posted
The worst was when Mango got switched to another school, and they gave me their supply list, completely ignoring the fact that I had already provided another classroom with supplies. In the same vein, last year their special ed teacher gave us a supply list . . . Cor told her to go get those supplies from the regular ed teacher. Our kids shouldn't need to provide more supplies. If they're being pulled out of the regular classroom, their supplies should follow them.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
How very obnoxious! I'm really surprised that basic classroom supplies (paper, dry erase markers, bandaids, paper towels, trash bags, ziploc bags, glue, tissues, etc) are supposed to now be provided by parents. Those things are part of the basic operation of the classroom and should be part of the budget for running the school.
I completely understand each student needing to have pencils, erasers, notebooks, writing paper, crayons, etc. but I think those kinds of things should remain with the children, not be put into some sort of massive classroom stock. Each child should learn from a young age to be responsible for their own supplies. I guess things just seem really different than when I was in school.
Posts: 5879 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I've never heard of student materials being "confiscated" for whole-class use until I saw another teacher doing that at a school I taught at five years ago. I couldn't believe it! When my mom spent the hard earned money on supplies for me when I was a kid, those supplies were mine! Not the class's. The first day of school I make sure the kids write their names on all of their supplies, including using a permanent marker to write their names on their dry-erase markers, pencils, crayon boxes, etc., so that when they're dropped on the floor other kids can't claim them. Money is too hard to come by.
Posts: 315 | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:When my mom spent the hard earned money on supplies for me when I was a kid, those supplies were mine! Not the class's. The first day of school I make sure the kids write their names on all of their supplies, including using a permanent marker to write their names on their dry-erase markers, pencils, crayon boxes, etc., so that when they're dropped on the floor other kids can't claim them. Money is too hard to come by.
Amen. I remember spending considerable time picking out binders and folders I liked, I would not have been thrilled if they'd been taken away.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
What surprises me is things like each kid having his or her own 24 crayons and 8 markers every year- those items especially. When I was at school, we'd have, say, a pile of crayons in a bucket for the whole class and because of the fact that old crayons didn't go up the school with the children, you'd have crayons around until they shrank and disappeared- which would take years. It would be the same for markers. There was a communal bucket out of which children fished when markers were needed.
This saves money because instead of having 480 crayons in a 20-child class (!), you could start with, say, 100 and then slowly build up over the years. The first year you'd need to buy four packs. The next year you'd only need one or two. Five kids can easily share 20 crayons. If they need the colour someone else has, they wait. (And that way they learn sharing, patience and the understanding that they can't always have all of everything for themselves, but sometimes have to make do with what's available.)
As for soap, surely it is much cheaper for the school to buy soap en masse in some kind of giant container and then simply refill the soap dispensers from there, than have the 600 students in the school buy 600 little bottles. The same goes for paper towels and I suppose for office paper, crayons, markers, and other things that are used communally.
This means that children would need to buy pencils, pens, glue sticks, erasers, notebooks, binders- things they were personally going to use over the course of the year.
This seems like common sense to me and I believe that is how it works in the schools I have attended.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I think I've seen the worst (well, my wife saw it actually): Earlier this summer, my wife stopped at a garage sale my daughter's 2nd grade teacher was having. This teacher was selling all the leftover supplies her students (including my daughter) had brought in at the beginning of the year but not used! ... ...
I'm no lawyer, but isn't selling stolen goods a felony (or at least a misdemeanor) in most states?
Posts: 692 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Is there anyone not outraged by this? I mean is the fact that school budgets aren't going up with the rest of the economy because it's not being marketed right or because everyone's outraged until they have to say so on their taxes?
I recognize schools may be taking these kind of shortcuts even if they're, by today's standards, adequatley funded, but does anyone really think they'd bother trying to nickle and dime the parents out of Kleenex if they actually had all the money they needed to properly educate America's future?
posted
Finished up all the shopping and met with all the teachers. My 4th grader's teacher said they are not recommending backpacks this year. She said she doesn't plan to assign any homework other than studying for tests and reading each night, so they will have a zippered binder to keep work in instead of a backpack.
When we got there, she actually provided labels so we could label our folders and binders - we were not asked to pool them in a community supply. Worked for me, since I had already put my child's name on her folders anyway. Surprisingly I was not asked to supply colored pencils or markers - I normally am. I asked her if they would need them and she said all art supplies are now provided by the art department, paid for through the fund raising art shows they hold throughout the year. That's cool.
I did not bring copy paper to any classroom, did not provide GermX and bought half the number of pencils requested. I told every teacher if they ran low on pencils to let me know and I'd send some.
quote:does anyone really think they'd bother trying to nickle and dime the parents out of Kleenex if they actually had all the money they needed to properly educate America's future?
Does anyone think that now that the schools have proven they CAN get parents to pay for this stuff, they would start buying it out of their own budgets even if the budgets were increased? They'd just tell the teachers to do without, and it would fall back on the teachers to have to supply their rooms with all this stuff.
