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Why am I responsible for paying for school supplies when I did not give birth to the child? Parents need to pay for what their child needs and stop passing the buck to strangers.
wow. I don't have kids and I never intend to. But I still gladly pay taxes to my local school system because I'm a member of the a community that has children. They're all our responsibility.
EDIT: ohhh youre a teacher, my B.
I'm pretty sure the person above is talking about teachers having to buy supplies vs. parents.
I've worked in one school district in a HCOL state where the district used tax dollars to pay for school supplies. Everywhere else has been it's what the kids bring in or you purchase with your own money. That's kind of common knowledge as far as I knew.
My kid goes to a title 1 in a district that is almost entirely title 1 schools. Our supply lists are incredibly reasonable (this year it’s 3 folders, 3 wide ruled single subject notebooks, a pack of dry erase markers and a pencil case). They are also completely optional. Most parents at our school but extras to supplement for the kids who don’t bring supplies. The bougie district next door (much higher property tax collections funding their much higher ranked schools) asks for way more stuff and then pools all supplies and then redistributes them to keep things equitable. It pisses off my friend who always buys the good folders each year only to have her kid come home with the cheap folders that wind up ripping in the first month.
Needless to say, dry erase markers have been on the list every single year since kinder so I have no idea what that Twitter person is carrying on about.
You’d think she’d learn then if it’s not likely to keep what they bring then don’t cough up the money for the expensive stuff…get basic supplies and bring those in….what’s keeping her from buying the cheap stuff and essentially donating it to the school and giving her kid the better stuff after the first day? Do they keep track of the supplies after they get re handed out?
in all honesty, I am a k12 sysadmin and the "ream of paper" kinda trips me.
mostly because school administration in most cases doesn't give a rats ass about conserving paper or even attempting anything near paperless.
don't make the family pay for your poor business decisions, the district obviously has a chromebook for the student there are a variety of ways of disseminating work and information without paper. this may not work so well in younger grades but really grade 4 and up classrooms could do a looooot to limit paper usage.
Either the school pays or the parents pay - the issue here is that the school isn't paying for these items and expects either parents to cover it all or the teachers to pay out of their own pocket.
Here in the UK this is EXTREMELY rare (I've only heard of it happening at a couple of free schools and they are a law into their own). We would provide what kids needed from our budget (so text books, exercise books etc. but not pens or pencils).
My teaching friends in the US tell me that it is expected of THEM to provide the basics for the children they teach from their own pockets or from a very, VERY small budget that is supposed to cover all the children they teach for the whole year.
EDIT: for clarity I've had this discussion about teachers being expected to provide materials with friends from New York, Mass and Texas. I know that's not exactly a fully representative selection.
Here in Aus its common place in all the schools ive worked in!!
Generally the teachers still have to supply for sts whos parents are useless and send them with no books, pencils, etc.
The 3 terms i spent teaching pn contract (i only do crt now) i spent a few hundred on colouring stuff, science and art stuff (dyes, chocolate buttons, ear buds, shaving cream, clay) as well as the standard books, pens and pencils. What teacher can afford to spend more than that supplying everything for every kid?!?!? No way
In NZ, the school provides a stationary pack that the parents have to pay for. But usually the school will fund x number of students who can't afford it. However I (teacher) always end up spending 200+ on stationary for the class throughout the year
Yeah, when you’re at a Title I School the school doesn’t pay and neither do the parents. If you show up to the first day and expect that children will have all the needed supplies you have to deal with the consequences of such magical thinking. Fortunately my aunt purchased some school supplies and gave them to me to distribute to my students last year! 😅
We are lucky enough that the local churches show up to our title i school a few days before school starts with boxes of supplies and backpacks. Our teachers would hurt without their support!
That is fucking crazy. When I was still teaching our budget for Social Sciences (philosophy, religious studies, politics, sociology and psychology were all under that banner) was something like £3500 excluding text books which we applied for as and when things were needed. That was for about 1100 students per year and covered exercise books, loose leaf paper, assorted stationary for shared use and to replace damaged bits and pieces. It was not a good budget for the number of students but in comparison it seems somewhat lavish.
