Harbor Freight pays public teachers off for promoting their products

paulkish

paulkish

old fart
"Three first-place winners received $100,000, and 15 second-place winners received $50,000, with the awards divided between the teacher and the school's skilled trades program."

What a sneaky way to bribe public school teachers to promote commie Red China Harbor Freight Products to their tax payer funded students.

I'd have no problem if all the money went to the schools through each school districts superintendent and elected board of education. For the paid teacher to receive money directly from the private company is wrong and most likely illegal. I taught auto mechanics and later started an office machine repair class in a public adult school. One of the first things I learned was which companies would work with you as I was told over, around and under the table. Fortunately I never had to "deal" for tools and supplies because I bought out of a catalog. Paying the public funded teachers extra for any reason by a private company is wrong and though not a lawyer i'm darn sure is illegal. The president of Harbor Freight should be federally prosecuted or at bribing public paid teachers.

Even if the money given to the teacher must be used for classroom supplies, it's still wrong. We fund schools through our tax money and elect boards of education to over see our tax money. All money used in our schools needs to go through budgeting or at least cause an equal reduction is trade classroom money allotment. The hook I'd guess which is wrong and allows for under handed bribing to purchase a suppliers product is if you don't do it that way you don't get the money.
 
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Only thing school budgeting by elected officials does around here is raise my school taxes, which are already at $7,000 a year. I won't complain about monies in that quantity entering York County school systems regardless of the route. It wouldn't lower my taxes any, but it might postpone the next increase a bit.
 
I'm thinking that's a pretty harsh view, Paul.
A lot of schools have corporate partners. It's certainly preferable to giving that million to a politician or something. :)
Besides, that all happened last year.
 
If you think that's bad, Paul, do a little money trail following of private donors to public school sports programs.
Your local football team likely has a spectacular stadium and pretty high tech score board...err video screen -- all sponsored by businesses.
Meanwhile, the band, cheerleaders, etc are out fund raising selling pizzas, hoagies, and car washes to help pay for their uniforms and trips.

I don't particularly mind outside funding in our public schools, but it would be nice so see some of the benefits shared with the less popular sports and clubs as well.

Oh yea, and those new tablets and laptops that are being handed out...are funded 3X over - taxpayer dollars, endowments, the tech companies, AND student fees on top of that.

I'm definitely not a fan of Harbor Freight, China, or Commies....but they have the same opportunities given to them as American companies.
There's much bigger fish to fry.

Thanks,
Brian Carlson
 
Paul
Please post the source of you information.
Also give the names of these teachers that have been "paid off"
 
Harbor Freight is the source via Email letter to me and the rest because i'm on their mailing list for coupons:


Harbor Freight Tools for Schools - Logo​
I have a special place in my heart for skilled trades teachers, especially those who teach in high school.
We depend on skilled trades workers. They fix the cars we drive, they build and repair the homes we live in and they do so much more. Yet more than 1.5 million skilled trades workers will retire by 2024, and there are not nearly enough students entering the trades to fill those jobs. Even at Harbor Freight Tools, as we’re building and opening two new stores every week, we struggle to find enough skilled electricians, carpenters, plumbers and HVAC technicians.
Our desire to support skilled trades education in American public high schools led to the creation in 2017 of the annual Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence. I'm writing for two reasons: 1) to share the news that we recently awarded more than $1 million in prizesto high school skilled trades teachers and their high schools across the country, and 2) to ask you to help us identify more teachers we can reward this year with another $1 million in prizes.
The Harbor Freight Tools for Schools team, with the help of regional managers from our stores, visited the schools and surprised these extraordinary teachers with the news that they and their schools had won cash prizes. Three first-place winners received $100,000, and 15 second-place winners received $50,000, with the awards divided between the teacher and the school's skilled trades program.
The first-place winners were:

• Charles Kachmar, who teaches metals and welding at Maxwell High School of Technology in Lawrenceville, Georgia, and whose students give back to the community by building beds for local homeless women and children in need of emergency shelter.

• Gary Bronson, an industrial diesel mechanics teacher at Laurel Oaks Career Campus in Wilmington, Ohio, whose students work on an International ProStar truck, replacing the brakes, wiring the lighting and completing its annual inspection.

