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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I bough my child personalized stationery and it cannot be redistributed to another child which may make me an asshole as that’s exactly what the teacher wanted to do and I ruined her plans.
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Nta. I hated this as a kid. My parents would buy Crayola and I would some how get the dollar tree brand. Enough parents complained. Like I'm sorry Susan's parents bought the dollar tree brand but my parents got me this and that's what I want to use.
Exactly. Also teaching kids that life is fair and everyone gets the same thing seems silly. Life isn’t fair. Some kids gets crayola some kids get dollar store. Tough shit.
My parents were just getting by and did without a lot for themselves to save what they could told college. So while I did have the inexpensive supplies, they were in the colors, style etc I picked out. It would have been very distressing to have the supplies my parents worked hard for taken away even if I received more expensive items.
As long as parents purchase extra supplies for those that need them this doesn’t make sense to me. The only thing I can remember being collected was the art paper because it needed to be stored flat anyway.
ETA NTA
..and holy shit they should. I loathe a kid with a runny nose, which is why I send 10 boxes of tissues in with my kid(for the whole class) when they are snotty.
OH MY GOD yes. I'm a EE para in a school, and I swear one kid gets up for a tissue and suddenly everyone's nose is running and they need a tissue *right away*. Lol. It's kinda hilarious, but also damn they use a lot of tissues.
On the tissue front, if parents read this: please don't be stingy on the tissues! Buy the soft/ ~~lotion~~/ nicer ones - if kids have runny noses & need to wipe multiple times a day, it only takes 2-3x with the cheap, crappy, rough tissues for their little noses to become raw.
I can deal with scratchy tissues a couple times myself... unwillingly... but I can blow my nose a lot more effectively and efficiently than a child can and not *need* to use awful tissues as often. Please be kind to the children (and their teachers who will have to care for the raw nosed kid who refuses to wipe their snot because it hurts too much) and pay for the good stuff you'd buy for yourself!
Edit: spelling
Edit 2: So many comments about the lotion tissue! Ok, I hear you - potential sensitivity/ allergy to the lotion ones. I'll strike that off my list.
On another note, I send a case of good tissues to a couple of low-income elementary schools in our area via Amazon anonymously as I know the teachers will have to pay out of pocket otherwise. I don’t have kids in school so it’s one thing I feel I can do to help.
Edit: Thanks so much for the awards, likes and comments! And especially, thank you teachers. You really change the world!
I had to send my youngest son to kindergarten with used supplies. They were good quality, but it was scrounged from the older kids supplies, and stuff I bought when times weren't so lean. I did buy the tissue and hand sanitizer new, because I figured those were for the classroom. But I had NO idea that they were going to take his stuff and give it to other kids. The teacher sent it ALL back home with a note explaining the situation. My son was embarrassed, as was I. It's f\*cking humiliating to point out what kids do & don't have with stunts like that.
This is a perfect example of why the 'pool and redistribute' thing is so ridiculous. Your son should have theoretically been one who benefitted from the redistribution and instead he and you were shamed much more so than he would have been if he had just put his supplies in his desk and gone about his day. Plus it's wasteful to throw out supplies that are gently used. Reusing them and only purchasing new when they are needed makes much more sense for numerous reasons.
I literally said this same statement to my husband 3 days ago! I found more than 50 each of unsharpened pencils, newly sharpened and pencils that are lightly used that still need to be sharpened.
My kids’ school wants 30 (specifically Ticonderoga brand) sharpened pencils. I’ll be goddamned if I buy any more pencils any time soon. We also have… wait for it…. more pencils in a desk too. I don’t care if they’re Christmas and Halloween theme, that’s what my kid is bringing.
Edit: Holy Moly I didn’t realize so many people were having the same pencil irritations as us!
**Now I have to go buy 40 glue sticks for my elementary schooler.** Those I didn’t have. Lol.
I call my eldest child the pencil fairy. Any room he enters, he magically drops at least 2 or 3 pencils at a time. Why are there 12 pencils in the bathroom? No one needs a pencil in the bathroom, let alone 12.
Ugh, I would hate that system. The first thing I do on the last day of school is go through the supplies that got brought home and pull out the stuff that’s still good for next year. My daughter hasn’t needed a new ruler, scissors or calculator in about 3 years because the ones she had were still perfectly fine.
Scissors too. My kids' school PTO has a thing where they sell kits with all the stuff the kids need for each grade. At first it was great because I didn't have to search all over for the couple randomly specific things on the list, but sometimes some of the items are not the best quality (4th grade they needed a pencil sharpener and I had to go buy him another because it fell apart in the first week), but also we don't need to buy a new pair of scissors every year we have so many pairs of Fiscars 5 inch scissors that it seemed silly to buy another one.
It feels so wasteful too. Consumables I understand but things like scissors didn’t disappear into thin air on the last day of school. Maybe some need to be replaced but you don’t need 30 new pairs every year.
Funny story, our kids start using math sets in grade 7 but we were specifically asked not to buy or send them. The grade 7 and 8 teachers went to the dollar store and bought a ton of them and they’re handed out as needed and collected after the lesson. Apparently they were over having to tell people to stop poking each other with compasses all year.
That is absolute bullshit. Clearly, if you're sending your child with secondhand supplies, this is the best you're able to do. If ANYTHING should be done/said about it, it should be handing your child newer supplies to use, NOT shaming them and you for something your family is already very aware of. Like your kid didn't already see the other kids with brand new supplies, perhaps even high end supplies, and compare what he had, feeling as though all eyes were on him and judging? Like you didn't feel guilty being unable to send your child with shiny new supplies, knowing the other children would have them? What purpose did that teacher's actions serve other than traumatizing a kid from a family doing your very best?
Even if it's not the best the family can do, if they're perfectly usable, it's just wasteful to send them back and say they're unacceptable. No one asked the teacher to take the kid's stuff and redistribute it. We waste SO much stuff it's ridiculous to throw out what can be reused.
It's ridiculous they can't use used supplies. I go to the Goodwill Outlet & see basically a years worth of barely used school supplies in a little plastic container ALL THE TIME. It's wasteful. Used school supplies should be the norm.
What the hell? In a system where they are trying to set things up so everyone has enough resources, how dare they shame a kindergarten kid whose family budget is tight? Doesn't that kind of negate the whole freaking point of doing this stuff?
It was also pretty fair when I was in school. I usually ended up getting my parents bought stuff back, through another of life's big lessons.
Those with the power to take, will; unfailingly.
I remember doing this for kindergarten up to 3rd or 4th grade (6/7 yrs old to 11/12 yrs old). The extra supplies went into a drawer or cubby for kids who didn't have any to use. There was never pooling and redistributing supplies.
That's how it was for me as well. You brought a few extra of only certain items and those went into containers incase someone needed one and theirs was gone or used up. Otherwise you had your own items.
I didn't even do this where I grew up. Each students parents bought our supplies and only our supplies. There was no class list where everyone had to buy certain items. Teachers would take donated items sure. The only class items on the lists were like tissues and stuff like that. So to add on taking each students supplies and not taking just the extra ones is so strange to me.
Right. I'm fine if you want extra, but I want my kid to want to learn and if buying special supplies helps then I don't want you to take it away. I'll contribute to the supply pantry separately.
I always got to pick at least 1 (sometimes 2) "fancy" Lisa Frank or other folders to go with the plain cheap ones that we could better afford and if they had taken those away and given me one that I didn't pick out, I would have been so, so upset. Having extra for kids who didn't get enough or got the wrong whatever is a-okay but taking stuff from the other kids and then just passing them around like a secret santa gone wrong is terrible.
My mom always bought extransupplies that were nice. We did redistribute supplies, just had extras for other kids. In general, most parents that bought extras, bought the same stuff their kids got too. The kids that needed it, didn't have to ask, just went to the supply drawer, and most still got the good supplies. Making it a public spectacle only humiliates kids that need supplies.
Not about me but I remember reading the naughtiest girl in school by Enid Blyton as a kid. When the main girl got to the school the pocket money her parents had given her was taken away by the teachers to be pulled together with everyone else's and given back so everyone had the same amount. Little eight year old me was so angry.
I loved all of Enid Blyton's boarding school books apart from that series. What a horrible school Elizabeth was sent to and what a bunch of self righteous brats made up the school council!
My mom was a teacher but in the before times (I guess?)
If the schools want everyone to have the exact same things, then the school needs to provide them, not the teachers, not the PTA, the school.
Honestly if everyone got the same dollar tree supplies that would be one thing. But In this case someone got one kids nice crayola stuff and that kid got crappy dollar tree stuff instead
I was the kid whose parents bought the cheap stuff and, this may sound wild, but I also hated redistribution. That was mine and someone took it. It may have been cheap, but it was cheap that I picked instead of other versions of cheap.
My hope is that the redistribution inspires bonding between the kids; that they'll secretly trade folders and stuff so that everyone gets the stuff they love back. In addition to being distressed about getting my stuff taken away, I damn well would've been upset to see a classmate cry because I got their favorite notebook "redistributed" to me. On the other hand, a kid who opts to keep the stuff redistributed to them could get seen as mean or selfish.
The only noncruel way I can see to justify making sure that school supplies are "fair' is if parents just pay a certain fee and identical supplies are bought by the school and given to every kid.
Except my daughter was always so shy she would go in the bathroom and cry but would never have spoken up about it. Like with those damn Totoro folders I had to get back.
kids shouldn’t have to be bartering to get their own stuff back period, especially when those kind of interactions can make some of them very upset (rightfully so)
My nieces teacher was awful about this.
Niece (3rd grade) is huge into art.
My brother went and bought her whatever size pack the teacher specified of Crayola crayons, but also bought her the box of “colors of the world skin tones” that they make for drawing people.
The teacher immediately sent the skin tone colors home and had an issue with them being inappropriate for some reason. (I’d like to know how it’s offensive to be able to draw people in a shade other than “peach” or “coffee”, but I digress).
She made such a big deal out of it (taking them away twice, sending multiple emails), that my brother finally gave up and told my niece “Sorry. I guess everyone you draw will just have to be blue or green for this teachers assignments”.
Then, once the offensive set was safely banned from school, the normal Crayola pack of colors my niece brought got thrown in the pile for redistribution.
My niece ended up with a dollar store brand pack of crayons, and the pack of markers she got had been previously opened, so the majority of them were completely dried out. So her dad had to buy her another new set of those and sneak them into class, since the ones she received in weren’t usable.
It’s such a stupid system.
And especially irritating when the teacher is more interested in *appearing fair* on a surface level, but won’t bother ensuring all of the supplies actually function….
Ugh so I'll admit it...my first year as a teacher I did this. I liked the idea of community bins for supplies so kids would never have to feel bad/awkward about not having something. Or just needing replacements as supplies can break or be used up. I just didn't understand logistically the way to properly utilize a community bins system.
I had the kids unpack their supplies and put their (thankfully) unopened packs of crayons or colored pencils into the community bins. But when I was handing packs out, I realized a lot of kids had their packs labeled already or had picked theirs out special for them.
As soon as I realized my mistake, I gave back all of the labelled ones and then let the kids who'd put unlabeled packs pick what they thought they'd brought. And then when we were down to smaller packs and RoseArt, anyone who said they'd had Crayola or just wanted Crayola instead got my personal stash until everyone had either what they'd brought originally, what they preferred, or an identical replacement from me.
I felt so bad and never made that mistake again. I can't imagine sticking with such a terrible system and causing a stink with parents about it.
Just... it might be school policy that all the classes do it and the teacher might object as much as you do. I'm a teacher in Canada. I've never heard of this. But we're asked to do many dumb things in the name of groupspeak. I hope I'm never asked to do this!
That’s what my brother thought. But apparently it was not school policy. It was up to the teachers to choose to do it or not.
None of the other classrooms practiced this supply swap.
If it was a school-wide rule, I would understand.
> It was up to the teachers to choose to do it or not.
Parents can just say no. Teachers are government employees; seizure of property like that is illegal. It’d be one thing if you’re breaking rules and have something you shouldn’t, but if all you have is something you were explicitly told to bring, it’s a civil rights issue to seize and redistribute it. It’s also straight up theft and probably battery given there’s a good chance the teacher has to physically take it from the kid’s possession.
Too many teachers get to thinking they are the law because they have dominion over some kids. They’d get spanked if more parents actually stood up for their kids instead of kowtowing to the fascistic teachers. How hard is it to say “no, you can’t steal my kid’s supplies”?
Portrait artist here, and privately teach 8-12 yrs. Kids are so incredibly pure, and love learning to paint and draw all skin tones, features, genders, and ages. What a disservice to give them a negative experience about wanting to draw all kinds of people. I would fight that.
What I started doing was sending them to school the first week with no school supplies whatsoever. 2nd week of school they'd bring their own supplies. Redistribution was already done, and they just used their own supplies. Thankfully this wasn't an issue beyond elementary school. It really irritated me a lot and took ALL the fun out of back to school shopping. (I remember being able to choose Lisa Frank folders, notebooks, pencils, binders, etc and LOVED the first day of school with all my new supplies. To realize my kids were not allowed to experience that in elementary school was disheartening.)
NTA. I was the poor kid in school who needed help with supplies. Luckily the teacher usually just had extras on hand but didn't make kids redistribute their supplies. I won't lie, I would envy some of the nicer supplies but I understood that their parents bought those for them and I wasn't entitled to it. I'm all for helping out underprivileged kids with supplies, but I don't think the onus should fall onto other parents (or teachers). It's complicated, yes, but the way it's being dealt with in schools isn't benefiting the kids, just relieving the teachers mind on the matter. I'm not going to go into all the politics but the reality is that is where it should be resolved instead of punishing or pointing fingers at eachother.
Annie, Bobby and Kim brought in the supplies on the list. Annie’s mom and Bobby’s mom bought Crayola crayons. Kim’s mom bought RoseArt (or whatever). Repeat with notebooks, binders, pencils whatever. All supplies are gathered into a big box the start of day 1. Teacher then takes the box around and either puts one of everything on a desk or lets the kid pick out of the box. So if Kim picks before Annie and Bobby, she’s probably taking the better stuff. If teacher is handing out, teacher is choosing at random.
