Rosalie B. wrote:

And in some cases it was lack of organization (In middle school I lost
8 Esterbrook pens in one year and I found out not too long ago that my
sister had similar problems-that was when we really had ink pens and
not ball points), and in some cases it was indifference. But you
cannot reasonably expect kids who have not got the tools they need to
just sit there while you instruct the other ones. So you do what
you can (as a teacher) to see that they all have what they need to do
the work.

Um, Rosalie. It's not reasonable to make the -other- children's parents
pay for it whether they like it or not, nor is the teacher "seeing to
it" they have what they need by simply demanding that the parents by 3
times what their children need, knowing that not all the class will
actually buy it.

I did supply my own Kleenex, but then I wasn't teaching sniffly 5 year
olds. And glue sticks (from experience) don't last very well once
they are opened. At one point money was so short, that we teachers
were buying our own mimeograph paper because each teacher was allotted
only so much paper. I didn't have textbooks to give out to my class
(because of the curriculum mostly), so I did a lot of hand-out
material. Fortunately, dh was employed and with two salaries I was
able to fill in the gaps.

Great. My father-in-law, who worked in this school district, says he
ordered all of this stuff out of his classroom budget for cheaper than
the parents could buy it, and commented there's a huge stack of kleenex
just sitting one of the storage areas that no one ever uses, so he used
to just go get his classroom kleenex from it and no one ever said
anything.

Michelle
Flutist