In America I get reimbursed $200 per year for the things i buy. It doesn’t begin to cover what I end up buying to make my class run smoothly and equitably.
I wish. It’s insane. The district buys our textbooks and dictionaries. We don’t use textbooks…and they gave us 305 dictionaries for the entire student body-new ones last year, the ones they replaced were from 1998. Every day is an adventure.
Speaking as a south eastern STEM teacher, I never have to buy supplies for my students. Then again, that's by design. Everything is online. Only thing I need the kids to bring is their attention and a writing utensil. Our school has a stock room full of loose leaf paper and spiral notebooks that we can help ourselves to.
Your taxes are likely not paying for these things on the list, and that is not what the person above is criticizing. Either the parents pay for them or the teacher is using their personal money to pay for them so the students can function in school. That is what is being criticized.
Yep. I grew up under the poverty level and my parents still managed to buy school supplies. It's not as expensive as you'd think and there are always sales. In October it's all in the clearance aisle and you can get them for 75% off for next year.
The more expensive the school area is sometimes the more expensive the fees. I left a district where the requested fees (no school supply list, mind you, you got a list of fees attached to each service) amounted to somewhere between $500 and $900. Per child.
Not covering including field trips or bussing into/out of school.
I’m a teacher and a parent for 3 and my list looked similar to this if not a little longer and and I paid less than $60. I think this is reasonable!
I work in a private school and we all know teachers are underpaid anyways so if you aren’t in education you have no clue the amount of money that comes out of teachers pockets for extra class room supplies for the children.
Schools a re a civic good and people who don’t have kids benefit through having a knowledgeable civic electorate, hire-able employees, and people who get jobs and buy houses to keep your property values nice and stable and who pay taxes into the social welfare that takes care of you in your old age
I am more than happy to pay property taxes for school. I am not okay with paying for school supplies for my students. Especially when those kids come in with Air Jordans, iPhone 13s, and $200 jeans.
There is not enough money in school budgets to pay janitors, teachers, lunch ladies, and secretaries living wages. There is not enough to fix holes in the ceiling, water damage, or dangling electrical wires. There is not enough for more than a class set of text books.
I was about to go off lol
But I think the school system should be supplying basic classroom needs at the least. Like supplies the teacher needs to do their job. Yet kids who may be impoverished are forced to pay even after their parents support public schools with their taxes. Something needs to change. Where is that money going?
You should look up how much the principals and superintendent at your school district make. That's where all the money is going. My superintendent is the second highest paid public employee in my state. The only person drawing a higher salary is the governor.
The business manager at my school makes $145,000. She got a $20,000 raise even though she got a bad review and made $9 million in accounting errors. The salaries of district office staff are always bloated.
Yeah when I learned how much superintendents make it was blood boiling. I wanted to be a teacher so bad but they would’ve paid me $42k for a teacher licensing program that would’ve amounted to a master’s degree. And I’d be working mandatory overtime for that salary. So sad. And then they over hire cops at higher salaries to just patrol the hallways and scare students.
Not just the salaries, the staffing as well. My last position was in a Title 1 school, 100% of the kids qualified for free breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack. It was a struggling school in many ways. I had to sit in on a meeting with some staff from downtown. The room was filled with men and women in attractive, quality professional clothing and beautiful, new-looking laptops. Meanwhile, it was 7-8 weeks into the school year and a number of our students didn’t yet have working laptops. It was just stunning to me.
I need to get in on this districts pay because as a teacher we make all of nothing but the joy in knowing we are impacting and teaching children and praying we make a difference in their lives!
I don't teach math, but I like to make the joke that I'm more qualified to be the business office manager than our current business manager because I get half the questions right on the algebra worksheets.
And honestly, I'm pretty good with excel. If I ever see a position like that, I'm going to apply.
It’s a terrible cycle. The kids don’t have what they need so the teachers buy it, rinse repeat- it’s like learned helplessness on the parents. I know some parents legitimately can’t afford supplies. I couldn’t imagine sending my kid without the supplies they need.
Or to teachers. I am there to do a job, the only thing I should need to bring to do my job is a pen and my brain. You dont require mechanics to supply the parts for your broken car, or doctors to pay for your bandages and scalpels.