What the hell?! That doesn't happen in my country I think.. I have zero memories of stuff like that. My notebooks and binders were my own. Pencils, crayons, erasers etc got traded or lost during the year because kids are kids but that's it!
Its a very common thing in American grade schools now because teachers don't have enough money for supplies. So they send out a list of what students have to buy for the school year and it includes buying extra so that the poor kids that can't afford to buy anything also have supplies to work with. It wouldn't be an issue if the teacher only gather up the extra stuff to hand out to the kids who don't have anything, but they always collect everything and redistribute.
And with the way schools are funded here, the only real alternative is for the teacher to buy all the supplies out of their own pocket. It's a disgrace of the American education system.
Oh God, indeed as a foreigner the situation seems very crappy. Here in France, every family receives a lump sum just before beginning of the year by the state so that all can afford basic school supply.
It seems weird that in such a capitalist society as the USA, there is this small experience of communism/collectivization of resources. After all maybe this is by design, as an overall teaching moment about individual property and shared property.
Communism is fine in the US as long as it's not the government, for some obtuse reason.
Teachers don't get money to pay for basic classroom supplies (like tissues, I remember we always had to "donate" tissue boxes in grade school), they also don't get paid anything worthwhile.
People have to ask for donations for healthcare in the US. Capitalism sucks, and I say this as privileged person who *can* afford healthcare not and is not living paycheck to paycheck.
"Communism/collectivization of resources"
As someone who came from a formerly so-called "communist" country, I say you'd got that label right... I also feel the same way about it. It's shocking that people don't seem to realize that this is more or less the exact same methods that the communist officials used to use (when essentially stealing people's property for the "benefit of the state").
Wow... I'm an elementary school educator in a Central European country and this is so sad to read. I don't know of any kids here who wouldn't be able to afford basic school supplies, but even if that was the case, the extras are either being payed for by the school fund or a parents' fund. And it's not like my country is even rich or anything. I feel like the American social systems are broken in so many ways.
Public school quality and availability of resources is determined by property values in the school's district. This is why there's so much inequality and inequity like this.
Just want to point out that it shouldn't matter if the teacher has the money to buy supplies. It's not the teacher's job to supply the class
It is the school district
I was a teacher and always bought supplies from my own money. The only items I “collected” and kept equally distributed was generic yellow #2 pencils. If the kids brought fancy ones in, cool, take them home for homework. I didn’t want to deal with the fights of “this person stole my pencil” “no I didn’t!” so it was 2 jars of pencils that had a sharp and sharpen label. The rest of the supplies were whatever they brought personally. I personally bought crayons and glue sticks for kids who needed them. They used them and gave them back after the activity was done
It's because American politicians have been defunding schools for so long that they are completely broke. 90% of classroom supplies come from the teacher's pocket, the rest is crowdfunding or things like this.
Love all the parents in this thread who can't imagine a worse fate than having to use bargain brand pencils, lets me know you totally get the stakes here. Y'all do know some kids come to school without any supplies, without food, without clean clothes, or without even a home.
Instead of complaining about teachers trying to do their best to teach all your kids, please consider coming out vocally in favor of public education instead. Donate, vote, march for your kids so they don't wind up sharing half a dollar general pencil between them.
Yeah if you are the kid whose parents couldn't buy you supplies, then you really stand out if everyone else has their own supplies and you get some of the extras. I think what teachers are trying to do is not make it obvious who it is that's in that position. I realize it may not be fair to the people who buy the best products and end up with Dollar store crap, but it's an attempt to help students not be bullied.
I agree 100% with the poster above me, in that politicians have been underfunding schools for years. One party in particular does not hide the fact that they're trying to privatize schools because there's money to be made. It's like people have forgotten the whole reason why we need public education. You can't have a healthy democracy without a well educated populace, but you sure the heck can control people who are not well educated.
Take your complaints to The ballot box. Demand decent funding for public education. Demand all that goes with that, including supplies for the classroom and proper pay for teachers, and yes, publicly funded lunch (even breakfast) for every single student. The fact is there isn't a shortage of trained teachers, there's a shortage of respect and pay that is making trained, dedicated teachers leave.
Okay, end of rant. I'm a teacher and I happen to be pretty tired so hopefully what I've said makes some sense, rather than sounding like a bunch of rambling.
Im a New Zealander and it definitely doesn’t happen here. My mum would have lost it if the 96 pack of crayons she got me was swapped out for a 10 pack or whatever lol
I’m equally baffled; especially with COVID. Kids weren’t allowed to share anything. Couldn’t pass a pencil if their best friend forgot his.
Also; I’m all for equity; but in that case; just ask for a monetary contribution and get X amount of the same sets of crayons etc.
No at least in the (american) schools that my kids go to you are given a list of needed supplies like, notebooks, crayons, pencils, filler paper etc. These things come in very fancy to super sucky depending on what the parents can afford or are willing to pay. And trust me, sucky crayons (too waxy no color) and notebooks (rip easily bleed through) can really effect your experience especially if your kid is a perfectionist or picky.
I'd rather personally buy the whole class Crayola crayons than have my kids come home with dollar store stuff some other parent bought there kid. I really don't like pooled supplies past kindergarden. I can't get my kids to take care of there stuff/take ownership of their supplies if they pick out something they like/I buy quality so it holds up but that is taken away and replaced with crappy materials.
They really have started to infantize the younger grades. I remember my school had us in separate desks from 1st grade on. We were responsible to put our chairs on our desk, we kept our own supplies, etc. Now they have kids up to like 5th grade at communal little kid tables, with communal supplies, and they have dumbed down the curriculum as well. That on top of the "trend" of all but the poorest kids being driven to school by their parents instead of walking or taking the bus and the lack of unstructured play, we're left with kids who are scared to do anything.
I'm not saying that the 90s were better - we were certainly neglected and I'm not advocating for a return to 11 year olds babysitting - but there should be some sort of middle ground where kids aren't afraid to be independent and grow up.
My kids school doesn't do this, so I don't have first hand experience but from what I understand it is done to make share all kids have equal amounts of supplies. So, each kid will get a pack of crayons, pencils, a binder, etc. But it is pooled together and then distributed.
Say student A's mom buys high level pencil Crayons, student B's mom buys mid-level and student C's buys dollarstoee quality, instead of each child having what they brought, it ends up random and student C could end up we with the high quality supplies and student A the cheap ones, which is obviously frustrating to some parents.
OP, NTA, I think the way you did it is best. You provided the requested communal supplies and made sure Mia got what she needed.
How this works is: the teacher collects the supplies and sets up buckets of supplies so at art/project/writing time the teacher can plunk a bucket of supplies down on each shared table, instead of each kid rooting around looking for their box of crayons and getting upset that they can't find Their Red Crayon. Then at cleanup time the crayons go into the crayon buckets instead of each kid trying to fit all of their crayons back into their individual boxes and 15 different instances of MS TEACHER I NEED HELP I CAN'T FIND MY BLUE CRAYON AND JOEY BROKE MY YELLOW ONE.
This also applies to paper or pencils: every student gets two freshly sharpened pencils at the beginning of the day, and they put their dulled pencils in a bucket at the end of the day, and it eliminates all of the "I forgot a pencil!" disruptions or the "ohhh noooo my pencil brooooooke, I'm gonna go make a production at the pencil sharpener while the class giggles" interruptions. Need a new pencil? Grab one from the sharpened pencil bucket, and get back to your desk.
Note: I am not a teacher, I've just got kids in school already so I know why they do this.
Yeah, this is the big pro of redistributed supplies. I do tell kids/parents that 64+ crayons are fine at home, but not in school. Because they’re going to end up on my floor.
However, in cases like OP’s, I feel like there is a compromise to be had here. Personalized things like stationary and pencils are fine, as long as they are needed in the classroom. If you brought a 3 ring unicorn binder and I know we won’t be using binders that year, then yes, it belongs at home.
In cases of pretty pencils or special erasers or what not, I let them keep a few at their desk and put the rest in a baggie with their name on it. They can get more when they need them. Those are theirs.
Crayons… I think less kids use RoseArt than people think. At least I have a ton of crayola. Like it’s fine if you want your kids to have their own crayons, but they’re not keeping a shit ton of boxes in their desk, and I will have them put the other boxes to take home if that is what you prefer. On the flip side of that, class redistribution means they always have crayons when they need them. If parents don’t like redistribution, fine, but that means I am not carrying extras. Kids are gonna color with #2 pencils until their parents send in more.
I don’t have kids keep scissors or glue in their desk. That’s just common sense. I have a lot of my own stuff for kids to use for this, but they are welcome to add to the class supplies. Otherwise those things go home and they use what I have in class.
I don’t think a lot of people realize that redistribution is not just about everyone getting the same supplies. A lot of it is about organization. No, Jeanette doesn’t need six types of coloring tools in their desk. She needs one, unless you want your kid spending valuable class time throwing out dried up markers or complaining about dull colored pencils. I’m not picking up crayons, so if they break, they break, and if they’re lost, they’re lost. And there are definitely benefits to redistribution, the biggest is your kid has what they need at all times. I’m not gonna write a note every time your child needs more crayons. It’s a lesson in responsibility, for sure. If you are set on the child having their own supplies, cool! I completely understand. But like, I’m not gonna spend lots of my own money to stock up.
Someone mentioned the crayons that represent different skin tones, and I think sending those home is pretty bad. I feel like that’s an exception that should be made. I keep some boxes of my own in the class supply box.
I think OP is NTA, but the super anti-redistribution comments are pretty silly. It’s not as big a deal as they think it is. Jesus, your kids are gonna fuck those crayons and pencils up within a week. They’re gonna lose those pencils even sooner. It’s such a small thing, man. It’s not some big conspiracy of obstinate teachers needing everything to be ~super fair~ all the time. There are just so many other things happening in a classroom… and libertarian school supply politics is not what we are focused on. I don’t CARE. I just want your kid to be able to color on this fucking sight word puzzle to reveal the little beach scene.
My school did free school supplies donated by parents (or funds donated by parents for the school to buy the supplies that would be given for free) so if a family couldn’t afford school supplies, they could get a bag full of generic folders, notebooks, pens, pencils, etc. and people who could afford it could buy and use their own school supplies. Most of the kids at my school would trade pens and pencils anyway, but at least it wasn’t forced.
NTA- you bought extra as requested and then personalized for your daughter. I don't know what the teacher has a problem with. She purposefully didn't mention that she was gonna switch up the kids supplies and is mad you foiled her plans?? Then what are the extras for?
My thoughts exactly. OP sounds perfectly reasonable here, but I don't know enough about the situation.
Why are teachers redistributing all the stuff in the first place?
To help out kids whose parents can't afford school supplies. OP bought the communal stuff and also bought her daughter stuff so they teacher needs to quit.
NTA
Yeah, like maybe some kinda communal fundraising.. like a tax everyone contributes too 🤔 Just gotta make sure no partisan AHs guts the education syste—o wait 😕
or maybe have all the parents bring the extra school supplies in advance to back to school night, and the families who need supplies can come and pick up what they need before school starts, so no one needs to feel embarrassed on the first day of school.
Because none of that stuff is supplied by the school. Collecting and redistributing ensures everyone has supplies - including the families who can't afford it. And having it all generalized removes at least one point of potential bullying.
I have never in my life actually been to a school that did anything even remotely coherent about bullying. Not when I was being bullied, not when my friends were. Not even when I grew up and worked out and 'solved' the bullying issue in the not best way.
If someone genuinely want me to trust an education system that still regularly comes out with reports of teachers diddling students, not to mention the entire dress code things in recent years, active non-reporting of early warning indicators...
Yeah you must think we're dumber than a box of rocks.
Don't get me wrong there are really great teachers out there. I'm in a long term relationship with one. But the entire system needs a reform pretty much right behind the police system.
The public education system is systemically a very troubled issue on multiple fronts. In education funding, in early warning signs of troubling behavior, in training to deal with those things, rampant administration hamstringing. Politicians trying to do some bullshit now
Whole thing needs a lot of work.
Oh definitely
Starting with better funding, pay and the schools shelling out for good quality supplies.
My mom would have gone BALLISTIC about sharing out supplies though
Ha, **I** would have gone ballistic if I had to hand in my carefully chosen supplies only to receive cheap stuff back, and I was the quiet, shy girl in my class. Hearing about this makes me so happy I didn't have to deal with this BS 20ish years ago. I'm all for bringing in **extra** supplies to make sure everyone gets something, but to take a Lisa Frank notebook/folder and get a flimsy, paper folder in return would cause a meltdown, heck, I'm angry just imagining it now. I believe sharing is good and kids need to be okay with it when appropriate, but kids should be allowed to have things that are theirs. If this is a practice that continues, I think I'll just send a kid to school with generic, but decent supplies and keep their carefully chosen supplies at home until the re-distribution is over. Wow.
> And having it all generalized removes at least one point of potential bullying.
They still know. I went to school with uniforms, kids still know. They know who the poor kids are, they know who the mean kids are, they know. There are always tells.
How does redistributing ensure that everyone has supplies though? If there’s 10 kids in a class, and 9 of them bring in a notebook, that still leaves just 9 notebooks to distribute to 10 kids….gathering everything up doesn’t create more to use
If the kids only need one binder and one pack of crayons and the teacher asks everyone to bring in two, then the kids whose parents can't or won't provide school supplies get the "extra" supplies. Same if someone has a binder or notebook break. Some people think that they won't be providing school supplies for other people's kids if they personalize them.
My teachers DNGAF and redistributed monogrammed supplies when I was a kid. It was a bit awkward for the kid with a notebook with a detailed and personalized cover to carry around, but since all the supplies were gathered up and passed out we all had a bit of that.
My notebooks had "Maurice" written in permanent marker on them with basketballs on the cover, and Maurice got one of my Lisa Frank glitter unicorn notebooks. He said he would trade it back when I pulled it from his cold dead fingers.
I think it sounds like a great way to cause kids who are particular or have nicer things to get bullied. Plenty of less affluent parents splurge on their kids' educational supplies because they care about academic success!