• Andrew J. Neumann, a building trades teacher at Bay Arenac Intermediate School District Career Center in Bay City, Michigan, whose students design, build and market a new house from the ground up.
The surprise announcements were captured on video, and I hope you're as inspired by these teachers as I am. You can watch here.
In the coming months, we'll feature some of the winners in our coupon book that we mail to over 10 million customers each month. You can read about the winners here. Harbor Freight Tools also provided a $1,000 gift card to the 34 semi-finalists to support their high school’s skilled trades programs.
We're going to award $1 million in prizes again this year. Applications are now open for the 2019 prize, and we need your help spreading the word. If you know a great high school skilled trades teacher, please encourage them to apply through June 17 at hftforschoolsprize.org/. Stay up to date on the latest prize news on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Please join me in congratulating these amazing educators and in supporting skilled trades teachers and their students.
Sincerely,
mail

Eric Smidt
Founder
Harbor Freight Tools for Schools, LLC
Harbor Freight Tools for Schools, LLC, is an affiliate of The Smidt Foundation
For more information, please visit: https://harborfreighttoolsforschools.org/.​
 
The point is give the money directly to the board of education to be added to their general fund.

I also think company bill boards on school and public paid for stadiums should not be there. Without outside money and influence those big stadiums and arenas would not be there and tax payer paid taxes would not have been used to create them. We keep religion/government separate and we should also keep corporate/government separate. Our/my tax money must be spent by our elected officials without influence from either religion or any size corporation. It's outside influence which burdens me from tax collected more then any community need. Keep religious and corporate hands out of our paid tax money and it's also kept out of our/my pocket.

Giving any to public paid teachers cannot be considered anything but under or over the table influence on the teacher. period.
 
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The simple of it is Eric Smidt is spending some of his gross corporate income for advertising and personal feel good on already successful school programs.

It's a simple matter of using his money where the return on dollars spent will get back the most in return. He's not helping anyone, he's helping himself to future profits cheap pin pointed advertising and fame for both himself and his corporation.

This past weekend I went to Harbor Freight to spend a couple of hundred on tools for a gift and when I got there with my buy anything and get a free flashlight coupon I was told they were sold out of the free flashlights. I left not buying anything because I could get a better deal at a later time. Nothing against Harbor Freight but I now before I buy anything there I first shop the net for the best price on the commie red china tools. Most of what you can buy at Harbor Freight you can get cheaper mailed from commie red China only you have to wait a month for delivery. I have no problem waiting and getting it cheaper along with delivery directly to my house. It's just business and spending my money for the most return on money spent. Big ticket and even little ticket items I'll pay more for if the 'more' is reasonable per my opinion and it's Made in America. If everything we could buy here cost more but was made in America, we'd get along just fine.

I'm currently waiting for an adapter from commie red china I can use to switch Black and Decker 20v batteries with Porter Cable 20v tools. Yes I can alter the batteries and tools so I can interchange batteries but I chose to get the adapter. I'm also waiting for a $3 ozone generator which plugs into a car cigarette lighter already receiving my ac/12vdc adapter to run it. I'm going to install the ozone generator through a hole in a plastic shoe box to sterilize my dust respirators I use both at the dirt tracks and around the house when needed. It's making my own sort of cpap cleaner/sterilizer for my work masks, for $15 dollars, $11 for the ac/dc converter and $4 for the ozone generator already having a plastic box. ... :)

Corporate charity and help to government, groups and individuals is total bull and against the american capitalist way. Corporations do not spend without expecting a return of more than spent. This is not a political or religious view, it's an economic view.
 
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JPMKarting said:
Businesses exist to make money. I don’t see why this is a surprise or insulting.
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"Businesses exist to make money." No problem with that but when they are uncontrolled they can and will insult/injury me and others in pursuit of making money. That is wrong.

I'm not surprised at all by what business does, it acts with human nature accumulating wealth beyond the need to survive. Nothing at all wrong with it and it is expected the same as I/we would put wealth away for a rainy day. No problem at all with it and it does not surprise me.

The expected ways of business is though an insult to me which can cause me injury because of how business can often take my wealth without my permission and through trickery. In that case I am insulted and injured by business. If I insulted a business by taking it's wealth the business would be quick to prosecute me and rightfully so. When it insults me and takes my wealth without my permission then it injurses me and it and it's controllers/owners should be prosecuted, also rightfully so.
 
paulkish said:
"Businesses exist to make money." No problem with that but when they are uncontrolled they can and will insult/injury me and others in pursuit of making money. That is wrong.