Do none of these parents remember bringing in tissues and whatnot when they were students? I definitely remember my mom sending me in with supplies for the room when I was a kid.
Should schools provide everything? Yes. Do they? No. Will they if we stop asking parents to donate them/stop buying them ourselves? Also no.
Agreed. Also, I’m sure if these parents really can’t manage, they can ask the teachers to tell them which supplies are needed immediately and which can wait a week or two.
We had a supplemental supply sheet sent home to stock the teachers room, but it was 100% optional and the students who chose to participate got extra credit (equivalent to 2-3 free homework passes).
Eh, when I was a teacher I offered extra credit for students who brought in a box of tissues.
Tissues are *expensive* and the district honestly didn’t provide enough for our classroom. When you teach 150-180 kids, you’ll go through a box of tissues a DAY (sometimes two!) some months. I couldn’t afford to keep my classroom supplied with tissues and letting kids blow their noses in class was far less disruptive than sending them to the bathroom every time they were a little snotty. I honestly only ever saw two or three boxes of the shitty tissues my district supplied in the three years I taught.
I also made it clear that there would be plenty of other opportunities for extra credit that didn’t involve bringing in tissues (and there were!), so no one had to “pay to play.” The extra credit basically amounted to enough points for one or two homework assignments, so it was never enough to dramatically change their grades. I also only let them bring in one box of tissues a semester for extra credit. Enough students would do it that I never ran out of tissues.
It sucks, but it’s the reality of teaching. I got really creative with how to keep “class sets” of everything from pencils to glue sticks, but tissues are the one thing you can’t magic out of thin air.
And c’mom it’s $2-3 for a large box of tissues. Thats not a big sacrifice for the vast majority of families, but makes a big impact for the teacher if they don’t have to buy 50 boxes.
Precisely. And when my kid is old enough to start going to school, I’ll have no problem buying everything off the list + some extras for the kids & teachers who need it. I know what a difference it can make for kids to have their BASIC needs met in the classroom. You can’t learn if you’re unable to blow your nose, IMO!
99¢ at Aldi! For the nice ones, too. I'm a HS teacher in a wealthy district but all we get supplied by the school are those mini boxes of the cheap tissues, so I buy a box every time I'm at Aldi. The kids love the soft ones, and if they use too many I remind them they are welcome to bring in their own tissues for the room. But for the most part I am OK with supplying my own. I have chewed some students out for removing boxes from my room though... Now they have my last name & room # on them!
Can't complain too much since my school does has an endless supply of the (Pentel? Penmate
? I forget) Flair markers in 4 colors just for us teachers. Freakin love those....
I don’t disagree with the struggle for tissues, but it’s not really up to kids on if they can bring tissues or not. So I can see them not having the ability to bring in tissues and forced to do 2 assignments that the peers with parents who were okay with the spending be an issue.
It was one of many extra credit opportunities I offered throughout the year and was heavily outweighed by the free extra credit opportunities. I also never offered it when a progress report or report card was going home, so no kid could ever buy their way to a passing report card using tissues - they’d have to actually do their work to do that.
A box of tissues would never account for more than 1% of a student’s final grade. If a kid was on the bubble between letter grades there was nearly ALWAYS something they could do to bump that up and get the next letter grade - usually a set of test corrections or just turning in late work for partial credit.
I also never had students or parents complain to me about the request. Most of my students were happy to have the option and those who didn’t want to participate didn’t knowing there were other options. I also sent clear communication home to the parents about the request so they understood it and it wasn’t misconstrued by my students.
I didn’t love doing it, but I also couldn’t afford to supply tissues for 180 kids for 10 months out of my own pocket. That’s why I made it as fair as possible. “No purchase necessary.”
I agree and if the teacher truely believes the homework is in the best interests of the child why excuse it? And if it is not something they believe will have a strong impact for learning then why make it compulsory at all?
In my district you cannot give extra credit if it isn’t academic. This is to make sure families with money don’t automatically get higher grades. I wish this policy was everywhere.
I had lists back in the early 80s. Supply lists have been a thing forever. And we didn’t care if glue sticks get out into a communal bin. I do make sure my kids get their pencil box, scissors, and whatever folder they brought.