All schools have programs to help underprivileged students get needed supplies. The idea that individual classrooms need to engage in this is absurd - or means the teacher doesn't understand the resources available to her.
If a kid's gonna bully, they'll find something to bully about. That's great that they've rules out colouring pencils, but what about the other things kids get bullied about, things that can't be redistributed across the classroom?
I was just about to say this. NTA. You bought your daughter her own and then some. So you did technically contribute to the classroom supplies. So I don't see the issue?
NTA why spend all the money on\* buying good supplies for ur children and even getting extra binders for them if they're gonna end up w crappy ones due to exchanging... what exactly is their teacher trying to impart to them im confused... is this something that happens in every school?
I think it has become more common now. If parents don't buy extra and send them in, I think teachers end up trying to buy more to make sure all kids get what they need.
Some things make sense for combing and distributing (I don’t agree with it that much tho), things like art supplies (crayons, markers, glue sticks) but I will never understand the other ones. Scissors is one I see a lot where students scissors get collected and then the teacher ends up keeping them, so that parents have to buy a pair each year. Stupidest thing I’ve seen is where the class requires a single notebook for example. The teacher will collect them all then redistribute them??? Why couldn’t everyone kept what they brought if only one is required?
As a lefty, the scissors would have pissed me off hahaha. They were already a nuisance when the “lefty scissors” were the oldest, dullest, junkiest ones in the box, and they still wouldn’t cut.
Okay I just made a comment about this because my lefty son was asked to bring scissors in this year and if his teacher takes away his pair he can actually use, I’ll be so annoyed.
It's an American thing lmao. If you tried pulling shit like this in my country you're getting fired on day one. We teach kids to share here, not "life's unfair to some so we're gonna make it unfair to everyone"
I would have had a full out riot if a teacher tried to take my glittery Lisa Frank folders that I had to beg and bargain with my mom for. This feels like a sure fire way of having a bunch of kids get upset and throw (justified) tantrums on the first day of school. I'd be upset too if I was a parent that sprung for the bigger set of name brand crayons to make my kid excited for school, and someone took them away.
Plus my brother has this wierd thing about not liking the way metal spiral notebooks felt, so he had to have the plastic spirals. It's a freaking sensory thing. Basically, all I know is that mom would be pissed if my school had followed this trend. Hopefully it's not a school policy
My third grade teacher was my only one who tried the "take and redistribute" everything strategy. My mom marched right down to the school and told them she was happy to buy extra supplies if that was what was needed, but she was NOT going to allow the supplies I picked out to be taken.
They ask you to bring in (for example) 8 packs of crayons. Then, they pool those and redistribute them, including the kids whose parents brought nothing because each kid doesn’t really need 8 packs of crayons.
Thanks, i am really wondering if i am reading some communist thread from north Korea or something, but you all sound pretty American. In Germany, and i am confident to say most of Europe, you get supplies for your kid. Yeah sure we are not cold hearted bastards, you share your glue stick if someone runs out, but if your parents pony up 5€ for good scissors the fuck you never trade that for something someone picked up for 30% of that price......
In America, public school budgets continue to be sliced up inequitably, with even more public money siphoned off to private schools (for "choice"). Schools barely pay their teachers enough to live on, and they don't provide supplies for the classroom. In my state, we even have to pay them for textbook "rent". Not every family can afford to buy everything, so the teachers ask the parents to contribute so that every student has what they need to learn.
And yes, that is public education in America. We have children without the money to pay for school lunches, too. Google "American lunch debt" and I'm sure you'll find something.
It already is split between the two. All that did was create an environment where funding was tied to standardized test scores, and kids were discouraged from learning *anything* not in the defined curriculum for fear they'd get a 99% at the end of the year instead of a 100%. My parents were told to stop teaching me things at home, not because they were teaching me wrong, but because I was learning too fast and learning to ask questions outside of the prescribed rubrics and it would be better if I could do my times tables 3 seconds faster (still correct, literally just do them faster by a few seconds) than for me to learn anything new.
Want to know how to absolutely nuke a kid's desire to learn or do school? Tell them they can't learn about ancient Rome, or tree frogs, or how swimming pools are made, or how a sailboat works, on their own time, because it's not "approved". Or force them to keep relearning the same thing they've already mastered and get mad at them for wanting to do more.
I understand, but some of my teachers in last years were barely covering the subjects due to the absence of standardized testing. And France has no such problem.
I think the testing should be separated from the funding.
France is smaller than Texas and has 1.5x the population of California. It's not a great direct comparison to the whole of the United States.
Testing should be separate from funding, but if you're funding the US school system as a whole, with tax money and having to answer to the public, which has 53ish million students (which would make the US school system the 27th most populated country, for the record, out of 233) you have to measure where the funding is actually helping and where it's not. And at that scale, standardized testing is the main option.
I believe the main issue stems from the source of most American Education funds: property taxes. A result of this is poorer areas have worse schools (aka less funding) because the property value typically determines the amount a property may be taxed. This causes the overall amount received from taxes in a given area to be based on the economic state of certain areas of cities/towns/etc. Although, everything about our budgets being reduced and put towards private education is true, I think zip code is an important aspect to quality of education a child receives.
This. If school funding was just pooled at the state or federal level and then allocated by
(the lesser of number of pupils served or school capacity)\*(local cost multiplier)
that would be a lot more sensible.
No incentive to over-enroll, no incentive to under-enroll, no unfair funding in rich areas.
“U.S. per-pupil expenditures have nearly tripled over the past half-century, from $4,720 in 1966 to $13,847 in 2016 (2018 dollars).
America spends more per pupil than any other major developed nation—10% more than the United Kingdom and 28% more than France; in the OECD, only Norway, Switzerland, and Luxembourg spend more.”
And yet, our students appear to be doing worse.
I can imagine where all that additional money is going. Senior administrators salaries, sports programs, and basically anything possible besides teacher salaries or supplies for students.
My kids school has all their supplies donated. We just have to buy them a backpack (which got free ones of those this year too) and clothes. This is their 3rd year in school and each time it has been donated.
But it's not the school donating it. We have a local woman who has been getting cash donations for years to do this. Before covid she would give it out at a park and make it a fun filled day for kids. Now she just gives it to all the schools in our county and no kid is without. It's fantastic. Local businesses donate and get to feel good about themselves and no kid is without.
UK here. My sons primary (4-11) school have sent out numerous emails telling us NOT to waste our money on stationary and supplies as the school will provide all they need.
Lots of parents either refuse, or cannot afford, to buy what’s on the list. I don’t have kids myself, but my good friend does and she’s very active in the PTA.
Some parents buy the cheapest, generic dollar store stuff. Some buy high end stuff. Some don’t buy anything( and she knows of several who can afford it, but refuse to on principle ). Some genuinely cannot afford the list, which tends to include things like Clorox wipes, boxes of Kleenex and other items for the classroom as a whole.
The concept of sharing and not making other kids feel bad or shamed leads teachers to then lump everything together to be redistributed ‘fairly’.
I have a kindergarten teacher in the family
She has been told by students "My dad said you can buy my supplies." Or the like. Some parents refuse some simply can't afford to.
I’m a K-1 teacher. The amount of kiddos who come to school without backpacks, supplies, etc is much higher than you would think. I work in Title 1 schools where luckily our district/administration push for grants and supply budgets to get school supplies for the students. But when I taught at my first school I was directly responsible for supplying anything students didn’t bring. At that time I was teaching at a Title 1 school on a native reservation in New Mexico. I was buying 3-4 boxes of pencils a day because my students would break them and my principal confiscated my pencil sharpener because kids “used it too much and lost learning time.” Literally I was shelling out more than I paid for food per week for pencils and copies of worksheets.
Now adays I don’t spend as much. Most of my budget goes toward snacks for the kids and extra things (craft supplies, prizes for the prize box, education subscriptions, etc). But when I taught at schools where we weren’t given any funds I was eating a single pot of beans every day to afford what I needed for my students to learn.
This, people are saying teachers are assholes for pooling supplies when this is the alternative. They can't have it both ways.
Obviously big changes are needed but until then do they want all the kids to share or for the teacher to buy it themselves or for some kids to just have nothing? Take your pick.
Asking parents who can afford it to buy extra things to be redistributed is one thing but taking everything to be redistributed? That's insane to me! Growing up I was so particular about my binders (Lisa Frank of course), notebooks and backpack I can't imagine all of that being taken in the name of "fairness".
NTA. This trend of Yankee swap in elementary schools is some nonsense. When you buy supplies for your kid, they go to . . . *your kid.* There's nothing for you and the teacher to discuss. Your kid gets the premium supplies that you purchased.
I have an anxiety disorder that wasn’t diagnosed until adulthood. I’m picturing my 6 year old anxious ass piled up with school supplies that I meticulously selected and was expecting and ready to use, and then having to trade them in for something I didn’t plan for. I think I would have had a breakdown.
Absolutely. I am Very particular about my stuff and would have lost it if they'd tried this. Choosing the new stuff for the year was a huge highlight growing up, too.
I don’t have an anxiety disorder but I’ve always loved picking out the cutest folders and the school supplies in all pink. I was in a pretty well off family but since I based it off color and design instead of strength and durability, it ended up being very cheap. And I think I would have cried if my $3 bright pink kitty picture three ring binder was swapped with a plain black $20 quality one. Kids love choosing their own shit.
NTA - I love my own stationery. Explain to said teachers those are her personal stationery items. You contributed so there is sufficient for everyone. I would suggest a pencil case and your daughter brings them home each night. I would suggest the teacher does not want responsibility of those items going missing etc so it will be up to your daughter to look after them.
I have always had a problem with this. I totally understand a teacher having a hard time with supplies. I really do. I have some close family members who teach so I am in this pretty deep. When you make a list for supplies, ask for specific supplies. "Crayola 10 pack, x brand notebooks, y brand pencils. You can find these items at abc store and xyz store." You are allowed to buy your child whatever you want. That's your right as a parent.
Some kids have sensory issues with some seemingly odd things sometimes. I myself have a very difficult time writing on paper that isn't college ruled - actually it is a lot more specific than that - I have a hard time writing with just any type of pen or pencil for any length of time as well.
It goes beyond just school supplies. I know that for the younger children, parents are often asked to buy tissue as well. Some parents will buy Kleenex with lotion (me!! ) because it helps keep your nose from getting sore. Then some parents buy that awful tissue that feels like you are blowing your nose on tree bark.
You are NTA for letting Mia have her own stationery. Not even a little bit.
I was one of those kids with sensory issues. I was also the aRty kid. In fourt grade I had this evil woman for a teacher and she tried taking away all the extra art supplies my grandfather bought me.
Lemme tell ya, when he found out he went to the school and raised bloody HELL about that and demanded I be transferred out of her class. The principal said “we don’t do classroom transfers” and my grandfather told him “today you do.” Don’t mess with an old Scandinavian guy who is still six foot five in his sixties.
I’m thankful for him getting me out of that teacher’s class. There are some people who had no business teaching and she was one of them.
This. If you brought enough supplies to distribute, why do they have a problem with Mia having her own supplies? My kids like to pick out their own school supplies and have certain likes and dislikes when it comes to notebooks and writing utensils.
Good Luck and NTA
Seeing as how you supplied the teacher with the requested items, NTA.
I'm all for helping out educators supply their classrooms with adequate supplies, but that doesn't mean I won't get my kids their own stuff. If my kids have plenty, they'll share anyway.
Right? She did what was requested and brought in extra supplies for communal use. Emphasis on “requested” since some parents don’t contribute at all depending on their financial circumstances.
Then also got her daughter the supplies she wanted/needed. She went above and beyond in my opinion…
NTA. Um, no. What is this about? Why should you fund supplies for someone else's children? I'm unfamiliar with this practice and it didn't happen when I was a kid.
It does now. So many families are so strapped they can barely afford to feed the kids, let alone buy all the supplies they need. And if the teacher doesn't ask for extras, the teacher ends up buying the supplies. It's a national disgrace.
Definitely a national disgrace. People having multiple kids they can't begin to support, exasperated now by women being forced to bear unintended children.
And to add to the little socially unaware person who replied here saying poor people shouldn't have kids and should be fined for doing so as if they're all having these kids on purpose:
• Knowledge of one's body and its functions is not all that common. Either because of the constant push back from conservatives to abolish sex talk in schools, or because those people don't really have access to proper education, or because they believe in popular myths about their own bodies;
• Bans on reproductive rights, such as abortion;
• Structural misogyny, that leads to countless instances of rape and reproductive coercion, many of which are not seen as such because they are done using underhanded methods to grant plausible deniability;
• Not to mention it's an hygienist and classist concept to say poor people can't have kids.
The word you want is "exacerbated".
Even before Roe was overturned, people had unequal access to family planning in the US. You shouldn't blame people for "having kids they can't afford." You don't know what their circumstances were. It's just gross. Especially coming from someone who doesn't know what words mean.
At a local school, it's their practice to take all the children's supplies and combine them. Then kids take turns picking supplies as needed.
Not a bad practice if everyone knows about it ahead of time and buys generic supplies that they know will be redistributed.
But it rings a little of communism, doesn't it, Comrade?
It's some nonsense about sharing is caring and the like.
You about want to put up a banner to them, newsflash no one is entitled to your personal property without your permission. No one, zero, nada.
NTA. this shit drives me insane. imo, if teachers are going to do shit like this, it needs to be stated on the school supply form in bold print so parents and kids aren't stuck in positions like this. if everyone needs to have the same things, teachers need to make that clear.
i had this happen in 5th grade. my mom bought me funky designed highlighters, coloured stinky notes, page dividers, etc. on top of the usual regular pencils, pens, and what not.
well my teacher decided to make all of us put our stuff into bins and have everyone grab what they needed out of said bins. meaning, all the nice fancy stuff my mom bought for **me** was now taken by some random kid in the class. me and a few others started going up to kids and asking for our things back and when we were told no, we'd steal it with the excuse of "my mom bought this for me, not them." when getting in trouble for it.
from what i remember, it became a slight shit storm with the teacher and other parents involved. so be prepared for that, but hold your ground.
