<p>Those red folders, green notebooks, etc. help a lot of kids to be organized. Teachers generally have a reason for what they are requesting if it is that specific.</p>
<p>Now I’m really curious. What school districts, or schools, provide school supplies?</p>
<p>Around here the only ones I know of are very poor school districts, where the average family can’t afford the school supplies. (Ravenswood in Palo Alto comes to mind.)</p>
<p>One of my favorite commercials is the one from Staples this time of the year. Dad looking overjoyed, kids look angry, backround music “The Most Wonderful Time of The Year”; (Shopping for) back to school (school supplies)!</p>
<p>Have school budgets been voted down in your area? Is there a big anti-tax attitude and movement? Are there legislative caps on tax and/or spending increases?
every year it seems we approve another levy
[If</a> it isn’t for operations its for building maintainance, or to reduce class sizes](<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2002183601_overruns18m.html]If”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2002183601_overruns18m.html)
we operate almost as many schools as when the district enrolled twice as many kids- we spend more on transportation than any other district in the state-we put fireplaces in high school libraries and spend $$$$$ remodeling high schools that we know will have to be redone in 20 years because it is on a wetland, so no, there isn’t a big anti tax movement- we just haven’t had paying attention to what we spend money on as a priority.
after all- we can always ask for more :)</p>
<p>Big long school supply lists here in Oregon, too, from Kindergarten on through High School. That reminds me, it’s probably time to go get supplies. School starts the day after Labor Day, and everything will be picked over if we don’t get them soon.</p>
<p>How about paying for use of the school bus?</p>
<p>Both of my daughters are now in high school, so we won’t have to pay anymore, but for elementary and middle school the annual charge was $150 or more (and yes, we live far enough away that using the bus is not considered an “extra” by the town).</p>
<p>In NY I can’t remember a time when we weren’t given massive lists of school supplies to be purchased. The time to go to Staples to avoid the mad rush has been pushed back earlier and earlier in the summer. Rulers, erasable pens, three-hole punches, pencils, 2 pockets folders, composition notebooks, specific binders, glue, and oh those boxes of tissues. It really adds up!</p>
<p>Wow, Fendrock, that’s ridiculous!</p>
<p>So if you can’t afford the money, do your kids just not attend school? How can you mandate public education and not also provide transportation to get them there? Pretty soon elementary school kids are going to have to fill out financial aid forms as well.</p>
<p>Ahh, school buses. I’ve seen them on TV, but no, our school district doesn’t have school buses, you get your kids to school on your own. On the other hand, we picked a house with a great location. Our girls either walked or biked, farthest school was is a little over a mile. I’ve also learned from watching TV shows that some schools have cafeterias that sell lunch. Again, not our schools.</p>
<p>Our town pays for private students to be bused which encourages them (or at least their parents) to vote for the public school budgets. Our supply lists were generally quite reasonable - stuff the kids would be using - pens, highlighters, crayons, notebooks, folders and the like. In elementary school they asked for tissues because too many kids come unprepared.</p>
<p>srcameron, have you ever heard of a carpool? And do you read the newspaper? I see that you live in Boston. I live in Mass, too, and a LOT of towns around us (suburbs) charge for the school bus. </p>
<p>I live in a town that was just voted one of the 10 best places to raise a child by Family Circle Magazine. Bussing here is free ONLY if your child is grade K-6 AND lives more than 2 miles from school. Otherwise, it’s $200/year for the bus (unless you qualify for free/reduced lunch, then the bus is free). </p>
<p>Yes, I hate that we have this fee. But I can arrange for my kid to get to/from school. I cannot teach their Calculus class, though. When property tax limits were imposed, and push came to shove, I’d rather pay about $1/day for my kid to get a ride to/from school than have class sizes go through the roof. It stinks, but the alternative is worse.</p>
<p>(You are also obligated to get your child vaccinated, but no one is giving you a free ride to the doctors. Think about it - is a bus really an integral, necessary part of school?)</p>
<p>With the property tax limits, we’ve been buying school supplies for years. When I was on the elementary Parent Council, the school ran out of paper in April. We offered to buy a pallet of paper but the Principal said NO. The Parent Group should not be buying pencils and paper, the town should pay for that stuff. Once the Parent Groups pick up that cost, it will never find its way back into the budget (“Well, you managed without that money last year…”)</p>
<p>“And I realize that unfortunately many empty nesters AND PARENTS vote against school levies for selfish reasons.”</p>
<p>Here is what my district did with my tax increase. Built $80 million Tajmahal for their offices and a new stadium. Built few Olympic size swimming pools, and couple of concert quality auditoriums.</p>
<p>We usually don’t have enough text books for a subject.</p>
<p>UCDAlum82:
I am a teacher in San Diego County in an elementary district. We do provide school supplies for our students (and we are not a poor school district); however, because so many students show up with school supplies on the first day of school, each grade has created a list of supplies that would be appropriate for each grade. Of course we have a disclaimer on the list that states that if you are unable to purchase these items, that everything will be supplied for the student, and that the parents are under no obligation to supply these items. And, I think for those kids who don’t have these items, that teachers provide them very discretely so that students don’t feel awkward.</p>