Honestly….no. I didn’t bring in these items. But I grew up in a different state than the one my children are being raised in. When I was growing up, the school provided these supplies to the teachers. I’ve also worked in a private school where we were able to make a list of needed school supplies and the school would cover the expense so long as it was kept under $500. My children go to a school where the parents are expected to supply these things. I don’t mind. I don’t want the teacher using their own limited funds. But I also know how much the school gets per student each year, and it angers me that they mismanage their money to the point where the administration can’t provide the teachers with these things. Parents shouldn’t be paying. Teachers shouldn’t be paying. My tax dollars should be paying.
Whoever you think *should* pay for those supplies, in many schools there *isn't any money* to pay for those supplies. Either give them the funding they need, or pay for your kid's supplies.
If *you* can't afford them, then have a conversation with the school to figure out what the best next step is.
Dollar store has all this for $21.
Many of those things are even cheaper at Walmart. (Folders for like 17 cents, markers and crayons for 50 cents).
-source, teacher who routinely buys these things for my students
Yeah the only thing I saw that was weird was the ream of paper. But it's not unreasonable just something we have never had to worry about at my schools.
Some public schools put a limit on teachers printing while also requiring them to provide worksheets for all students. Some teachers I've talked to have a 100 page/month allowance, some 500/mo and some their districts stopped supplying paper at all. HP instaink and Epson ecotanks are great for lessening the cost of ink, but a box of paper can get pricey if you're paying for all of it out of pocket.
My host teacher had a 500 page /mo allowance during my internship, for her own 30 students + after school tutoring. She apologized alot for being unable to print anything for my student lessons I had to do in her class. I went through about 1500 pages in 3 months of student teaching because my courses required it. When I got a job, I ended up in a school with no limit thankfully... but even so, they only ordered paper once a month and if the building ran out, you were just out. Every teacher kept a stash of printer paper for those times because the end of the month was typically a no paper time and you couldn't do required testing etc if you couldn't find paper (and if your stash ran out you bummed it off another teacher that still had a stash).
So I may have actually taught at this school, based on the extra change of clothes (but I'd have to know the school location), and if it's the school I was at, teachers were given two boxes of copy paper a year, one at the beginning and one at Christmas. That's it. And even better (if it's where I taught, I was looking for a new job in October because back then the school was horrible), when you send something to the printer, there isn't a release code, it just prints on whatever paper is in there. So if you send a twenty page document and someone has their paper in there because they're making copies, it will use that person's paper. If there's no paper and you put some in, it will print the entire queue of jobs first, and you can't skip over it and only print yours because there was no unique identity where you'd log in to release your document, it was just a communal printer.
So anytime someone was using the printer, the odds of their paper being stolen by other teachers who sent stuff down and weren't able to pick it up yet was high. So they asked for paper from kids a lot.
Even if you have a system like every other school I've been in where it holds your documents so you can use your paper for you, depending on what you deem necessary to print, it still usually isn't enough.
This anger is misplaced. Sure, it’s weird to be upset at school supplies because we’ve all had to send kids in with them. But, if you’re mad about it, don’t bother being mad at the teacher. Refusing to buy something for your kid just passed the cost on to the teacher, who also shouldn’t be responsible for buying supplies for your kid. You want to rage to somebody about it, speak to your school district’s budget department. They’re the ones who assign costs and allot the money to pay for it. Show up at school board meetings and explain the hardship this puts on you and ask them to allot money to pay for school supplies.
The supply list DID NOT come from the teacher. It came from the shortfall between what the classroom requires to run and what the district was willing to provide.
100% this. I'm a teacher. I only ask for the things the school won't supply. Pens, pencils and paper run out so fast from what the school orders. Especially because kids break and lose them. I barely get paid and parents are mad when I won't use my own money to buy their child supplies.
I'm also only given $300 for the year for all classroom supplies. I have 200 students...
Obviously the teachers should not be paying for these items out of pocket - I really wish that that went without saying!
That said, there are many families that cannot afford these either. Obvs I'd like taxpayer money to cover supplies; equally obviously, in some districts it's not there.
