As far as having a certain calculator for a class - it is so much easier for everyone to have the same kind of calculator for both the student and the teacher.

It is soooooo annoying to have to wait for that one student to be told how to do something on his odd-ball calculator and it is also sooooooooo embarrassing to be that student to be the one with that odd-ball calculator.

does anyone know how much of the lotto wins is 'suppose' to go for schools?

I'm old and my kids were young 40 years ago.....things have changed in a way I can no longer relate to. I have a son that is poor and he has two girls in elementary school...one is a special needs child. It is almost impossible for them to get all on "the list" so I send $... what I can to help out. They are made to feel like failures if they don't provide for all. The teachers are stressed....there just isn't money in the coffers for school supplies and then when they need the electronics, it is impossible!

I've always sent extra supplies with my grands, and give my teacher friends money to help them defray costs, or for that student who doesn't have what they need. As far as food goes, the school my grands attend offers free breakfast, lunch, and after school snack. They also have a weekend program, where kids can bring a backpack home, that has three meals in it. The need is very real. This is a highly rated school with open enrollment that draws from a large area. It's easy sometimes to forget how fortunate we are.

The cost of supplies is ridiculous. I'm hoping that once I become a teacher, that I'll be able to relieve some of the burden on my students parents.

Way back when the dinosaurs still walked the earth - when in the lower grades - we had classroom scissors that were dull with rounded points that were passed out before and collected after "art" class, a big gallon jar of paste that smelled kind of minty that dabs were portioned out of (no glue sticks back then).

I think we were "issued" a box of 8 color crayons. Crayola brand was best, than Prang (? - the box was mostly black). One year they gave us some icky ones, but I don't remember the brand.

I think we brought our own pencils. Of course, there were one or two kids that had to bring in a BIG box of crayons and a scissor that had sharper points.

I think the school supplied things like construction paper, rubber bands, staples.

But back then, the only calculators we had were in our heads and pencil and paper, Ball point pens were a novelty - and expensive.

Man oh man - did I just date myself!

I went with my daughter in law for my granddaughter's school supplies. I could not believe the cost and she did not get everything on the list. Of course I could not believe how many items on the list was for the teacher. My son got our grandson's list and completed it for $40. A pack was put together by the store for his school and grade. That was great.

I started this thread, and after reading all the posts, I got to thinking: our employers furnish everything we need in order for us to do our jobs. So why aren't our taxes paying for the supplies our teachers need to do their jobs? We should be complaining to our politicians. My hat's off to all our teachers. They have a hard enough job teaching without having to spend their own money to furnish the classroom or ask parents to help with the cost. (getting off my soap box now.)

What is a class fee? and $90?????

GOOD GRIEF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's a little much to me.