"Michelle J. Haines" wrote:

Rosalie B. wrote:

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.

Oh, good grief. When I'm buying school supplies for four children at
one time, it's a pretty damned hefty hit to the bank all at once, you
know. So, yes, I think it's a little bit unreasonable to EXPECT parents
to be buy 3x the amount they need to be.

I don't think the school expects the parents to buy extra. I think it
is more of a hope that someone will come through.

For my own children, my attitude has always been that I will send them
with what they actually need on the first day and not stress about the
extras. I would regard glue sticks and Kleenex as extras. Paper,
pens, crayons (for the younger kids), folders and notebooks OTOH are
essentials. So if I didn't have the money for 3 glue sticks, I might
buy one or I might buy none. This might not work if you have a child
who is going to be upset about not having what everyone else has, but
my children all eventually learned to deal.

Oh, and BTW, I don't put up with the "I'm the teacher and I said so"
attitude, either. Just because you sent home a letter demanding I WILL
volunteer for a party for a holiday, doesn't mean I will. If you want
my help, you may politely ask, you may not state that I AM helping you.

I've never gotten anything like that, nor have I ever sent anything
out like that. The only time that's ever happened to me is through
the military. When I was pg with #1, I got a note from the squadron
wives telling me that they were having a 4th of July picnic (which I
wasn't planning to attend because my husband had the duty, and we only
had one car), and my contribution was potato salad for 50 people. I
had never made potato salad. I said that I didn't have any way to get
it there, and they said that they'd send someone over for it. So I
got out my cookbook and made potato salad, but I was furious about it
and the NEXT time I was told me make potato salad (and there WAS a
next time and it WAS potato salad), I just went to the deli and bought
it.

Luckily for the teacher, my MIL likes to do school parties. I,
however, don't. They are welcome to ask me to chaperone field trips (my
own schedule allowing) because I happen to enjoy doing that. But I
don't organize parties. (And, btw, when I was involved in
homeschooling, I didn't do it then either...I organized the field trips.)

Also, just because the school sends home little "school/parent
contracts" insisting they must be signed doesn't mean they get signed.
"Here's a list of our legal responsibilities that don't actually change
whether or not you sign this. Here's a list of the ways we have decided
we want you to parent. Sign and return it." Um, no. They do keep
sending them home, though.

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).

If you're equating me being a tad bit upset that I supplied my
5-year-old with enough school material for three five year olds, which
were then immediately confiscated from her with a parent being upset
over a ruler with inches vs. inches/metric (which isn't even a choice
anymore, btw) then I think you need to go back and try reading again, or
at least set aside some of your personal experiences, because you're not
seeing the forest for the trees.

Why do you think quantifying the basis for outrage is important. If
the parent us upset, the reason for the anger and whether it is
justified doesn't have much if anything to do with their actual
behavior. Plus, in this case, they went to the principal about it
which he didn't like and which was a black mark against me in his
book. I was a new teacher in his school, and he was always looking
for ways to fault me after that because his first experience was that
he had to fend off an angry parent. Whether I was right or not didn't
matter to him.