<p>Other posters have asked why we ask for “specific” items and there are a few reasons. Efficiency is one reason. For example, if everyone has the same set of colored folders where the red one is for math, the green one for unfinished work, the blue one for Language Arts, etc. then it is just easier to say, “put this in your red folder” and everyone will be getting out their math folder. If someone has the lion folder and the Pokemon folder and the Simpson folder, it just gets too complicated and wastes time figuring out where to put your work! Also, if we ask for a pack of 24 crayons and you bring the 64 pack, it just creates unnecessary problems between children who don’t want to share. I think most teachers are reasonable and would agree that if you brought the pack of 16 crayons or 32 crayons that that would not be a problem. Personally, I would prefer to go to the sales at Target and Walmart and buy the supplies myself. That way I would get the same thing for everyone and there would be no issues with sharing. </p>
<p>I know that when my kids went to the same elementary school where I teach, we did not send home letters requesting school supplies. But that was in the day when we didn’t have computers in every classroom and a lab with 30 computers. We also didn’t need to have a budget for maintenance for computers in those days. Today, we are looking for all kinds of ways to save money because we have other expenses (many are related to technology) that we didn’t have in the past. We decided that if parents were buying supplies anyway, why not give them an idea of what would work best in the classroom? Any money saved in this way can be used for other expenses.</p>
<p>By the way, in my district, any time you ask for money for a field trip or to purchase Scholastic News, for example, the teacher better be prepared to pay for students who can’t pay or who don’t. Often times we are able to be reimbursed for these expenses by our wonderful PTA, but because we can’t require parents to pay for anything, we are very careful about what we offer that is extra.</p>
<p>Sorry for the long post. I am actually surprised by how many people are claiming that these school supplies are required. We have been warned by our administration to be very careful about how we word these “requests” as there have been lawsuits over districts requiring parents to provide school supplies.</p>
<p>
What, they can’t afford a couple of pencils and a box of crayons but they can afford to file a lawsuit?</p>
<p>I was always happy to pay for my kids’ school supplies when they switched to the public school system. I think it makes sense and helps get the parents more involved and if the kids go along to the store with the parent they can learn at a young age that they must be prepared for their responsibilities. I also think however, that kids whose parents either can’t afford or, more generally the case, refuse to buy supplies, it should come out of the budget of the school and not the teacher.</p>
<p>On a related note - it’s impossible to buy a non-taxpayer-subsidized lunch in my district (in San Diego county). We actually tried to and the staff looked at us like we were insane. If the state would allow students who wished to pay the full cost of the lunches to do so, they might be able to offset some of the cost of the free breakfasts and lunches they give to the ‘families’ of the kids attending the school or use the funds to help pay for field trips for kids whose parents refuse to pay rather than having the teacher or PTA pay for it.</p>
<p>This is nuts!</p>
<p>I didn’t think taxes paid for school supplies anywhere!</p>
<p>Here, parents buy the supplies, and there are donation bins at Walmart, Target, Office Depot, etc, so that you can buy and drop in some extra items that are then taken for distribution to kids who can’t afford all the supplies. It’s easier than selling stuff to make the money.</p>
<p>Here in Oakland, there are long lists of school supplies kids must have all the way through high school - & if you want to take an AP class, you have to buy your own books. I spent years buying the school supplies for my girls (they lived down the street), their family often didn’t have money for food on the table let alone school supplies. If their dad was in a good mood & had some extra cash they might get a few beginning of the year school supplies but I remember many a time when the girls came to me when they ran out of notebook paper mid year and they couldn’t tell their dad for fear of a whoppin’ so they came to me. They often lucked out when it came to books for their AP English classes as our house is filled with books and they could find the titles here. I don’t know what other poor familes do in Oakland. No wonder the drop out rate is horrendous here.</p>
<p>UCSD dad brings up a good point: Often the parents just refuse to buy the stuff. This is the same kind of hard-headed attitude that a lawsuit filer has in the extreme. I’ve picked up some supplies at Target this summer. I’m not exaggerating to say that a box of colored pencils can be purchased for about 50cents, notebooks for 10cents, and a bottle of glue for 8cents. The more specific requests may cost a bit more, but it certainly is more a case of “nuisance” rather than being unable to afford the supplies. (It can be a pain to find a three-subject college ruled notebook, for example, and find that only two subject or five subject are left anywhere. But in the grand scheme of the huge responsibility parents should assume for their child’s education, it’s not even worth complaining about!) I agree that teachers should not be expected to pay for supplies. I know the more dedicated do. Our PTOs always pick up the tab for kids who come without supplies, or never bring in the $$ for field trips. Sometimes it is a matter of cost; usually it’s just an attitude problem & the kid’s family knows the cost will be covered by someone else. When I hear a mom complaining about these costs, often she has just returned from a tanning salon & a session at the salon getting new acrylic tips & highlights in her hair & is carrying a Coach purse.</p>
<p>When I was a kid, we were responsible for our own supplies: paper, notebooks, pens, rules, compass, protractor, etc. This was true for both of my kids in the many different parts of the country. There is another issue and that is classroom supplies. School districts vary greatly. My W was a travelling art teacher for many years. Under the best of circumstances, she had a minimal budget to buy supplies such as paints, brushes, paper. Often there was no budget and no supplies. It is not easy to develop lesson plans to teach art to 500 kids a week with no supplies. She was not able or allowed to solicit supplies from the parents.</p>
<p>
This is sad, edad. How frustrating for you wife! I can’t see why a call for donations couldn’t be passed around informally. Would these districts have turned the supplies away if kids just started showing up to school with them?</p>
<p>My soon to be 7th grader has to provide a computer jump drive in addition to the paper, folders and pens…I am sure there are some parents in our district that have no idea what that even is…</p>