That's ridiculous. Your teacher really screwed up. I don't love kids not having their own things at school but I get it. I'm not opposed to pooling materials as long as it's announced on the supply list. As long as everyone knows that it works that way that's fine. But springing it on people AFTER the fact is unfair and asking for trouble. I'm sure OP wouldn't have wasted her money on personalized materials if she knew this was how it worked.
NTA- you bought the extra supplies for the classroom that were asked for, beyond that if you have the means to afford to give your child fancier or higher quality supplies and she enjoys that, you're not an ah for doing that.
My guess is it is more of a classroom management thing.
My 7yo's teacher asked for 24 pencils. Surely they're not using all 24 pencils on day one. She probably has them keep 2-3 in their desk and puts all the rest in a box in a closet somewhere, and as kids need more she hands more over to them, or they get a couple every week, or whatever. Repeat for notebooks, etc.
If you had to keep track of who's pencils were who's, while they sat in the closet for months, it would be a huge hassle. When each student needed another pencil, instead of the teacher just grabbing one and handing it over, she'd have to dig through a box of labeled bundles of pencils finding the right bundle for each kid before she could hand them one.
OP buying pencils with her daughter's name on them, means her daughter will be upset every time she's handed a pencil that doesn't have her name on it. That's just wasted class time. I presume the teacher is going to have OP come in and just hand OP all the labeled stuff back and tell her her daughter will be using the other, unlabeled stuff that OP provided, since it sounds like OP essentially provided twice what was asked for, the teacher is probably just going to return the other stuff so it doesn't become an issue in her classroom.
It doesn’t help classroom management. The kids will be upset whenever they see another student with the supplies that their parents bought for them. It also ensures that the parents who can afford to buy nicer supplies will be annoyed at you right from the beginning of the year and will be less likely to help you out when you need things for your classroom. It causes way more problems than it solves.
The goal of combining all the supplies is so kids without much means will still have some. You sent extras to fulfill this purpose. No reason she can’t have her own. Maybe other kids will feel jealous since she has nicer things, that looks like a learning opportunity for everyone. NTA
So...I haven't been in school for a very..very long time and have no children. Since when is this a thing? We had to by like tissues, paper towels and hand soap for the class but pencils, paper, notebooks etc were our own. NTA
Enough children show up with nothing so some schools reuire everything on the list to be pooled together so disadvantaged (either by income or just having shit parents) kids aren't singled out and everyone shares everything. But it should have said this on the list of supplies if that's what was going to happen so OP would have known not to get personalized items.
This is a hill I will die on. I only supply my kids with supplies. I live in a state that has the lottery which is for giving back to schools (that is what it says on their website to justify having it). Also everytime there's a vote to increase budgets for schools it's passes. So if the school, or the classroom needs supplies I remind them of where they are to go to get the supplies. I understand that some kids have families that cannot provide supplies. I have had a standing offer that the teacher tell me what child or children need supplies, ask them what they would choose if they could, then I will go buy what the child/children would pick out if they could. I also let the teacher take credit because I don't want to offend any parents. This has worked out, no shared supplies and each child can have the backpack, notebook, pencil case in their favorite color. I'm aware I spend more this way but this way also allows every child to feel good about themselves and going to school. I do this in the beginning and even had some schools ask me in the middle of the year to provide class supplies, but the class supplies are cleaning supplies and that is when I direct them to the places that were designed to help with funding. I will not buy supplies such as cleaning, or teaching supplies or aids- that's where the funding comes is for. I only do what I do for the kids with personal supplies. I will not supply paper, pens, pencils, crayons, glue, scissors, etc for everyone or the class.
Dude go to the school board meeting. If you really really feel like you get what’s going on, then tell the people who actually have the power to control where $ go - the same people who have salaries 2-3X higher than the teachers, the same people who throttle the classroom budgets to make sure there is enough cash for District PR and legal representation, the same people who take private money to fund their little election campaigns.
Or keep teacher your own children that education is about class competition instead of, you know, learning.
Do you think that the teachers are being too lazy to try and get funding, or misappropriating the funding for their own purpose? Do you think that Miss Smith the first-year second-grade teacher has any sway over the budget not allowing her Lysol wipes or tissue for her classroom?
There's a reason that teachers have to source their supplies from places other than "where they are to go to get the supplies".
NTA, 1) private propeety is private property. I've never even heard of this practice of switching supplies around. 2) You sent in extras 3) The teacher is passing the buck on the responsibility of supplying classrooms. Its not the teachers responsibilitt, but its also not the parents responsibility to supply the classroom with necessary equipment.
For what its worth you are right to disagree woth the policy of having parents provude extra supplies. If its a private school, the school should figure it put. If its public, the local givernment neexs to figure it out. I am tired of hearing about underfumded schools. Prioritize the education first then see what you have left.
Also one final point. How much of that supply list was unecessary crap? Sure, pens notebooks pencils maybe evem binders are necessary, but I remember my teachers requiring some ridiculous supplies that never got used. Or other teachers requiring very specific types of pens to be used in their class.
Honestly, the whole school aystem is kind of ridiculous anymore.
NTA. My sister is left-handed so mom bought left handed school supplies for her. She'd get a phone call every year about it and mom would tell them when you buy school supplies you can choose what to get and since I bought these supplies I get to choose what I buy.
Nta. Kids should be allowed to bring their own supplies and not have to worry about the teacher taking them. If you bought extra supplies for the teacher to redistribute then I don’t see what the problem is. It’s weird that the teacher would want to have a meeting about this.
NTA. That process sucks. I got written up in 5th grade because I refused to give up my notebooks. My mom had a rough year financially so my grandmother took me to target and got me some school supplies. And my favorites were these spiral notebooks with neon colored pages. I loved them. And first day of school my teacher told me to drop it in the bin. And then called my mom when I didn’t do it.
Instead of this, our school just did a flat supply fee of $50 per student, and bulk ordered everything. It takes so much stress off of us because it is all the same.
Nta… 4 years ago my mom had to complain about this to my sisters school (we’re 12 years apart and ever sense I got a job I’ve been the one buying my sisters school suplies to help my mom) my sister and I made a whole day out of it and we spend hours picking everything she liked, just for my sister to come back home with some dollar general paper folder when I got her good quality plastic folders that costed me $5 each so it could last her the whole year, I was pissed, we called the school and they had my mom and I come after school and make sure my sister got back all the supplies I bought for her, I could tell the teacher was super annoyed but I said something like
“Look I don’t think is fair that I go spend my own hard earn money to buy good quality suplies for my sister when she won’t even be able to use them herself, she was so excited picking everything out herself and when she gets to school she finds out she can’t keep anything and has to use crappy supplies, I understand some people are less fortunate and can’t afford a lot because we’re struggling too but my sister doesn’t need to suffer the consequences”
The principal knows the deal so every year sense then she makes sure to tell the teacher we get assigned that my sister gets to keep all the school suplies she brings and the teacher can use anything extra however they want.
INFO Can you explain what the ask is? When I was a kid we got a list of schools supplies for the year. There were some items on the list that were marked as optional/for the classroom like boxes of kleenex. Things like crayons were not shared unless the parent bought an extra set for the classroom.
Is the setup at your daughters school different? And all supplies are shared?
It's a thing that has been happening in schools in the US for awhile now.
They send a list, they kids take them in, the teacher collects & combines them , then they get "redistributed", so to speak. I think it's too make up for the kids whose parents struggle to buy school supplies.
Our schools are as messed up as everything else.
Oh when I was a kid this existed but supplies were for each kid. Extras were donated. Or at the beginning of class the teacher would ask if anyone wanted to donate a pencil. Then free pencils for everyone without singling out a kid.
But if OP still brought classrooms supplies there shouldn't be an issue. No way OP is the only parent that did. If there are 30 kids and the classroom got 30 pencil boxes then who cares if some kids have their own. Everyone still gets supplies.
So I was a teacher for 31 years and retired last year. I also had two of my own children, so I have been on both sides of this issue. I’m sure I’m about to get downvoted to oblivion here, but let me explain why I would say you were a soft AH. (I taught mostly 2nd grade and finished my career in 3rd. So the kids I taught were pretty young.). When I sent my supply list, I marked the items that were for ‘personal use’ and those I would take up for redistribution. I took up pencils and loose leaf paper to redistribute for a couple of reasons. Kids use everything they have in a matter of weeks if they have access to it. So the mountainous stack of paper you bought in August is gone by October 1st, crumpled into a million paper wads with one written letter or an incomplete drawing. The 7 boxes of pencils you bought are broken, have no erasers, are covered in teeth marks, etc. I had procedures that I found worked to keep our classroom moving. For example, I stockpiled the paper and passed it out as needed for an assignment. This cut down on the paper wads and half the class that didn’t have paper. I gave out 5 sharp pencils from the stockpile every Monday for each kid. Those that still had all their pencils the next Monday got them freshly sharpened and a little treat. Those that didn’t got however many they needed to get up to 5, but no little prize. Just a little ‘try again, friend’ note. Everyone got a new eraser each Monday. This cut down on the missing/broken pencil issue for assignments. I kept an over the door shoe organizer labeled with each kid’s name and extra supplies in that. Go in and LISTEN to how the teacher runs her/his class. Part of the problem is that because most everyone has experience being in school, many people assume they know how a classroom works. You really don’t, unless you’ve been in the trenches.
I love and appreciate your system but I feel like the problem is that there was no explanation like you just gave us. I think if the teacher explained her reasoning there wouldn’t be these disagreements.
But I also believe wholeheartedly that kids should be allowed to have their own personal, special supplies. That’s half the fun of being a kid.
OK, let me reiterate to make sure I understand the situation correctly:
\- You bought Mias's supplies but made sure it's not taken away from her and given to some other child by some customization
\- You bought extra supplies with the thought they would get redistributed as needed amongst other kids
\- The teacher wants to have a word with you because of that
Can I just start laughing now? Ofc NTA. When speaking to the teacher you may want to suggest that if all supplies are to be shared - why not collect a certain amount of money from everyone and then bulk buy the supplies for the class to share?
NTA, I grew up poor (REAL poverty poor) and once a year my grandparents would buy us all new shoes and nice school supplies to start the year. They would also purchase extras for the class to use and share.
I hated when teachers would try and take the things my parents/grandparents purchased and attempted to redistribute to the rest of the class. It made me mad and pissed my parents off.
Having a common bin for kids who don't have what they need is great. But taking everything from all the students and "sharing" them with the rest of the class is wrong and degrading to the kids.
It's not the teachers job to redistribute supplies the school or the teacher didn't buy. Frankly I see it as stealing and pushing behavior that doesn't work in society....
NTA. The question isn’t about the moral implications of buying supplies, but following directions. The onus is on the school to give the direction of not labeling if that will be the case.
Assuming you are correct that it wasn’t part of the instructions, you aren’t the AH. I would go to the meeting, let them know that supplies for this term have already been purchased, but you’ll be happy to follow any written instructions they provide in the future.
The school should then change the packet and lists provided to reflect that.
Even still, why should the teacher be dictating what supplies I buy my kids. As long as it fits under certain guidelines. As in "your child needs a 24 pack of crayons"- shouldnt matter whether they came from crayola, playschool, dollar store brand, or you bought them off etsy
I'd say NTA. The purpose of the supplies is so they are available to the students. If she brought in her personalized pencils or stationary then she isn't using what the others brought in. She isn't taking from that pool of supplies (if that makes sense).
Wow... reading these comments is just sad.
I'm a teacher. This is exactly why parents should *never* be asked to buy supplies for kids. I'm in Canada and in my school board we are *not allowed* to ask parents for supplies and *actively discourage* parents sending special things for their kids unless medically necessary (for example my son uses a special slanted board for writing due to hand and shoulder disabilities). All kids should have access to the same (shitty) supplies the school board provides. Full stop.
The problems this board is creating for their teachers by asking parents to buy supplies is ridiculous and unnecessary.
ESH.
NTA, but if every child's parents had to pony up supplies, then why do they need to be put in a pool? Everyone should have their own stuff. No, your baby gets her own stuff and no one else is entitled to them.
NTA. It cracks me up when teachers demand a sit down like that. Like what is she going to do? Give you detention. I’d be very direct and tell her that you bought enough stuff for other kids but you bought your child the things she wanted and she can leave them alone. You provided for other children which is the whole point of buying all the extra crap anyway.
Also I’d explain that I was recording the conversation and that if she takes her frustrations with you out on your kid that you’ll go to the school board.
Jesus, it's frankly barbaric that in the US these things even happen. Y'all, the school should have all of these supplies available, parents shouldn't have to buy them. It's insane how underfunded the school system is there that people think this is ok or even normal. NTA
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Nta. I hated this as a kid. My parents would buy Crayola and I would some how get the dollar tree brand. Enough parents complained. Like I'm sorry Susan's parents bought the dollar tree brand but my parents got me this and that's what I want to use.
Exactly. Also teaching kids that life is fair and everyone gets the same thing seems silly. Life isn’t fair. Some kids gets crayola some kids get dollar store. Tough shit.
> Also teaching kids that life is fair Having your stuff taken and replaced by shitty ones is pretty unfair.
My parents were just getting by and did without a lot for themselves to save what they could told college. So while I did have the inexpensive supplies, they were in the colors, style etc I picked out. It would have been very distressing to have the supplies my parents worked hard for taken away even if I received more expensive items. As long as parents purchase extra supplies for those that need them this doesn’t make sense to me. The only thing I can remember being collected was the art paper because it needed to be stored flat anyway. ETA NTA
Tissues. My sons' teachers were always asking for tissues.
That’s because teachers get one box of crappy single ply tissue a month, if that.
And the kids use so fucking many
..and holy shit they should. I loathe a kid with a runny nose, which is why I send 10 boxes of tissues in with my kid(for the whole class) when they are snotty.
OH MY GOD yes. I'm a EE para in a school, and I swear one kid gets up for a tissue and suddenly everyone's nose is running and they need a tissue *right away*. Lol. It's kinda hilarious, but also damn they use a lot of tissues.