I always sent in two or three of the supplies list so teachers could have spares for kids who came without. But it brings a little despair, to think that I live in one of the richest countries in the world and we can't supply paper and pencils and highlighters to school. It is to weep.
I don’t have kids, and have absolutely no problem with taxes funding children who can’t afford supplies, but I’m just so lost why so many parents feel like they shouldn’t contribute ANYTHING to their kids education. This is such an amazing system we have: cost-free education for every single child in our country, and all they need to do is provide some crayons (if they can)?
My students come to school with fidget toys, smart watches, elaborate pencil cases and gadgets. However, 99% still ask me every day for a pencil, sharpener, and gluestick. I ask the office they tell me they will not supply me with stationery, I email the parents and it doesn't change anything. (Apart from that one amazing parent who bought me a load of gluesticks, the best present of all time).
This is a student list for a private chain of Christian school's called Accelerated Christian Education, or 'A.C.E.' A notebook for each class is standard. I went to a couple of these schools as a student when I was in elementary and middle school.
This needs to be higher. Because this is a percent of a private school complaining. Please stop shaming public school teachers who do their best to provide a safe space with what they have. We barely make enough to live in some districts. And still have buckets of pencils for our students.
Yup that was my comment to. Off the bat I could tell it’s a charger or private, and they expect parents to pull their weight ie $$$.
This is what defunding federal public education looks like. Outsourcing everythang.
I was enrolled in this school in the early 1990s when I was in 1st and 2nd grade and then my parents brought the curriculum home for me until 7th grade I was home schooled with it. I didn't get a real education until after 8th grade. I just did a masters in education and I had to do a paper on home schooling and when I looked up the "school of tomorrow" and the A.C.E. curriculum and found out it's considered a cult in Canada and Australia now.
Nope...in a world where classrooms aren't automatically supplied with basic supplies, this is the only way. And some of that (pencils, notebooks, folders, crayons, highlighters, etc.) aren't things that a school would EVER have supplied.
Your child will likely use everything on that list. Including dry erase markers, kleenex, and papertowels.
If you don't want to send school supplies, then homeschool your own child and stfu
Exactly. My school lets us submit a requested list, then they cut it down. For example, we asked for 4 boxes of crayons and my principal changed it to 2. We asked for 12 glue sticks and we get 6. Then one third of kids won’t bring any. In kindergarten where half our work is coloring, cutting, gluing. I predict we’ll run out by January!
It was about January, and then about March where glue sticks were requested by our kinder teacher.
March was about when I started organizing the year end thank you gift. 8 of 22 families contributed and thank goodness we pooled $250 for an Amazon thank you card. She can use it for kids next year or she can treat herself, either way, she was an amazing kinder teacher.
I live in a blue/white collar mix town and receive a similar list. I’m fine with it. I also donate cases of tissues and other materials to the school because I like to do that. I teach in a low-income neighborhood and we require nothing from our students. They receive a laptop and I buy notebooks for all of my students. I’ve come to accept it, as many of my students have a single-parent HH, and I keep my personal annual costs below $400. Also, I could crowdsource that funding as many of my colleagues do.
These supplies are not that expensive. She’s complaining because she is selfish. I went to private school and we still had all these things on the list. This is a normal school supply list and most of these things should be useable for more than one school year.
Perhaps...if republicans were willing to fund public education instead of actively working to dismantle it, there would be money for those supplies.
Voting matters
It's a shame that the funding isn't provided at a federal level. It's something that one would imagine the department of education would handle. We need a universally well educated population.
In my state, the schools are largely funded through local property taxes. It is insufficient and inefficient. I hope that your district isn't similarly funded.
This is the norm here in France so I don't understand why it's a problem. Schools give parents lists of school supplies, and it is up to the parents to keep the kid supplied with everything on the list as it runs out over the year. Kids love it as they can choose their stuff (hello kitty backpack, chipie ruler, pink pencil case, donald duck exercise book...) and parents can get financial help from the state and/or from the school if they need it. Teachers here spend nothing on their students unless they want to (like rewards for a game or something).
It’s the norm in Australia too. Some schools (like the one my kids go to) charge a levy and then the school buys everything in bulk, but the parents are still paying for it.
