders of America Get Ethics Lesson

Skylar Dallmeyer-Drennen
News Editor

Saturday, February 7th, the Future Business Leaders of America held a Valentine's Day dance for grades nine through twelve. As with most dances, the goal was to raise money for the host club. However, in a move to try and raise more money, they decided to turn off the drinking fountains so that the people at the dance would be forced to buy water instead.

Although Mrs. Barbara Landon, club advisor and business law teacher, declined to comment for this story, junior and club member Patrick Lynch says that the water was sold “a dollar for a water bottle” with a ticket price reduced from last year’s ten dollars to eight dollars in hopes that “more people would come.”

There has been much speculation towards whether this was an accident by the club, or a misunderstanding, or even a miss-communication. According to senior and former club member Elisabeth Geraci, “Last year, we decided to sell tickets for 10 dollars. The fee included a picture, a bottle of water, and the admission to the dance.” Drinking fountains were also shut off last year “so that people wouldn't just refill their water bottles and would instead pay money to buy another bottle.” But because a water bottle was already included with admission, the club avoided controversy. The difference this year, according to Lynch, was that, “Mrs. Landon was sick like the entire week when we were planning” and FBLA, “decided to charge for water bottles” as they had “had heard about it happening before and didn’t really realize the repercussions.”

The decision to turn off the water wasn’t made without oversight, however. A Vice Principal at the Academy allowed the water to be shut off for the duration of the dance, although Principle Lynne Erdle would not say which the vice principal was responsible. The decision started at the students and made its way through the chain of command.

Luckily, perhaps, for the club, the worst thing that happened was a couple of kids were thirsty and some parents complained; no one was hurt or put in any kind of dangerous condition through the lack of accessible water. Fortunately Canandaigua students can know that, in the words of Erdle, “no event at the Academy will ever occur without functioning drinking fountains.”