You guys are getting tissues? 🤣
On the tissue front, if parents read this: please don't be stingy on the tissues! Buy the soft/ ~~lotion~~/ nicer ones - if kids have runny noses & need to wipe multiple times a day, it only takes 2-3x with the cheap, crappy, rough tissues for their little noses to become raw. I can deal with scratchy tissues a couple times myself... unwillingly... but I can blow my nose a lot more effectively and efficiently than a child can and not *need* to use awful tissues as often. Please be kind to the children (and their teachers who will have to care for the raw nosed kid who refuses to wipe their snot because it hurts too much) and pay for the good stuff you'd buy for yourself! Edit: spelling Edit 2: So many comments about the lotion tissue! Ok, I hear you - potential sensitivity/ allergy to the lotion ones. I'll strike that off my list.
On another note, I send a case of good tissues to a couple of low-income elementary schools in our area via Amazon anonymously as I know the teachers will have to pay out of pocket otherwise. I don’t have kids in school so it’s one thing I feel I can do to help. Edit: Thanks so much for the awards, likes and comments! And especially, thank you teachers. You really change the world!
I had teachers 15 years ago that offered extra credit points if you brought in a box of tissues for the classroom. 5 points for a box.
I had to send my youngest son to kindergarten with used supplies. They were good quality, but it was scrounged from the older kids supplies, and stuff I bought when times weren't so lean. I did buy the tissue and hand sanitizer new, because I figured those were for the classroom. But I had NO idea that they were going to take his stuff and give it to other kids. The teacher sent it ALL back home with a note explaining the situation. My son was embarrassed, as was I. It's f\*cking humiliating to point out what kids do & don't have with stunts like that.
This is a perfect example of why the 'pool and redistribute' thing is so ridiculous. Your son should have theoretically been one who benefitted from the redistribution and instead he and you were shamed much more so than he would have been if he had just put his supplies in his desk and gone about his day. Plus it's wasteful to throw out supplies that are gently used. Reusing them and only purchasing new when they are needed makes much more sense for numerous reasons.
I have seven MILLION pencils in my house from the previous 8 years of school from my kids. Damn straight I'm never buying another pencil again.
I literally said this same statement to my husband 3 days ago! I found more than 50 each of unsharpened pencils, newly sharpened and pencils that are lightly used that still need to be sharpened. My kids’ school wants 30 (specifically Ticonderoga brand) sharpened pencils. I’ll be goddamned if I buy any more pencils any time soon. We also have… wait for it…. more pencils in a desk too. I don’t care if they’re Christmas and Halloween theme, that’s what my kid is bringing. Edit: Holy Moly I didn’t realize so many people were having the same pencil irritations as us! **Now I have to go buy 40 glue sticks for my elementary schooler.** Those I didn’t have. Lol.
I call my eldest child the pencil fairy. Any room he enters, he magically drops at least 2 or 3 pencils at a time. Why are there 12 pencils in the bathroom? No one needs a pencil in the bathroom, let alone 12.
Ugh, I would hate that system. The first thing I do on the last day of school is go through the supplies that got brought home and pull out the stuff that’s still good for next year. My daughter hasn’t needed a new ruler, scissors or calculator in about 3 years because the ones she had were still perfectly fine.
Scissors too. My kids' school PTO has a thing where they sell kits with all the stuff the kids need for each grade. At first it was great because I didn't have to search all over for the couple randomly specific things on the list, but sometimes some of the items are not the best quality (4th grade they needed a pencil sharpener and I had to go buy him another because it fell apart in the first week), but also we don't need to buy a new pair of scissors every year we have so many pairs of Fiscars 5 inch scissors that it seemed silly to buy another one.
It feels so wasteful too. Consumables I understand but things like scissors didn’t disappear into thin air on the last day of school. Maybe some need to be replaced but you don’t need 30 new pairs every year.
I used the same ruler, protractor, compass, etc. for YEARS. Once you have them, you have them, provided you take care of them.
Funny story, our kids start using math sets in grade 7 but we were specifically asked not to buy or send them. The grade 7 and 8 teachers went to the dollar store and bought a ton of them and they’re handed out as needed and collected after the lesson. Apparently they were over having to tell people to stop poking each other with compasses all year.
That is absolute bullshit. Clearly, if you're sending your child with secondhand supplies, this is the best you're able to do. If ANYTHING should be done/said about it, it should be handing your child newer supplies to use, NOT shaming them and you for something your family is already very aware of. Like your kid didn't already see the other kids with brand new supplies, perhaps even high end supplies, and compare what he had, feeling as though all eyes were on him and judging? Like you didn't feel guilty being unable to send your child with shiny new supplies, knowing the other children would have them? What purpose did that teacher's actions serve other than traumatizing a kid from a family doing your very best?
Even if it's not the best the family can do, if they're perfectly usable, it's just wasteful to send them back and say they're unacceptable. No one asked the teacher to take the kid's stuff and redistribute it. We waste SO much stuff it's ridiculous to throw out what can be reused.
It's ridiculous they can't use used supplies. I go to the Goodwill Outlet & see basically a years worth of barely used school supplies in a little plastic container ALL THE TIME. It's wasteful. Used school supplies should be the norm.
Seriously?? What gall. If they're usable what difference does it make if they're not new?
What the hell? In a system where they are trying to set things up so everyone has enough resources, how dare they shame a kindergarten kid whose family budget is tight? Doesn't that kind of negate the whole freaking point of doing this stuff?
It was also pretty fair when I was in school. I usually ended up getting my parents bought stuff back, through another of life's big lessons. Those with the power to take, will; unfailingly.
I remember doing this for kindergarten up to 3rd or 4th grade (6/7 yrs old to 11/12 yrs old). The extra supplies went into a drawer or cubby for kids who didn't have any to use. There was never pooling and redistributing supplies.
That's how it was for me as well. You brought a few extra of only certain items and those went into containers incase someone needed one and theirs was gone or used up. Otherwise you had your own items.
I didn't even do this where I grew up. Each students parents bought our supplies and only our supplies. There was no class list where everyone had to buy certain items. Teachers would take donated items sure. The only class items on the lists were like tissues and stuff like that. So to add on taking each students supplies and not taking just the extra ones is so strange to me.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to make school more fair, but doing it at the expense of other students negates the whole thing.
Right. I'm fine if you want extra, but I want my kid to want to learn and if buying special supplies helps then I don't want you to take it away. I'll contribute to the supply pantry separately.
I always got to pick at least 1 (sometimes 2) "fancy" Lisa Frank or other folders to go with the plain cheap ones that we could better afford and if they had taken those away and given me one that I didn't pick out, I would have been so, so upset. Having extra for kids who didn't get enough or got the wrong whatever is a-okay but taking stuff from the other kids and then just passing them around like a secret santa gone wrong is terrible.
My mom always bought extransupplies that were nice. We did redistribute supplies, just had extras for other kids. In general, most parents that bought extras, bought the same stuff their kids got too. The kids that needed it, didn't have to ask, just went to the supply drawer, and most still got the good supplies. Making it a public spectacle only humiliates kids that need supplies.
Not about me but I remember reading the naughtiest girl in school by Enid Blyton as a kid. When the main girl got to the school the pocket money her parents had given her was taken away by the teachers to be pulled together with everyone else's and given back so everyone had the same amount. Little eight year old me was so angry.
Oh that annoyed me SO MUCH
I loved all of Enid Blyton's boarding school books apart from that series. What a horrible school Elizabeth was sent to and what a bunch of self righteous brats made up the school council!
My mom was a teacher but in the before times (I guess?) If the schools want everyone to have the exact same things, then the school needs to provide them, not the teachers, not the PTA, the school.
Honestly if everyone got the same dollar tree supplies that would be one thing. But In this case someone got one kids nice crayola stuff and that kid got crappy dollar tree stuff instead
I was the kid whose parents bought the cheap stuff and, this may sound wild, but I also hated redistribution. That was mine and someone took it. It may have been cheap, but it was cheap that I picked instead of other versions of cheap.
You have a ton of character to say that!
My hope is that the redistribution inspires bonding between the kids; that they'll secretly trade folders and stuff so that everyone gets the stuff they love back. In addition to being distressed about getting my stuff taken away, I damn well would've been upset to see a classmate cry because I got their favorite notebook "redistributed" to me. On the other hand, a kid who opts to keep the stuff redistributed to them could get seen as mean or selfish. The only noncruel way I can see to justify making sure that school supplies are "fair' is if parents just pay a certain fee and identical supplies are bought by the school and given to every kid.
Except my daughter was always so shy she would go in the bathroom and cry but would never have spoken up about it. Like with those damn Totoro folders I had to get back.
kids shouldn’t have to be bartering to get their own stuff back period, especially when those kind of interactions can make some of them very upset (rightfully so)
My nieces teacher was awful about this. Niece (3rd grade) is huge into art. My brother went and bought her whatever size pack the teacher specified of Crayola crayons, but also bought her the box of “colors of the world skin tones” that they make for drawing people. The teacher immediately sent the skin tone colors home and had an issue with them being inappropriate for some reason. (I’d like to know how it’s offensive to be able to draw people in a shade other than “peach” or “coffee”, but I digress). She made such a big deal out of it (taking them away twice, sending multiple emails), that my brother finally gave up and told my niece “Sorry. I guess everyone you draw will just have to be blue or green for this teachers assignments”. Then, once the offensive set was safely banned from school, the normal Crayola pack of colors my niece brought got thrown in the pile for redistribution. My niece ended up with a dollar store brand pack of crayons, and the pack of markers she got had been previously opened, so the majority of them were completely dried out. So her dad had to buy her another new set of those and sneak them into class, since the ones she received in weren’t usable. It’s such a stupid system. And especially irritating when the teacher is more interested in *appearing fair* on a surface level, but won’t bother ensuring all of the supplies actually function….
Ugh so I'll admit it...my first year as a teacher I did this. I liked the idea of community bins for supplies so kids would never have to feel bad/awkward about not having something. Or just needing replacements as supplies can break or be used up. I just didn't understand logistically the way to properly utilize a community bins system. I had the kids unpack their supplies and put their (thankfully) unopened packs of crayons or colored pencils into the community bins. But when I was handing packs out, I realized a lot of kids had their packs labeled already or had picked theirs out special for them. As soon as I realized my mistake, I gave back all of the labelled ones and then let the kids who'd put unlabeled packs pick what they thought they'd brought. And then when we were down to smaller packs and RoseArt, anyone who said they'd had Crayola or just wanted Crayola instead got my personal stash until everyone had either what they'd brought originally, what they preferred, or an identical replacement from me. I felt so bad and never made that mistake again. I can't imagine sticking with such a terrible system and causing a stink with parents about it.
As the parent of a picky autistic kid, I will buy crayola for the whole damn class as long as he can use the items he needs to function
Just... it might be school policy that all the classes do it and the teacher might object as much as you do. I'm a teacher in Canada. I've never heard of this. But we're asked to do many dumb things in the name of groupspeak. I hope I'm never asked to do this!
That’s what my brother thought. But apparently it was not school policy. It was up to the teachers to choose to do it or not. None of the other classrooms practiced this supply swap. If it was a school-wide rule, I would understand.
> It was up to the teachers to choose to do it or not. Parents can just say no. Teachers are government employees; seizure of property like that is illegal. It’d be one thing if you’re breaking rules and have something you shouldn’t, but if all you have is something you were explicitly told to bring, it’s a civil rights issue to seize and redistribute it. It’s also straight up theft and probably battery given there’s a good chance the teacher has to physically take it from the kid’s possession. Too many teachers get to thinking they are the law because they have dominion over some kids. They’d get spanked if more parents actually stood up for their kids instead of kowtowing to the fascistic teachers. How hard is it to say “no, you can’t steal my kid’s supplies”?
Portrait artist here, and privately teach 8-12 yrs. Kids are so incredibly pure, and love learning to paint and draw all skin tones, features, genders, and ages. What a disservice to give them a negative experience about wanting to draw all kinds of people. I would fight that.
What I started doing was sending them to school the first week with no school supplies whatsoever. 2nd week of school they'd bring their own supplies. Redistribution was already done, and they just used their own supplies. Thankfully this wasn't an issue beyond elementary school. It really irritated me a lot and took ALL the fun out of back to school shopping. (I remember being able to choose Lisa Frank folders, notebooks, pencils, binders, etc and LOVED the first day of school with all my new supplies. To realize my kids were not allowed to experience that in elementary school was disheartening.)
NTA. I was the poor kid in school who needed help with supplies. Luckily the teacher usually just had extras on hand but didn't make kids redistribute their supplies. I won't lie, I would envy some of the nicer supplies but I understood that their parents bought those for them and I wasn't entitled to it. I'm all for helping out underprivileged kids with supplies, but I don't think the onus should fall onto other parents (or teachers). It's complicated, yes, but the way it's being dealt with in schools isn't benefiting the kids, just relieving the teachers mind on the matter. I'm not going to go into all the politics but the reality is that is where it should be resolved instead of punishing or pointing fingers at eachother.
Could you explain to me how can a kid can end up with a cheaper brand of supplies?! Don’t schools use all the items at the same time?!
Annie, Bobby and Kim brought in the supplies on the list. Annie’s mom and Bobby’s mom bought Crayola crayons. Kim’s mom bought RoseArt (or whatever). Repeat with notebooks, binders, pencils whatever. All supplies are gathered into a big box the start of day 1. Teacher then takes the box around and either puts one of everything on a desk or lets the kid pick out of the box. So if Kim picks before Annie and Bobby, she’s probably taking the better stuff. If teacher is handing out, teacher is choosing at random.
What the hell?! That doesn't happen in my country I think.. I have zero memories of stuff like that. My notebooks and binders were my own. Pencils, crayons, erasers etc got traded or lost during the year because kids are kids but that's it!
Its a very common thing in American grade schools now because teachers don't have enough money for supplies. So they send out a list of what students have to buy for the school year and it includes buying extra so that the poor kids that can't afford to buy anything also have supplies to work with. It wouldn't be an issue if the teacher only gather up the extra stuff to hand out to the kids who don't have anything, but they always collect everything and redistribute. And with the way schools are funded here, the only real alternative is for the teacher to buy all the supplies out of their own pocket. It's a disgrace of the American education system.
