In article , Rosalie B. says...

"Michelle J. Haines" wrote:

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.

It is fair in that those people who pay taxes don't want to pay them,
and try to get by as cheaply as they can. So they don't fund the
schools. If their taxes really supported the schools, they wouldn't
have to do that. OTOH I think that buying three times the amount of
school supplies is pretty cheap compared to higher taxes. And it does
actually only impact people who have children in school, and also have
the ability to buy the supplies instead of putting it all back on the
teachers.

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.

I have never been able to get over the outrage that was expressed when
I asked the kids to have a ruler with metric marks on it (in addition
to inches). I don't really understand why that was such a problem for
them. That was the only thing I asked for that wasn't a team
requirement. They acted like it took their mortgage payment or
something. And yet, they were OK with being required by the school to
buy a gym uniform from the school that cost $14.00

I also asked the kids to make a weather instrument and gave them
directions for various things that could be made from ordinary
household items. (This was 6th grade). One of the items was a rain
gauge, which in simplest form is some kind of container like a tin can
with straight sides, and a ruler or some markings on the side.

There were more complicated things (the choice was up to them) like
an anemometer which required a milk carton and some other items. One
mother was highly indignant because the pointer on this instrument was
made out of a "broom straw", and she "had to" go out and buy a broom
to get a broom straw and also she "had to" buy milk in a different
size carton than she usually got. I mean really!! She could have
used a toothpick or gotten a straw from a brush or any similar object.
Or she could have told him she didn't have those things, and to make
something else.

Well, those kind of complaints are pretty familliar to me as being on the Cub
Scout committee it seems every little item or the yearly fee or fee for campling
trip was objected to as something that will break the families' banks even
though every effort was made to do things on the cheap. But, in the end, the
five or ten dollars, or fourty dollar yearly fee would come in.

Where I *did* have complaints and had sympathy with other parents' complaints
was the short lead times that schools and activities like Scouts sometimes give
parents. If a child comes home even as far ahead as a Monday night with a
homework project due Friday that calls for a different size milk carton than
usually bought in that household, that can mean an extra grocery trip which
impacts the household evenings where meals have to be served, activities have to
be attended, bedtimes observed, etc. etc. There seemed to be an assumption of
an SAH parent who can run errands any given day.

This is one reason why I took up the Cub Scout newsletter - to get all the
information out at least 10 days ahead of the Pack Night meetings, and *all* the
information out (as a Tiger mom new to Scouts I was told "but everyone already
knows that because we do it that way every year ..").

So consider if sometimes the problem is more in the timing of the requirements
than the actual dollar costs.

Banty