And don't think I don't realize I will have to spend some of my own money to stock my own classroom when I finally graduate and find a job. I know I will. Of course, since I will teach secondary, I probably won't have to worry much about hand sanitizer or crayons.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Belle, my mom asked a question. Do you have to pay a fee for school textbooks above the $35 listed here?
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
When my husband taught they did not provide for kleenex and markers and batteries for the calculators. So, my husband decided that it was an extra credit opportunity. He got so many boxes of kleenex, he was able to share with the other teachers.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Last year our county switched to having an outside provider take care of our custodial needs in the schools. The entire month of May we went without paper towels in the bathrooms (both adult and childrens) because "the kids use too much and they've emptied the budget for paper towels." Teachers went out and bought paper towels. I couldn't believe it. We supervise the kids. They use the restroom and wash their hands as is appropriate. It's not like they were using the paper towels to play with or stop up the toilets (thankfully that never happened!!!). They were using them the way they should be used. But our complaints made no difference. <arghhh>
BTW, no textbook fees for our schools.
Posts: 315 | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by scholar: When my husband taught they did not provide for kleenex and markers and batteries for the calculators. So, my husband decided that it was an extra credit opportunity. He got so many boxes of kleenex, he was able to share with the other teachers.
I could get in so much trouble if I did that . . .
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
In Soviet Norway... I can't think of any funny jokes, but each child is expected to supply himself and no other. What is this, communism?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I can definitely sympathize with all the parents in this thread. I had my share of absurd requests (crayons in middle school!?), but I'm beyond that now.
A bit of advice: never trust a math teacher that demands a specific brand or model of calculator. Your kid will be doomed to not learn arithmetic. Similarly, question any middle or high school teacher that requests crayons, markers, or colored pencils.
Posts: 145 | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
My mother is a kindergarten teacher and is dreading the first day of school when all the kids bring everything that was on their very long (school written, not teacher written) supply list. She has nowhere to store 50 boxes of Kleenex. And we still have more than plenty of glue and crayons from last year.
Posts: 364 | Registered: Dec 2005
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Not allowed in our school either - completely forbidden to ask students to spend money for school credit. As Icarus says, big no-no.
quote:My mother is a kindergarten teacher and is dreading the first day of school when all the kids bring everything that was on their very long (school written, not teacher written) supply list. She has nowhere to store 50 boxes of Kleenex. And we still have more than plenty of glue and crayons from last year.
Pefect example of what I'm ranting against.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote: Similarly, question any middle or high school teacher that requests crayons, markers, or colored pencils.
Colored pencils were on my supply list when I took Meteorolgy in college. We'd get a handout of a US map with temperatures written on it. Then we'd draw in the temperature bands and color the areas just like real weather maps. It was fun.
Colored pencils or crayons for science class? Totally possible. Math and english? Sounds like one of those project loving eachers. My mom commented that one of the gals she works with makes the classroom look like she's scrapbooking with the kids' papers.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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I'm confused about something....possibly because I'm 30 years old, haven't had a school supply list since I was in elementary school almost 19 years ago, and my only son won't be in kindergarten for 4 more years. But here goes...
What's up with the communal supplies? How is it that teachers are coming away with extra crayons, pencils, and etc.? When my mom bought me school supplies, they were mine. Well, except for the kleenex. My box of crayons, my colored pencils, my notebooks and all of that went in MY desk and if I didn't use them by the last day of school, came home with ME.
Did I go to a good school or has the world changed in the last couple of decades?
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
It's definitely changed Christine, because even when my oldest (now a 9th grader) was in kindergarten she didn't have the communal supplies issue.
The first I saw it was when my now 4th grader was in 1st grade.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I first saw it in 2001 when I switched to teaching in a public school for the first time. At the school I was teaching at then, the only real communal supplies I can remember were Kleenex boxes and printer paper. I had no say in that list because I was the new guy. The next year, as I recall, we did have a say; in this way we avoided the situation of asking for things we didn't need. We also had, during the course of the year, a newsletter we sent out that included teacher's wish lists. In this way I got a lot of math-related games to keep around the room.
As I recall, the kids kept their own stuff, with the exceptions I noted of paper and tissue.
Before the second year actually started, I was moved from middle school to the high school at the same school (at the time). Communal lists have never been a part of life at the high school. If I want something the school doesn't supply, I go out and buy it myself. I keep my Kleenexes in my desk, because I know kids will go through them in a heartbeat if I leave them out in plain sight; they do tend to waste whatever they didn't provide. On the other hands, kids are quite resourceful when you don't provide them with stuff. Most kids aren't aware I have any Kleenex, and either have their own in their backpacks or go to the bathroom when they need tissue. On the rare occasion when someone thinks to ask me if I have any tissues, I reach into my desk and give him or her one.