I'm not surprised at all by what business does, it acts with human nature accumulating wealth beyond the need to survive. Nothing at all wrong with it and it is expected the same as I/we would put wealth away for a rainy day. No problem at all with it and it does not surprise me.

The expected ways of business is though an insult to me which can cause me injury because of how business can often take my wealth without my permission and through trickery. In that case I am insulted and injured by business. If I insulted a business by taking it's wealth the business would be quick to prosecute me and rightfully so. When it insults me and takes my wealth without my permission then it injurses me and it and it's controllers/owners should be prosecuted, also rightfully so.
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How is a business taking your wealth without your permission? Did they put a gun to your head and force you to shop with them?

I can’t find any logic in what you are saying. A business operates to make money. Period.

Whether it’s your money, or money from people who were influenced via the charity/advertising they did, it doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t make it wrong.

I sponsor multiple series and race tracks. I donate products. I do it with the hopes that i will increase my business. The racers that receive those free products are happy, and if I see an increase in my sales, I’m happy. That’s called marketing. No different then HF donating money to schools and teachers in the hopes that they gain customers as a result. The grossly underpaid teacher wins, the likely underfunded tech program wins...everyone’s happy.
 
Support for the skilled trades in high school is lacking . So much so that schools don't even offer shop class.
Any influx of money is a good thing.
I do not see , How they win the awards ? Is it a competition an easy writing ?
Or a lottery?
 
You can complain all you want, Paul, but, based on my experience with local school boards in South Central PA (maybe it's better out where you are), I would much rather see money like that go to individual teachers, the schools, or specific programs within the schools. School boards seem to have a knack for wasting a good percentage of the taxpayer's money that they get from us. More power to Harbor Freight and any other company that wants to take that route to help fund our schools, regardless of the company's motive. At least with money like that, the school board members can't give themselves a raise.
 
Paul I am not understanding why you are complaining about a business doing what they want with their money. As you said "It's just business and spending my money for the most return on money spent." Businesses do this also just like you said you do but they are in the wrong? Our local school just put in a new million dollar football field, unneeded I might add. I as a tax payer find that a total waste of money. That tax money could have been much better spent in the school when we have to send 3 boxes of kleenex per student, a bundle of copy paper etc etc for everybody to use. Shouldn't the school be providing this with all the tax dollars they get? Nobody from here is going to the NFL and no reason why football can't be played on the dirt and grass but let's waste this money for 10 percent or less of the student population. Makes sense huh? This is helping the students become contributing members of society how exactly? Trades classes, that are usually well underfunded, will turn out more contributing members to society and a greater level of living than that football field will ever produce. Please explain how these awards hurt you exactly? How does money from a business to a school for a certain item, area etc. hurt the tax payer? Doesn't that allow for the school to allocate more monies to other areas now? Isn't education important? Aren't we as a nation severely lacking in education levels and advanced education levels? What does that mean for the economic outlook? There is a reason companies bring foreign highly skilled and educated people over here. Because we are severely lacking in the STEM fields! When the manufacturing and skilled trades jobs vanish our country does too! Why wouldn't a company dependent upon people in certain fields invest into their education or help in other ways to create not only customers but at the same time help keep these sectors, at an already diminished level, the same or grow so they can also stay in busines? Most professionals don't shop at Harbor Freight anyways after they get up and going to where they can afford quality tools and items so they are essentially going to lose customers also at the same time. Notice it doesn't say how the money was divided nor if there are provisions to what the teacher can or can't do with the money they receive. You don't know these answers and just assume, we all know what assume means. I guess my donations of kleenex, paper etc to the students hurt you and all the other tax payers also, even though it helps those less fortunate whose parents can't even afford the basic school supplies and such. Guess what we aren't being taxed extra to pay for these items and the tax would be much higher than the cost of those items per family, because we know how government spends money even school districts! I actually think we are saving ourselves some tax dollars, maybe all my business classes were wrong though?
 
Paul
Harbor Freight didn't give the money to the teachers as your first post implied.
"The Harbor Freight Tools for Schools team, with the help of regional managers from our stores, visited the schools and surprised these extraordinary teachers with the news that they and their schools had won cash prizes"
It is not unusual for corporations to do things like this.
Unfortunately, it has become very common. The local tech college Automotive program (where i taught for 30 years) has a deal with Snap On Tools. They give the students and the college a long discount provided they use only Snap on Tools in their program. From wheel alignment machines, wheel balancers, scanners, hand tools and more. Without this help the program would not be able to provide the training on the equipment used in the dealerships and repair shops of today.
While i wish it wasn't necessary for our school systems to accept these discounts or outright donations, without them they would not be able to provide training on state of the art equipment.
Another company that has been a huge supporter of Automotive programs is General Motors, They have donated millions of dollars worth of cars, trucks and components like engines and transmissions.

