cost of school supplies

Old 08-05-2016, 02:56 PM
  #11  
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I guess I am cheap, but when my kids were in school, they did not get everything new each year. Some years we could buy school supplies through the school, which was discounted, but how many erasers, rules, pairs of scissors etc does one child need?

I know it is nice to start off the year with everything shiny and new, but, I am sorry I could not afford it. Now that I am in uni my biggest expense are text books. I bought a package of black pens and shared them with my son. I did need a financial calculator for a couple of my courses, but otherwise I am using what I have.

Someone mentioned 48 pencils already sharpened....? There is no way my kids would go through 48 pencils in a year, between the three of them.

I can understand being asked to provide a box of tissue, otherwise the teacher is paying that out of her own pocket.
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Old 08-05-2016, 03:43 PM
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There is a simple answer.... schools stop the costly excess testing. If we were made aware of the cost of the exam development, exams themselves and grading/analysis - we would protest and rightly so. It is ridiculous to put the cost of supplies on the parents or the teachers - a basic necessity of teaching.

Ok, I'm getting off the soapbox. Ok, wait, one more thing. What would happen if parents refused to send in more than what their child would use? They can't kick the children out.
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Old 08-05-2016, 04:53 PM
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As a teacher who sent out those lists, I have seen kids go through a pencil a day because the sharpener was so fascinating, rulers, erasers, crayons, etc. have been broken the first day of use (some won't use a crayon that was broken...why I have no idea). You'd be amazed what kids do with their supplies, mind you not all kids but more than you think. I gathered all but the necessities from each kiddo in a ziplock (or two or three) with their name, at the end of the year it got sent home. Can't imagine storing things over the summer, I had no room. And yet I loved every kid I came across.
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Old 08-05-2016, 05:22 PM
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I am substituting and cannot begin to tell you how many elementary kids come to school with no pencil or unsharpened pencil. By the way a electric pencil sharpener is a great gift for a teacher.
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Old 08-05-2016, 06:01 PM
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I remember my elementary school days, in the 60's. We weren't asked to bring a doggone thing. The school dept. bought everything in bulk with our taxes and distributed it to each school. Everything was supplied by the school and once it was passed out, you kept your own things in your desk. Your mom might have provided you with a pencil case... that's it. The sharpener was the bolted down kind, attached to a bookcase by the window. Getting up to walk across the room and sharpen a pencil was always allowed during working time, and provided a good little break from sitting for so long.

ADD was unknown. You brought $.03 a day if you wanted a little bottle of milk at snack time. Your lunch was provided in your lunch box by your mom. If she didn't put it in there, you didn't eat it. Period. Nap (rest) time was laying your head down on your desk and closing your eyes for a few minutes. The teacher provided "mimeographs" of the worksheets she wanted you to do. We loved smelling the purple ink... Scissors, crayons, glue and paint all belonged to the classroom, communally. They were kept in boxes or baskets and set out for communal use when needed. The paste smelled awesome too... and there was always a kid or two who would eat it!

Quarterly, report cards were passed out. You carried it home to show your parents, get their signature on it, and then you carried it back the next day and gave it back to the teacher. By the end of the year, all four quarters were filled in, on that same card that you got to take home and keep at the end of the year. Lo Tech.

All that parents had to buy to prepare for school were a few new clothes and food for lunches and snacks. I loved my elementary school days.

When my kids were in school in the 80's- 90's I homeschooled them. Never had to do the "school supply" shopping thing, but I did have to fret over where the $300 or so for the bare bones curriculum I needed to buy was going to come from every year. We passed down school books and wrote answers in notebooks instead of in the workbooks, so those could be passed down too. We had curriculum fairs with other homeschoolers where we could sell or swap our books with other families. We were poor, so that I could stay home and educate my kids myself. It was a JOB-- not easy, but I wouldn't trade it for the world!
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Old 08-05-2016, 06:56 PM
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sewbizgirl....We went to different schools together! Reading your post I was thinking "YES!". I still have all my grade school report cards!!
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Old 08-05-2016, 08:28 PM
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It would be nice if all kids had your parents or mine. I would agree they do spend too much time testing the kids. They want to base the teachers' salaries to the test scores - but how do you do that when there is no base line? And not all the kids are on equal ground? My daughter teaches 4th grade this year and 2 of her students speak little to no English and one doesn't even read at first grade level, one girl only speaks baby talk and is in speech therapy (that comes out of her class time). Fortunately there are only 22 kids in the class, there are 15 boys and 7 girls 12 are ESL students and 5 have diagnosed learning disorders. You cannot always blame teachers when the parents don't do anything to help. One little boy has trouble writing, his parents believe he doesn't need to write because he will be using a computer soon.

My sisters and parents taught me the alphabet, how to read, and how to add, subtract, multiple and divide before I was in the first grade. But that was before the afternoon TV was even on, my sisters taught me as they did their homework with me and my dad was an engineer at Boeing and he loved to play math games, then my mom put up with me following her around reading out loud to her while I was learning to read.

Okay - I am stepping off the soap box, I could go on for hours and no one needs that.

There are a lot of kids that have nothing!!! It is really hard to image it if you had parents that always made sure you had what you needed, but some of these kids don't eat unless they are at school and there is no money for school supplies. So the schools are just trying to even the playing field and give every child a chance. My daughter buys the basics for all of her students - pencils, pens, crayons, markers, colored pencils, spiral note books, lined paper and the composition books. They are not allowed this year to ask for donations but she lets the parents know if these "disappear" she does not replace them, it will be up to the student to replace. She also provides glue (white Elmer's school glue and the stick glue), scissors, white boards and rulers.

If you look closely at the list they are asking for donations of these items, so there is some idea of what they need. They are not asking for every student to bring 15 rolls of paper towels, or every student to bring 5 boxes of tissue. One student brought in 8 boxes of tissue and another brought a box of 30 glue sticks. My daughter felt like Christmas. And the tissue had extra "Box Tops" so double yippee.

Last edited by quiltingcandy; 08-05-2016 at 08:31 PM.
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Old 08-05-2016, 08:36 PM
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Our church collects clothing and school supplies for months, and then has a couple of big distribution days to needy families in the area.
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Old 08-06-2016, 02:40 AM
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They're just getting you ready for college costs, I'd gladly pay $85.00!
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Old 08-06-2016, 03:35 AM
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There is a list of 32 items on my grandson's 6 th grade list. First on the list in bold print: for the home room teacher: 2 boxes Kleenex,Expo Markers ,one roll paper towels,1 pack of notebook paper,24 -regular pencils,3 pack of 3" sticky notes. Then it goes to mandatory student supplies-of which there's only 17 items this school term.The teachers here receive a check for $800.00 to buy their school supplies, most of them use it to buy clothes,from what I'm told.
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