I do ask for donations of AAA batteries every year as the calculators start to run down. I let the kids know at the outset that I made sure the calculators were all running at the beginning of the year, including supplying my own batteries when necessary. During the year, I buy no more batteries for them. I figure I'm not the one using them, and I'm under no obligation to provide them with either calculators or batteries. (The kids are encouraged to have their own. I keep ten or so because it's possible that's not a reasonable request for some kids.) Since it's not my responsibility to provide calculators, if I have more kids wanting to borrow mine than I have calculators, that's too bad for whoever is at the back of the line. When a calculator runs out of batteries, I announce to my classes that one is out of commission and I now have nine (or whatever); that usually scares up a donation or two of batteries within a day.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Some schools, even for math, require projects whether the teacher wants to do them or not. My husband got a bad review once because all he did was lecture. One of his students transferred to his class because she thought straightforward lectures made more sense than "discovery." My husband looked at her notes and they were brightly colored with shapes taped to them and folded in weird ways.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
I should point out that in algebra class, 4 or so colored pencils are a reasonable request for graphing and such. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Giving extra credit to kids for spending money is an enormous no-no.
Not entirely on the subject, but in my college Sociology class, fall quarter, the teacher promised an A to any hunter that would bring him a deer. As I recall, there were two takers.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
There was an awful teacher in my high school. He was a math teacher; he always had the smallest classes because parents were always transferring their kids out of his. He gave extra credit to kids who brought him food-- but only if he liked it, otherwise he took points off your grade (for instance, when a Korean student brought in dumplings made by his mother.) He gave extra credit to girls who wore short skirts and crossed their legs. He graded based on how much he liked you instead of how you did on tests; my friend who he didn't like got two points off and an F while the girl who sat in the front row in the short skirt and kissed up got 15 points off and an "A." He didn't actually teach much; in many of his classes he just put problems up on the overhead and went outside to talk on the phone to his wife (who was the Home Ec. teacher. She used to have me take over my Foods class while she talked to him, also my friend in his Foods classes, although she wasn't quite as bad as her husband. He married her two months after she graduated from high school, she had been one of his students.) He had numerous complaints every year from parents, including sexual harassment complaints, and the district said, "We can't do anything, he's got tenure" and the students would just transfer to another class. Finally he went so far that two parents who were lawyers filed suit on behalf of their daughter who was sexually harassed, and the district fired him.
posted
Wow! That's really extreme. Tenure or not, I can't believe the district didn't get rid of him sooner. There are ways to dismiss even teachers with tenure if they're bad enough. It usually involves destroying them but can't say that one didn't deserve it.
Stories like that are why I disagree with the idea that teachers are underpaid. GOOD teachers are underpaid. Bad teachers are overpaid -- and we have plenty of them.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I'm not aware that tenure in that form exists anywhere. I have "tenure" and I could certainly be fired. I could also be caused to want to quit.
There would be more good teachers if there were pay enough to make hiring competitive. The biggest obstacle to getting rid of bad teachers is that we have nobody to replace them with.
quote:He was really icky.
I beg your pardon. >:O
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
It is very difficult to get rid of tenured professors at the university level.
At my high school (and it was a very good public high school), I recall that after a teacher had been there for a certain amount of time, there had to be cause to fire him. Certainly the above example would have been cause. My guess, though, is that the "evidence" was anecdotal and undocumented until the lawsuit.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I'm just going to point out that different people learn in different ways. Visuals may not help some students, but they do make learning (and demonstrating learning) easier for others.
But back to the topic at hand--I usually spend $100-200 every school year on my classroom for supplies for the students. (This doesn't count the money I spend on books for my classroom library.) As of last year, I was no longer allowed to ask students to supply tissues. I don't mind buying pencils and markers for kids--that is, actual SCHOOL supplies--but I refuse to buy the approximately 20-30 boxes a year it takes to keep 60 kids in tissues. My kids use the brown paper towels or sniffle. For next year, however, the principal is using some of our fundraising $$ to buy them for the whole school. Hope she gets enough!
Our PTA puts together a school supply pack that costs around $35. The team of teachers is told to use what's in that pack, and if students need something not included, we (the 4 core subject teachers) can ask for additional supplies not to exceed $5 for the whole team. I'm mostly OK with that--the supplies in the pack tend to be lower quality, and the binders break before the end of the year, but it's a pretty good solution to a difficult problem. (Students aren't required to buy the pack, by the way--it's provided as a convenience.)
Just a comment on the copy paper--I think it's not totally unreasonable to ask each student to supply a ream of paper, depending on the funding situation of the district. Students print and print and print. (Back in the olden days when they hand-wrote essays, they'd write 'em on their own notebook paper, right?) And I have CERTAINLY seen students print more than one copy of a multiple-page document, just because it didn't start printing right away. Anyway, I think it's something the school should provide, but there's some justification, at least, for it being a "school supply" for student consumption vs. an instructional material (such as paper for photocopies).
Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: I'm not aware that tenure in that form exists anywhere. I have "tenure" and I could certainly be fired. I could also be caused to want to quit.
There would be more good teachers if there were pay enough to make hiring competitive. The biggest obstacle to getting rid of bad teachers is that we have nobody to replace them with.
quote:He was really icky.
I beg your pardon. >
Sorry, Ick!
And yeah, "Sorry, he has tenure" definitely translated to "we don't want to deal with this/your kid is making this up/we don't want that publicity."
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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