Hear Hear! My school is very reasonable on costs and projects etc. I
don't really have complaints about it but this one is very difficult
sometimes. And to echo one of your other posts our issue last year was
a shoe box. My son needed a shoe box. Well my house doesn't have shoe
boxes in it. So I load up all 4 kids and go trudging down to K-Mart to
find a shoe box - on a week night - when I have about 3 hours between
off work and bedtime to manage what needs to be managed for 4 small
kids. You can imagine how happy they all are to go shopping in the
freezing cold dark winter night when they are either hungry (before
supper) or tired (after supper).

I like the way our preschool handles things like this, they have a store
cupboard and they keep supplies like this and they do let parents know
about the kind of things they like you to hang on to and donate and
there will often be a sign saying things like "Mrs X is collecting
bottle tops drop them off in the box outside her classroom".

Then when something like a shoebox is needed, they still ask us to bring
one - they probably aren't storing anywhere near a full class worth of
something like that. But they also say bring extra if you have one and
don't worry if you don't, no need to go shopping etc. This accomodates
both not having one and forgetting, both of which have happened to us,
but another time they were asked to bring a broken electrical appliance,
we were able to provide for about half the class!

That kind of organisation takes years to build up though, so a small
school and a relatively low staff turn over really helps that kind of thing.

Cheers
Anne