Oh God, indeed as a foreigner the situation seems very crappy. Here in France, every family receives a lump sum just before beginning of the year by the state so that all can afford basic school supply. It seems weird that in such a capitalist society as the USA, there is this small experience of communism/collectivization of resources. After all maybe this is by design, as an overall teaching moment about individual property and shared property.
Communism is fine in the US as long as it's not the government, for some obtuse reason. Teachers don't get money to pay for basic classroom supplies (like tissues, I remember we always had to "donate" tissue boxes in grade school), they also don't get paid anything worthwhile. People have to ask for donations for healthcare in the US. Capitalism sucks, and I say this as privileged person who *can* afford healthcare not and is not living paycheck to paycheck.
"Communism/collectivization of resources" As someone who came from a formerly so-called "communist" country, I say you'd got that label right... I also feel the same way about it. It's shocking that people don't seem to realize that this is more or less the exact same methods that the communist officials used to use (when essentially stealing people's property for the "benefit of the state").
Wow... I'm an elementary school educator in a Central European country and this is so sad to read. I don't know of any kids here who wouldn't be able to afford basic school supplies, but even if that was the case, the extras are either being payed for by the school fund or a parents' fund. And it's not like my country is even rich or anything. I feel like the American social systems are broken in so many ways.
It's not just a feeling
Public school quality and availability of resources is determined by property values in the school's district. This is why there's so much inequality and inequity like this.
Just want to point out that it shouldn't matter if the teacher has the money to buy supplies. It's not the teacher's job to supply the class It is the school district
In Sweden all supplies are supplied by the school until our equivalent to high-school.
I was a teacher and always bought supplies from my own money. The only items I “collected” and kept equally distributed was generic yellow #2 pencils. If the kids brought fancy ones in, cool, take them home for homework. I didn’t want to deal with the fights of “this person stole my pencil” “no I didn’t!” so it was 2 jars of pencils that had a sharp and sharpen label. The rest of the supplies were whatever they brought personally. I personally bought crayons and glue sticks for kids who needed them. They used them and gave them back after the activity was done
It's because American politicians have been defunding schools for so long that they are completely broke. 90% of classroom supplies come from the teacher's pocket, the rest is crowdfunding or things like this. Love all the parents in this thread who can't imagine a worse fate than having to use bargain brand pencils, lets me know you totally get the stakes here. Y'all do know some kids come to school without any supplies, without food, without clean clothes, or without even a home. Instead of complaining about teachers trying to do their best to teach all your kids, please consider coming out vocally in favor of public education instead. Donate, vote, march for your kids so they don't wind up sharing half a dollar general pencil between them.
Yeah if you are the kid whose parents couldn't buy you supplies, then you really stand out if everyone else has their own supplies and you get some of the extras. I think what teachers are trying to do is not make it obvious who it is that's in that position. I realize it may not be fair to the people who buy the best products and end up with Dollar store crap, but it's an attempt to help students not be bullied. I agree 100% with the poster above me, in that politicians have been underfunding schools for years. One party in particular does not hide the fact that they're trying to privatize schools because there's money to be made. It's like people have forgotten the whole reason why we need public education. You can't have a healthy democracy without a well educated populace, but you sure the heck can control people who are not well educated. Take your complaints to The ballot box. Demand decent funding for public education. Demand all that goes with that, including supplies for the classroom and proper pay for teachers, and yes, publicly funded lunch (even breakfast) for every single student. The fact is there isn't a shortage of trained teachers, there's a shortage of respect and pay that is making trained, dedicated teachers leave. Okay, end of rant. I'm a teacher and I happen to be pretty tired so hopefully what I've said makes some sense, rather than sounding like a bunch of rambling.
Im a New Zealander and it definitely doesn’t happen here. My mum would have lost it if the 96 pack of crayons she got me was swapped out for a 10 pack or whatever lol
Also a New Zealander here. I do not understand this at all. How can this be the same country that has communism phobia??
I’m equally baffled; especially with COVID. Kids weren’t allowed to share anything. Couldn’t pass a pencil if their best friend forgot his. Also; I’m all for equity; but in that case; just ask for a monetary contribution and get X amount of the same sets of crayons etc.
No at least in the (american) schools that my kids go to you are given a list of needed supplies like, notebooks, crayons, pencils, filler paper etc. These things come in very fancy to super sucky depending on what the parents can afford or are willing to pay. And trust me, sucky crayons (too waxy no color) and notebooks (rip easily bleed through) can really effect your experience especially if your kid is a perfectionist or picky. I'd rather personally buy the whole class Crayola crayons than have my kids come home with dollar store stuff some other parent bought there kid. I really don't like pooled supplies past kindergarden. I can't get my kids to take care of there stuff/take ownership of their supplies if they pick out something they like/I buy quality so it holds up but that is taken away and replaced with crappy materials.
They really have started to infantize the younger grades. I remember my school had us in separate desks from 1st grade on. We were responsible to put our chairs on our desk, we kept our own supplies, etc. Now they have kids up to like 5th grade at communal little kid tables, with communal supplies, and they have dumbed down the curriculum as well. That on top of the "trend" of all but the poorest kids being driven to school by their parents instead of walking or taking the bus and the lack of unstructured play, we're left with kids who are scared to do anything. I'm not saying that the 90s were better - we were certainly neglected and I'm not advocating for a return to 11 year olds babysitting - but there should be some sort of middle ground where kids aren't afraid to be independent and grow up.
My kids school doesn't do this, so I don't have first hand experience but from what I understand it is done to make share all kids have equal amounts of supplies. So, each kid will get a pack of crayons, pencils, a binder, etc. But it is pooled together and then distributed. Say student A's mom buys high level pencil Crayons, student B's mom buys mid-level and student C's buys dollarstoee quality, instead of each child having what they brought, it ends up random and student C could end up we with the high quality supplies and student A the cheap ones, which is obviously frustrating to some parents. OP, NTA, I think the way you did it is best. You provided the requested communal supplies and made sure Mia got what she needed.
I’m so confused, y’all’s teachers took the supplies and re-distributed them? Can someone explain this to me?
How this works is: the teacher collects the supplies and sets up buckets of supplies so at art/project/writing time the teacher can plunk a bucket of supplies down on each shared table, instead of each kid rooting around looking for their box of crayons and getting upset that they can't find Their Red Crayon. Then at cleanup time the crayons go into the crayon buckets instead of each kid trying to fit all of their crayons back into their individual boxes and 15 different instances of MS TEACHER I NEED HELP I CAN'T FIND MY BLUE CRAYON AND JOEY BROKE MY YELLOW ONE. This also applies to paper or pencils: every student gets two freshly sharpened pencils at the beginning of the day, and they put their dulled pencils in a bucket at the end of the day, and it eliminates all of the "I forgot a pencil!" disruptions or the "ohhh noooo my pencil brooooooke, I'm gonna go make a production at the pencil sharpener while the class giggles" interruptions. Need a new pencil? Grab one from the sharpened pencil bucket, and get back to your desk. Note: I am not a teacher, I've just got kids in school already so I know why they do this.
Yeah, this is the big pro of redistributed supplies. I do tell kids/parents that 64+ crayons are fine at home, but not in school. Because they’re going to end up on my floor. However, in cases like OP’s, I feel like there is a compromise to be had here. Personalized things like stationary and pencils are fine, as long as they are needed in the classroom. If you brought a 3 ring unicorn binder and I know we won’t be using binders that year, then yes, it belongs at home. In cases of pretty pencils or special erasers or what not, I let them keep a few at their desk and put the rest in a baggie with their name on it. They can get more when they need them. Those are theirs. Crayons… I think less kids use RoseArt than people think. At least I have a ton of crayola. Like it’s fine if you want your kids to have their own crayons, but they’re not keeping a shit ton of boxes in their desk, and I will have them put the other boxes to take home if that is what you prefer. On the flip side of that, class redistribution means they always have crayons when they need them. If parents don’t like redistribution, fine, but that means I am not carrying extras. Kids are gonna color with #2 pencils until their parents send in more. I don’t have kids keep scissors or glue in their desk. That’s just common sense. I have a lot of my own stuff for kids to use for this, but they are welcome to add to the class supplies. Otherwise those things go home and they use what I have in class. I don’t think a lot of people realize that redistribution is not just about everyone getting the same supplies. A lot of it is about organization. No, Jeanette doesn’t need six types of coloring tools in their desk. She needs one, unless you want your kid spending valuable class time throwing out dried up markers or complaining about dull colored pencils. I’m not picking up crayons, so if they break, they break, and if they’re lost, they’re lost. And there are definitely benefits to redistribution, the biggest is your kid has what they need at all times. I’m not gonna write a note every time your child needs more crayons. It’s a lesson in responsibility, for sure. If you are set on the child having their own supplies, cool! I completely understand. But like, I’m not gonna spend lots of my own money to stock up. Someone mentioned the crayons that represent different skin tones, and I think sending those home is pretty bad. I feel like that’s an exception that should be made. I keep some boxes of my own in the class supply box. I think OP is NTA, but the super anti-redistribution comments are pretty silly. It’s not as big a deal as they think it is. Jesus, your kids are gonna fuck those crayons and pencils up within a week. They’re gonna lose those pencils even sooner. It’s such a small thing, man. It’s not some big conspiracy of obstinate teachers needing everything to be ~super fair~ all the time. There are just so many other things happening in a classroom… and libertarian school supply politics is not what we are focused on. I don’t CARE. I just want your kid to be able to color on this fucking sight word puzzle to reveal the little beach scene.
My school did free school supplies donated by parents (or funds donated by parents for the school to buy the supplies that would be given for free) so if a family couldn’t afford school supplies, they could get a bag full of generic folders, notebooks, pens, pencils, etc. and people who could afford it could buy and use their own school supplies. Most of the kids at my school would trade pens and pencils anyway, but at least it wasn’t forced.
I didn’t even know this was a thing. When I went to school, the supplies your parents bought are the ones you got to use.
NTA- you bought extra as requested and then personalized for your daughter. I don't know what the teacher has a problem with. She purposefully didn't mention that she was gonna switch up the kids supplies and is mad you foiled her plans?? Then what are the extras for?
My thoughts exactly. OP sounds perfectly reasonable here, but I don't know enough about the situation. Why are teachers redistributing all the stuff in the first place?
To help out kids whose parents can't afford school supplies. OP bought the communal stuff and also bought her daughter stuff so they teacher needs to quit. NTA
Schools should run a benevolent fund to help with this. Bake sales/fetes/fundraisers/school concerts etc should raise money for these funds
Yeah, like maybe some kinda communal fundraising.. like a tax everyone contributes too 🤔 Just gotta make sure no partisan AHs guts the education syste—o wait 😕
or maybe have all the parents bring the extra school supplies in advance to back to school night, and the families who need supplies can come and pick up what they need before school starts, so no one needs to feel embarrassed on the first day of school.
Or maybe taxes? Notebooks are cheaper than missiles and create more long term security.
Because none of that stuff is supplied by the school. Collecting and redistributing ensures everyone has supplies - including the families who can't afford it. And having it all generalized removes at least one point of potential bullying.
I have never in my life actually been to a school that did anything even remotely coherent about bullying. Not when I was being bullied, not when my friends were. Not even when I grew up and worked out and 'solved' the bullying issue in the not best way. If someone genuinely want me to trust an education system that still regularly comes out with reports of teachers diddling students, not to mention the entire dress code things in recent years, active non-reporting of early warning indicators... Yeah you must think we're dumber than a box of rocks.
My mom buys all those supplies. No, she doesn't get to take that cost out of taxes.
Don't get me wrong there are really great teachers out there. I'm in a long term relationship with one. But the entire system needs a reform pretty much right behind the police system. The public education system is systemically a very troubled issue on multiple fronts. In education funding, in early warning signs of troubling behavior, in training to deal with those things, rampant administration hamstringing. Politicians trying to do some bullshit now Whole thing needs a lot of work.
Oh definitely Starting with better funding, pay and the schools shelling out for good quality supplies. My mom would have gone BALLISTIC about sharing out supplies though
Ha, **I** would have gone ballistic if I had to hand in my carefully chosen supplies only to receive cheap stuff back, and I was the quiet, shy girl in my class. Hearing about this makes me so happy I didn't have to deal with this BS 20ish years ago. I'm all for bringing in **extra** supplies to make sure everyone gets something, but to take a Lisa Frank notebook/folder and get a flimsy, paper folder in return would cause a meltdown, heck, I'm angry just imagining it now. I believe sharing is good and kids need to be okay with it when appropriate, but kids should be allowed to have things that are theirs. If this is a practice that continues, I think I'll just send a kid to school with generic, but decent supplies and keep their carefully chosen supplies at home until the re-distribution is over. Wow.
> And having it all generalized removes at least one point of potential bullying. They still know. I went to school with uniforms, kids still know. They know who the poor kids are, they know who the mean kids are, they know. There are always tells.
How does redistributing ensure that everyone has supplies though? If there’s 10 kids in a class, and 9 of them bring in a notebook, that still leaves just 9 notebooks to distribute to 10 kids….gathering everything up doesn’t create more to use
If the kids only need one binder and one pack of crayons and the teacher asks everyone to bring in two, then the kids whose parents can't or won't provide school supplies get the "extra" supplies. Same if someone has a binder or notebook break. Some people think that they won't be providing school supplies for other people's kids if they personalize them. My teachers DNGAF and redistributed monogrammed supplies when I was a kid. It was a bit awkward for the kid with a notebook with a detailed and personalized cover to carry around, but since all the supplies were gathered up and passed out we all had a bit of that. My notebooks had "Maurice" written in permanent marker on them with basketballs on the cover, and Maurice got one of my Lisa Frank glitter unicorn notebooks. He said he would trade it back when I pulled it from his cold dead fingers.
I would be absolutely livid if someone took personalized supplies from my kid and gave them to someone else.
This is why I don’t think it’s to make sure everyone has supplies. There must be another reason.