The alternative to this is to raise taxes and we all know how well that goes over.

I'm glad to see that other people above support the schools and teachers. Far too often it's the other way around.
I think most people would be surprised at how dedicated most teachers are and how many hours they work.
When you divide the pay by the total hours of work most people would say. No way, i'm not working for that!
 
CarlsonMotorsports said:
If you think that's bad, Paul, do a little money trail following of private donors to public school sports programs.
Your local football team likely has a spectacular stadium and pretty high tech score board...err video screen -- all sponsored by businesses.
Meanwhile, the band, cheerleaders, etc are out fund raising selling pizzas, hoagies, and car washes to help pay for their uniforms and trips.

I don't particularly mind outside funding in our public schools, but it would be nice so see some of the benefits shared with the less popular sports and clubs as well.

Oh yea, and those new tablets and laptops that are being handed out...are funded 3X over - taxpayer dollars, endowments, the tech companies, AND student fees on top of that.

I'm definitely not a fan of Harbor Freight, China, or Commies....but they have the same opportunities given to them as American companies.
There's much bigger fish to fry.

Thanks,
Brian Carlson
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I am an assistant football coach at a small school in Indiana. Our budget is minimal and our facilities aren't too good! We do have a fundraiser we hold the Monday following the Indy 500, which is Memorial Day. Our coaches, kids, and parents clean sections of the speedway bleachers and terrace. I will tell you it's a day I dread! It's hot, humid, and people leave the place a mess! There's nothing like stale beer and day old cold cuts! We work hard for everything we have but make decent money. We ask a lot of our kids both on and off of the field. In our case, the football gate money helps buy needed equipment for the sports which don't generate much in terms of gate revenue; tennis, golf, etc. It's all about and for the kids
 
Blue Racer said:
I am an assistant football coach at a small school in Indiana. Our budget is minimal and our facilities aren't too good! We do have a fundraiser we hold the Monday following the Indy 500, which is Memorial Day. Our coaches, kids, and parents clean sections of the speedway bleachers and terrace. I will tell you it's a day I dread! It's hot, humid, and people leave the place a mess! There's nothing like stale beer and day old cold cuts! We work hard for everything we have but make decent money. We ask a lot of our kids both on and off of the field. In our case, the football gate money helps buy needed equipment for the sports which don't generate much in terms of gate revenue; tennis, golf, etc. It's all about and for the kids
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My point (to a point.) Your in a small school. Your kids are working/earning some extra money that day at the track - great opportunity (even if the work stinks - literally.) Take a look at some of the bigger city schools and what facilities they have available to them - stadiums that rival some Division I & II college facilities, score boards, etc. Now if you could just get some rich alum, (or local businessman) to pump some dough into your program, right? Probably not going to happen, I know. Kinda like getting sponsors for a race car. :)
 
There's nothing wrong with donations to any school program.

It would be wrong for Wendy's to give a school a grill for the kitchen with the school having to sell wendy's hamburgers in their cafeteria

Gate tickets and parking fees at any event should go to the schools general fund, unless the department, not a teacher putting on the event, rented the facility used from the school.

Tax money should go towards what is needed to teach our children and never towards what is popular or entertaining.

A case can be made for the community needing a good football program for many reasons. I'll argue against that concept saying I want my taxed dollars for education to go to educating students not to satisfying community needs.

Teach a class on football the same as you would teach a class on music. Music can be just as competitive as football but musical skills do not require end score competition. The score of an such as music is a path, not a goal as it is in sports. Maybe instead of sports we need classes in our schools to teach our children how to be competitive within a rule set? First chair the same as a winner in racing is an individual accomplishment not a number put on the results of groups of people challenging each other. Sports teach bringing together people to challenge and subjugate other groups of people. The arts instill the love of effort and creativity of an individual without the need for any goal. If recognized by others sports lead toward individual and group power. If recognized by others the arts lead towards accomplishment and appreciation by others.

Hedging a little if Harbor Freight wants to donate to a schools athletic program or even one sport I guess it would be ok because it could be said there is no conflict of interest.
 
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