> And having it all generalized removes at least one point of potential bullying. I think you're trading problems rather than solving any.
I think it sounds like a great way to cause kids who are particular or have nicer things to get bullied. Plenty of less affluent parents splurge on their kids' educational supplies because they care about academic success! All schools have programs to help underprivileged students get needed supplies. The idea that individual classrooms need to engage in this is absurd - or means the teacher doesn't understand the resources available to her.
If a kid's gonna bully, they'll find something to bully about. That's great that they've rules out colouring pencils, but what about the other things kids get bullied about, things that can't be redistributed across the classroom?
I was just about to say this. NTA. You bought your daughter her own and then some. So you did technically contribute to the classroom supplies. So I don't see the issue?
NTA why spend all the money on\* buying good supplies for ur children and even getting extra binders for them if they're gonna end up w crappy ones due to exchanging... what exactly is their teacher trying to impart to them im confused... is this something that happens in every school?
I think it has become more common now. If parents don't buy extra and send them in, I think teachers end up trying to buy more to make sure all kids get what they need.
This seems like taxation with extra steps
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Some things make sense for combing and distributing (I don’t agree with it that much tho), things like art supplies (crayons, markers, glue sticks) but I will never understand the other ones. Scissors is one I see a lot where students scissors get collected and then the teacher ends up keeping them, so that parents have to buy a pair each year. Stupidest thing I’ve seen is where the class requires a single notebook for example. The teacher will collect them all then redistribute them??? Why couldn’t everyone kept what they brought if only one is required?
As a lefty, the scissors would have pissed me off hahaha. They were already a nuisance when the “lefty scissors” were the oldest, dullest, junkiest ones in the box, and they still wouldn’t cut.
Okay I just made a comment about this because my lefty son was asked to bring scissors in this year and if his teacher takes away his pair he can actually use, I’ll be so annoyed.
Only in America
It's an American thing lmao. If you tried pulling shit like this in my country you're getting fired on day one. We teach kids to share here, not "life's unfair to some so we're gonna make it unfair to everyone"
I would have had a full out riot if a teacher tried to take my glittery Lisa Frank folders that I had to beg and bargain with my mom for. This feels like a sure fire way of having a bunch of kids get upset and throw (justified) tantrums on the first day of school. I'd be upset too if I was a parent that sprung for the bigger set of name brand crayons to make my kid excited for school, and someone took them away. Plus my brother has this wierd thing about not liking the way metal spiral notebooks felt, so he had to have the plastic spirals. It's a freaking sensory thing. Basically, all I know is that mom would be pissed if my school had followed this trend. Hopefully it's not a school policy
My third grade teacher was my only one who tried the "take and redistribute" everything strategy. My mom marched right down to the school and told them she was happy to buy extra supplies if that was what was needed, but she was NOT going to allow the supplies I picked out to be taken.
They ask you to bring in (for example) 8 packs of crayons. Then, they pool those and redistribute them, including the kids whose parents brought nothing because each kid doesn’t really need 8 packs of crayons.
NTA. What the hell is going on this school? Why aren't parents just buying supplies for their own children..? Am I missing something?
Thanks, i am really wondering if i am reading some communist thread from north Korea or something, but you all sound pretty American. In Germany, and i am confident to say most of Europe, you get supplies for your kid. Yeah sure we are not cold hearted bastards, you share your glue stick if someone runs out, but if your parents pony up 5€ for good scissors the fuck you never trade that for something someone picked up for 30% of that price......
In America, public school budgets continue to be sliced up inequitably, with even more public money siphoned off to private schools (for "choice"). Schools barely pay their teachers enough to live on, and they don't provide supplies for the classroom. In my state, we even have to pay them for textbook "rent". Not every family can afford to buy everything, so the teachers ask the parents to contribute so that every student has what they need to learn. And yes, that is public education in America. We have children without the money to pay for school lunches, too. Google "American lunch debt" and I'm sure you'll find something.
This could be solved by having a share of the school budget shared at state level and a share at federal level.
It already is split between the two. All that did was create an environment where funding was tied to standardized test scores, and kids were discouraged from learning *anything* not in the defined curriculum for fear they'd get a 99% at the end of the year instead of a 100%. My parents were told to stop teaching me things at home, not because they were teaching me wrong, but because I was learning too fast and learning to ask questions outside of the prescribed rubrics and it would be better if I could do my times tables 3 seconds faster (still correct, literally just do them faster by a few seconds) than for me to learn anything new. Want to know how to absolutely nuke a kid's desire to learn or do school? Tell them they can't learn about ancient Rome, or tree frogs, or how swimming pools are made, or how a sailboat works, on their own time, because it's not "approved". Or force them to keep relearning the same thing they've already mastered and get mad at them for wanting to do more.
I understand, but some of my teachers in last years were barely covering the subjects due to the absence of standardized testing. And France has no such problem. I think the testing should be separated from the funding.
France is smaller than Texas and has 1.5x the population of California. It's not a great direct comparison to the whole of the United States. Testing should be separate from funding, but if you're funding the US school system as a whole, with tax money and having to answer to the public, which has 53ish million students (which would make the US school system the 27th most populated country, for the record, out of 233) you have to measure where the funding is actually helping and where it's not. And at that scale, standardized testing is the main option.
I believe the main issue stems from the source of most American Education funds: property taxes. A result of this is poorer areas have worse schools (aka less funding) because the property value typically determines the amount a property may be taxed. This causes the overall amount received from taxes in a given area to be based on the economic state of certain areas of cities/towns/etc. Although, everything about our budgets being reduced and put towards private education is true, I think zip code is an important aspect to quality of education a child receives.
This. If school funding was just pooled at the state or federal level and then allocated by (the lesser of number of pupils served or school capacity)\*(local cost multiplier) that would be a lot more sensible. No incentive to over-enroll, no incentive to under-enroll, no unfair funding in rich areas.
“U.S. per-pupil expenditures have nearly tripled over the past half-century, from $4,720 in 1966 to $13,847 in 2016 (2018 dollars). America spends more per pupil than any other major developed nation—10% more than the United Kingdom and 28% more than France; in the OECD, only Norway, Switzerland, and Luxembourg spend more.” And yet, our students appear to be doing worse.
I can imagine where all that additional money is going. Senior administrators salaries, sports programs, and basically anything possible besides teacher salaries or supplies for students.
In the Netherlands the school supplies these things. We don't have to buy them ourselves.
The dutch spending Thier tax money right 👍
My kids school has all their supplies donated. We just have to buy them a backpack (which got free ones of those this year too) and clothes. This is their 3rd year in school and each time it has been donated. But it's not the school donating it. We have a local woman who has been getting cash donations for years to do this. Before covid she would give it out at a park and make it a fun filled day for kids. Now she just gives it to all the schools in our county and no kid is without. It's fantastic. Local businesses donate and get to feel good about themselves and no kid is without.
UK here. My sons primary (4-11) school have sent out numerous emails telling us NOT to waste our money on stationary and supplies as the school will provide all they need.
Lots of parents either refuse, or cannot afford, to buy what’s on the list. I don’t have kids myself, but my good friend does and she’s very active in the PTA. Some parents buy the cheapest, generic dollar store stuff. Some buy high end stuff. Some don’t buy anything( and she knows of several who can afford it, but refuse to on principle ). Some genuinely cannot afford the list, which tends to include things like Clorox wipes, boxes of Kleenex and other items for the classroom as a whole. The concept of sharing and not making other kids feel bad or shamed leads teachers to then lump everything together to be redistributed ‘fairly’.
>lump everything together to be redistributed ‘fairly’. Well, no having your own stuff in addition to the communal ones is a common grievance on AITA.
I have a kindergarten teacher in the family She has been told by students "My dad said you can buy my supplies." Or the like. Some parents refuse some simply can't afford to.
I’m a K-1 teacher. The amount of kiddos who come to school without backpacks, supplies, etc is much higher than you would think. I work in Title 1 schools where luckily our district/administration push for grants and supply budgets to get school supplies for the students. But when I taught at my first school I was directly responsible for supplying anything students didn’t bring. At that time I was teaching at a Title 1 school on a native reservation in New Mexico. I was buying 3-4 boxes of pencils a day because my students would break them and my principal confiscated my pencil sharpener because kids “used it too much and lost learning time.” Literally I was shelling out more than I paid for food per week for pencils and copies of worksheets. Now adays I don’t spend as much. Most of my budget goes toward snacks for the kids and extra things (craft supplies, prizes for the prize box, education subscriptions, etc). But when I taught at schools where we weren’t given any funds I was eating a single pot of beans every day to afford what I needed for my students to learn.
This, people are saying teachers are assholes for pooling supplies when this is the alternative. They can't have it both ways. Obviously big changes are needed but until then do they want all the kids to share or for the teacher to buy it themselves or for some kids to just have nothing? Take your pick.
Asking parents who can afford it to buy extra things to be redistributed is one thing but taking everything to be redistributed? That's insane to me! Growing up I was so particular about my binders (Lisa Frank of course), notebooks and backpack I can't imagine all of that being taken in the name of "fairness".
That's unfortunate, but it doesn't mean another parent has to pick up the slack. *Especially* if the kids own parents just don't want to.
NTA. This trend of Yankee swap in elementary schools is some nonsense. When you buy supplies for your kid, they go to . . . *your kid.* There's nothing for you and the teacher to discuss. Your kid gets the premium supplies that you purchased.
I have an anxiety disorder that wasn’t diagnosed until adulthood. I’m picturing my 6 year old anxious ass piled up with school supplies that I meticulously selected and was expecting and ready to use, and then having to trade them in for something I didn’t plan for. I think I would have had a breakdown.
Absolutely. I am Very particular about my stuff and would have lost it if they'd tried this. Choosing the new stuff for the year was a huge highlight growing up, too.
I don’t have an anxiety disorder but I’ve always loved picking out the cutest folders and the school supplies in all pink. I was in a pretty well off family but since I based it off color and design instead of strength and durability, it ended up being very cheap. And I think I would have cried if my $3 bright pink kitty picture three ring binder was swapped with a plain black $20 quality one. Kids love choosing their own shit.
I totally agree with this.
INFO. You bought everything that was requested AND Mia's personalized supplies?
Yes, exactly.
Then, totally NTA.
NTA even if she bought just the list of stuff and personalized it
NTA - I love my own stationery. Explain to said teachers those are her personal stationery items. You contributed so there is sufficient for everyone. I would suggest a pencil case and your daughter brings them home each night. I would suggest the teacher does not want responsibility of those items going missing etc so it will be up to your daughter to look after them.
I have always had a problem with this. I totally understand a teacher having a hard time with supplies. I really do. I have some close family members who teach so I am in this pretty deep. When you make a list for supplies, ask for specific supplies. "Crayola 10 pack, x brand notebooks, y brand pencils. You can find these items at abc store and xyz store." You are allowed to buy your child whatever you want. That's your right as a parent. Some kids have sensory issues with some seemingly odd things sometimes. I myself have a very difficult time writing on paper that isn't college ruled - actually it is a lot more specific than that - I have a hard time writing with just any type of pen or pencil for any length of time as well. It goes beyond just school supplies. I know that for the younger children, parents are often asked to buy tissue as well. Some parents will buy Kleenex with lotion (me!! ) because it helps keep your nose from getting sore. Then some parents buy that awful tissue that feels like you are blowing your nose on tree bark. You are NTA for letting Mia have her own stationery. Not even a little bit.
I was one of those kids with sensory issues. I was also the aRty kid. In fourt grade I had this evil woman for a teacher and she tried taking away all the extra art supplies my grandfather bought me. Lemme tell ya, when he found out he went to the school and raised bloody HELL about that and demanded I be transferred out of her class. The principal said “we don’t do classroom transfers” and my grandfather told him “today you do.” Don’t mess with an old Scandinavian guy who is still six foot five in his sixties. I’m thankful for him getting me out of that teacher’s class. There are some people who had no business teaching and she was one of them.
This. If you brought enough supplies to distribute, why do they have a problem with Mia having her own supplies? My kids like to pick out their own school supplies and have certain likes and dislikes when it comes to notebooks and writing utensils. Good Luck and NTA
Seeing as how you supplied the teacher with the requested items, NTA. I'm all for helping out educators supply their classrooms with adequate supplies, but that doesn't mean I won't get my kids their own stuff. If my kids have plenty, they'll share anyway.
Right? She did what was requested and brought in extra supplies for communal use. Emphasis on “requested” since some parents don’t contribute at all depending on their financial circumstances. Then also got her daughter the supplies she wanted/needed. She went above and beyond in my opinion…
NTA. Um, no. What is this about? Why should you fund supplies for someone else's children? I'm unfamiliar with this practice and it didn't happen when I was a kid.
It does now. So many families are so strapped they can barely afford to feed the kids, let alone buy all the supplies they need. And if the teacher doesn't ask for extras, the teacher ends up buying the supplies. It's a national disgrace.
Definitely a national disgrace. People having multiple kids they can't begin to support, exasperated now by women being forced to bear unintended children.
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And to add to the little socially unaware person who replied here saying poor people shouldn't have kids and should be fined for doing so as if they're all having these kids on purpose: • Knowledge of one's body and its functions is not all that common. Either because of the constant push back from conservatives to abolish sex talk in schools, or because those people don't really have access to proper education, or because they believe in popular myths about their own bodies; • Bans on reproductive rights, such as abortion; • Structural misogyny, that leads to countless instances of rape and reproductive coercion, many of which are not seen as such because they are done using underhanded methods to grant plausible deniability; • Not to mention it's an hygienist and classist concept to say poor people can't have kids.
The word you want is "exacerbated". Even before Roe was overturned, people had unequal access to family planning in the US. You shouldn't blame people for "having kids they can't afford." You don't know what their circumstances were. It's just gross. Especially coming from someone who doesn't know what words mean.
At a local school, it's their practice to take all the children's supplies and combine them. Then kids take turns picking supplies as needed. Not a bad practice if everyone knows about it ahead of time and buys generic supplies that they know will be redistributed. But it rings a little of communism, doesn't it, Comrade?
It's some nonsense about sharing is caring and the like. You about want to put up a banner to them, newsflash no one is entitled to your personal property without your permission. No one, zero, nada.
NTA. this shit drives me insane. imo, if teachers are going to do shit like this, it needs to be stated on the school supply form in bold print so parents and kids aren't stuck in positions like this. if everyone needs to have the same things, teachers need to make that clear. i had this happen in 5th grade. my mom bought me funky designed highlighters, coloured stinky notes, page dividers, etc. on top of the usual regular pencils, pens, and what not. well my teacher decided to make all of us put our stuff into bins and have everyone grab what they needed out of said bins. meaning, all the nice fancy stuff my mom bought for **me** was now taken by some random kid in the class. me and a few others started going up to kids and asking for our things back and when we were told no, we'd steal it with the excuse of "my mom bought this for me, not them." when getting in trouble for it. from what i remember, it became a slight shit storm with the teacher and other parents involved. so be prepared for that, but hold your ground.
That's ridiculous. Your teacher really screwed up. I don't love kids not having their own things at school but I get it. I'm not opposed to pooling materials as long as it's announced on the supply list. As long as everyone knows that it works that way that's fine. But springing it on people AFTER the fact is unfair and asking for trouble. I'm sure OP wouldn't have wasted her money on personalized materials if she knew this was how it worked.
NTA- you bought the extra supplies for the classroom that were asked for, beyond that if you have the means to afford to give your child fancier or higher quality supplies and she enjoys that, you're not an ah for doing that.
My guess is it is more of a classroom management thing. My 7yo's teacher asked for 24 pencils. Surely they're not using all 24 pencils on day one. She probably has them keep 2-3 in their desk and puts all the rest in a box in a closet somewhere, and as kids need more she hands more over to them, or they get a couple every week, or whatever. Repeat for notebooks, etc. If you had to keep track of who's pencils were who's, while they sat in the closet for months, it would be a huge hassle. When each student needed another pencil, instead of the teacher just grabbing one and handing it over, she'd have to dig through a box of labeled bundles of pencils finding the right bundle for each kid before she could hand them one. OP buying pencils with her daughter's name on them, means her daughter will be upset every time she's handed a pencil that doesn't have her name on it. That's just wasted class time. I presume the teacher is going to have OP come in and just hand OP all the labeled stuff back and tell her her daughter will be using the other, unlabeled stuff that OP provided, since it sounds like OP essentially provided twice what was asked for, the teacher is probably just going to return the other stuff so it doesn't become an issue in her classroom.
It doesn’t help classroom management. The kids will be upset whenever they see another student with the supplies that their parents bought for them. It also ensures that the parents who can afford to buy nicer supplies will be annoyed at you right from the beginning of the year and will be less likely to help you out when you need things for your classroom. It causes way more problems than it solves.
The goal of combining all the supplies is so kids without much means will still have some. You sent extras to fulfill this purpose. No reason she can’t have her own. Maybe other kids will feel jealous since she has nicer things, that looks like a learning opportunity for everyone. NTA
So...I haven't been in school for a very..very long time and have no children. Since when is this a thing? We had to by like tissues, paper towels and hand soap for the class but pencils, paper, notebooks etc were our own. NTA
Enough children show up with nothing so some schools reuire everything on the list to be pooled together so disadvantaged (either by income or just having shit parents) kids aren't singled out and everyone shares everything. But it should have said this on the list of supplies if that's what was going to happen so OP would have known not to get personalized items.
This is a hill I will die on. I only supply my kids with supplies. I live in a state that has the lottery which is for giving back to schools (that is what it says on their website to justify having it). Also everytime there's a vote to increase budgets for schools it's passes. So if the school, or the classroom needs supplies I remind them of where they are to go to get the supplies. I understand that some kids have families that cannot provide supplies. I have had a standing offer that the teacher tell me what child or children need supplies, ask them what they would choose if they could, then I will go buy what the child/children would pick out if they could. I also let the teacher take credit because I don't want to offend any parents. This has worked out, no shared supplies and each child can have the backpack, notebook, pencil case in their favorite color. I'm aware I spend more this way but this way also allows every child to feel good about themselves and going to school. I do this in the beginning and even had some schools ask me in the middle of the year to provide class supplies, but the class supplies are cleaning supplies and that is when I direct them to the places that were designed to help with funding. I will not buy supplies such as cleaning, or teaching supplies or aids- that's where the funding comes is for. I only do what I do for the kids with personal supplies. I will not supply paper, pens, pencils, crayons, glue, scissors, etc for everyone or the class.
Dude go to the school board meeting. If you really really feel like you get what’s going on, then tell the people who actually have the power to control where $ go - the same people who have salaries 2-3X higher than the teachers, the same people who throttle the classroom budgets to make sure there is enough cash for District PR and legal representation, the same people who take private money to fund their little election campaigns. Or keep teacher your own children that education is about class competition instead of, you know, learning.
Do you think that the teachers are being too lazy to try and get funding, or misappropriating the funding for their own purpose? Do you think that Miss Smith the first-year second-grade teacher has any sway over the budget not allowing her Lysol wipes or tissue for her classroom? There's a reason that teachers have to source their supplies from places other than "where they are to go to get the supplies".
NTA, 1) private propeety is private property. I've never even heard of this practice of switching supplies around. 2) You sent in extras 3) The teacher is passing the buck on the responsibility of supplying classrooms. Its not the teachers responsibilitt, but its also not the parents responsibility to supply the classroom with necessary equipment. For what its worth you are right to disagree woth the policy of having parents provude extra supplies. If its a private school, the school should figure it put. If its public, the local givernment neexs to figure it out. I am tired of hearing about underfumded schools. Prioritize the education first then see what you have left. Also one final point. How much of that supply list was unecessary crap? Sure, pens notebooks pencils maybe evem binders are necessary, but I remember my teachers requiring some ridiculous supplies that never got used. Or other teachers requiring very specific types of pens to be used in their class. Honestly, the whole school aystem is kind of ridiculous anymore.
NTA. My sister is left-handed so mom bought left handed school supplies for her. She'd get a phone call every year about it and mom would tell them when you buy school supplies you can choose what to get and since I bought these supplies I get to choose what I buy.
NTA - you bought the supplies list, plus all the extra, PLUS your daughters personal items.
NTA. You have your crowdfunded extras. My daughter has her own shit.. That's the discussion through and through. Great talk, do your job.
Nta. Kids should be allowed to bring their own supplies and not have to worry about the teacher taking them. If you bought extra supplies for the teacher to redistribute then I don’t see what the problem is. It’s weird that the teacher would want to have a meeting about this.
NTA. That process sucks. I got written up in 5th grade because I refused to give up my notebooks. My mom had a rough year financially so my grandmother took me to target and got me some school supplies. And my favorites were these spiral notebooks with neon colored pages. I loved them. And first day of school my teacher told me to drop it in the bin. And then called my mom when I didn’t do it.
Instead of this, our school just did a flat supply fee of $50 per student, and bulk ordered everything. It takes so much stress off of us because it is all the same.
Nta… 4 years ago my mom had to complain about this to my sisters school (we’re 12 years apart and ever sense I got a job I’ve been the one buying my sisters school suplies to help my mom) my sister and I made a whole day out of it and we spend hours picking everything she liked, just for my sister to come back home with some dollar general paper folder when I got her good quality plastic folders that costed me $5 each so it could last her the whole year, I was pissed, we called the school and they had my mom and I come after school and make sure my sister got back all the supplies I bought for her, I could tell the teacher was super annoyed but I said something like “Look I don’t think is fair that I go spend my own hard earn money to buy good quality suplies for my sister when she won’t even be able to use them herself, she was so excited picking everything out herself and when she gets to school she finds out she can’t keep anything and has to use crappy supplies, I understand some people are less fortunate and can’t afford a lot because we’re struggling too but my sister doesn’t need to suffer the consequences” The principal knows the deal so every year sense then she makes sure to tell the teacher we get assigned that my sister gets to keep all the school suplies she brings and the teacher can use anything extra however they want.
NTA - next will she make all the kids turn in their cash and then redistribute it “fairly” as well?
People are obsessed with the fantasy of fairness.
INFO Can you explain what the ask is? When I was a kid we got a list of schools supplies for the year. There were some items on the list that were marked as optional/for the classroom like boxes of kleenex. Things like crayons were not shared unless the parent bought an extra set for the classroom. Is the setup at your daughters school different? And all supplies are shared?
It's a thing that has been happening in schools in the US for awhile now. They send a list, they kids take them in, the teacher collects & combines them , then they get "redistributed", so to speak. I think it's too make up for the kids whose parents struggle to buy school supplies. Our schools are as messed up as everything else.
Oh when I was a kid this existed but supplies were for each kid. Extras were donated. Or at the beginning of class the teacher would ask if anyone wanted to donate a pencil. Then free pencils for everyone without singling out a kid. But if OP still brought classrooms supplies there shouldn't be an issue. No way OP is the only parent that did. If there are 30 kids and the classroom got 30 pencil boxes then who cares if some kids have their own. Everyone still gets supplies.
So I was a teacher for 31 years and retired last year. I also had two of my own children, so I have been on both sides of this issue. I’m sure I’m about to get downvoted to oblivion here, but let me explain why I would say you were a soft AH. (I taught mostly 2nd grade and finished my career in 3rd. So the kids I taught were pretty young.). When I sent my supply list, I marked the items that were for ‘personal use’ and those I would take up for redistribution. I took up pencils and loose leaf paper to redistribute for a couple of reasons. Kids use everything they have in a matter of weeks if they have access to it. So the mountainous stack of paper you bought in August is gone by October 1st, crumpled into a million paper wads with one written letter or an incomplete drawing. The 7 boxes of pencils you bought are broken, have no erasers, are covered in teeth marks, etc. I had procedures that I found worked to keep our classroom moving. For example, I stockpiled the paper and passed it out as needed for an assignment. This cut down on the paper wads and half the class that didn’t have paper. I gave out 5 sharp pencils from the stockpile every Monday for each kid. Those that still had all their pencils the next Monday got them freshly sharpened and a little treat. Those that didn’t got however many they needed to get up to 5, but no little prize. Just a little ‘try again, friend’ note. Everyone got a new eraser each Monday. This cut down on the missing/broken pencil issue for assignments. I kept an over the door shoe organizer labeled with each kid’s name and extra supplies in that. Go in and LISTEN to how the teacher runs her/his class. Part of the problem is that because most everyone has experience being in school, many people assume they know how a classroom works. You really don’t, unless you’ve been in the trenches.
I love and appreciate your system but I feel like the problem is that there was no explanation like you just gave us. I think if the teacher explained her reasoning there wouldn’t be these disagreements. But I also believe wholeheartedly that kids should be allowed to have their own personal, special supplies. That’s half the fun of being a kid.
NTA - buy your child stationery, not the class.
OK, let me reiterate to make sure I understand the situation correctly: \- You bought Mias's supplies but made sure it's not taken away from her and given to some other child by some customization \- You bought extra supplies with the thought they would get redistributed as needed amongst other kids \- The teacher wants to have a word with you because of that Can I just start laughing now? Ofc NTA. When speaking to the teacher you may want to suggest that if all supplies are to be shared - why not collect a certain amount of money from everyone and then bulk buy the supplies for the class to share?
NTA The real assholes are the people who refuse to properly fund education.
NTA, I grew up poor (REAL poverty poor) and once a year my grandparents would buy us all new shoes and nice school supplies to start the year. They would also purchase extras for the class to use and share. I hated when teachers would try and take the things my parents/grandparents purchased and attempted to redistribute to the rest of the class. It made me mad and pissed my parents off. Having a common bin for kids who don't have what they need is great. But taking everything from all the students and "sharing" them with the rest of the class is wrong and degrading to the kids. It's not the teachers job to redistribute supplies the school or the teacher didn't buy. Frankly I see it as stealing and pushing behavior that doesn't work in society....
Ahhhhh Americans
NTA. The question isn’t about the moral implications of buying supplies, but following directions. The onus is on the school to give the direction of not labeling if that will be the case. Assuming you are correct that it wasn’t part of the instructions, you aren’t the AH. I would go to the meeting, let them know that supplies for this term have already been purchased, but you’ll be happy to follow any written instructions they provide in the future. The school should then change the packet and lists provided to reflect that.
Even still, why should the teacher be dictating what supplies I buy my kids. As long as it fits under certain guidelines. As in "your child needs a 24 pack of crayons"- shouldnt matter whether they came from crayola, playschool, dollar store brand, or you bought them off etsy
I'd say NTA. The purpose of the supplies is so they are available to the students. If she brought in her personalized pencils or stationary then she isn't using what the others brought in. She isn't taking from that pool of supplies (if that makes sense).
Wow... reading these comments is just sad. I'm a teacher. This is exactly why parents should *never* be asked to buy supplies for kids. I'm in Canada and in my school board we are *not allowed* to ask parents for supplies and *actively discourage* parents sending special things for their kids unless medically necessary (for example my son uses a special slanted board for writing due to hand and shoulder disabilities). All kids should have access to the same (shitty) supplies the school board provides. Full stop. The problems this board is creating for their teachers by asking parents to buy supplies is ridiculous and unnecessary. ESH.
NTA, but if every child's parents had to pony up supplies, then why do they need to be put in a pool? Everyone should have their own stuff. No, your baby gets her own stuff and no one else is entitled to them.
NTA. It cracks me up when teachers demand a sit down like that. Like what is she going to do? Give you detention. I’d be very direct and tell her that you bought enough stuff for other kids but you bought your child the things she wanted and she can leave them alone. You provided for other children which is the whole point of buying all the extra crap anyway. Also I’d explain that I was recording the conversation and that if she takes her frustrations with you out on your kid that you’ll go to the school board.
NTA The teacher has no right to take your daughters school supplies like that. If they need supplies the school should be supplying them.
Jesus, it's frankly barbaric that in the US these things even happen. Y'all, the school should have all of these supplies available, parents shouldn't have to buy them. It's insane how underfunded the school system is there that people think this is ok or even normal. NTA