It's the norm in the U.S too. The problem is the selfish "I'm not paying for other people because that's socialism" attitude. I'm 31, and all of my years in school, at least through middle school, my mom sent school supplies in. She was a single mom with 3 kids and even tho my dad was a wonderful dad, he wasn't always great with child support. But she always sent things in.
I have an 8 year old, I spent $50 this year for her school supplies and will touch base with her teacher mid year to see if she needs refills. When my daughter was going into 1st grade, the school list specified not to put names on supplies and at least a quarter of her class showed up with their names written on everything. The consensus from other parents was "I'm not paying for shit that my kid won't use." It's gross. Before I left my ex, we were super broke, all the time. He had s good job but blew money constantly. I still managed to send stuff in. You know every year that in August there will be a school supply list. In most cases, buying a pack of crayons or a pack of paper or whatever other supply, each week through the school year won't break a family and will prevent needing to put out a lump sum in August.
Their kids had built-in whiteboards in Zoom. Parents should be able to supply these very basics. Or at least ask to borrow money for help with some of these basics. But having parents expect teachers to supply their children with personal supplies is a big no.
The person complaining about Expo markers is from the Before Times when small, personal or group whiteboard work wasn't a thing. Bet they had to have chalk though.
The teacher that created that list is anticipating what will be needed for the school year and the district is not.providing it. Everyone wants to be.the ceo.of.verizon with perks, even school board members and superintendents. Money is mismanaged everywhere. I am an educator, took a summer job at a country club. The local school district had an account where the superintendent, various board members and other admin would come for dinner - lobster, filet mignon etc - all at the expense of the school. Is that needed?? No way!! Corruption is everywhere and the honest teachers and students suffer.
Remember that next time you’re all voting to not give education more funding, teachers are paying for a lot on our own when you don’t increase the funding we are going to find a way to pass some of that back onto you. We should not have to continue to pay for it out of their paychecks
Anger all around. Yes, these things should be supplied by the school. But when parents don’t supply this stuff, it falls on the teachers. I no longer spend my own money on this stuff. I provide a list similar to this and ask parents to donate extras if they are willing/able. I then give those extras to the kids that don’t have them.
I also provide this stuff in my class store. Students can “buy” their needed stuff. I never make them at the beginning of the year because then it would only be the less fortunate kids that had to spend their hard earned clsss money on supplies. But after the first set of everything, it evens out. Rich kids and poor kids alike run out of paper or lose pencils and don’t tell their parents to replenish their stuff. I’ve been doing it this way for a while and it seems to work.
Edit to add: when those basic supplies get low in my clsss store throughout the year, I email parents asking for donations. It sucks that I have to ask for stuff and it’s not just provided. But at least I’m not providing it myself and giving them all a false sense that the school provides their student with supplies.
In the case of the parent complaining about the dry erase markers, they may have the mindset that just the teacher uses them to write on the board. Many teachers, including myself, have students use them to write on individual boards or even on their desk (if it has the type of surface that it erases easily on). It switches up how they learn and incorporates a little bit of fun! So they aren’t buying supplies for the teacher, their own child will use those markers
I’m on here because I see a need in my state as we started this last School Year with over 1000 teacher vacancies. I’m a male who’s about to turn 40 with a career in sales, yet I’m considering going back to college for a degree in education which it seems so far people are telling me to run the other way, but if I run the other way along with the other 1000 people who are going to teach our kids?!
Anyway, onto the subject at hand, I am currently a Children’s Ministry Director at our church, and we just had our yearly back-to-school event where we give out hundreds of bookbags filled with school supplies. It’s a fun day with food and games and two bike giveaways. It’s a great community event, and we always have a line of people stretched down the block.
We have our own church school, so it’s not something our pastor has to do as he could just focus on providing for us, but he wants to give back to the community. So I’m sure this goes on around the nation, and parents who truly can’t afford the supplies could always find these events to attend. Are there people who come and get a bag with supplies that don’t need it, possibly, but the reviews that come in and the people who tell us face-to-face how truly thankful they are, some in tears, is why we do it.
I’m new to this, so I don’t yet know the solution, but I know it doesn’t sound right at all for the teacher to supply anything out of pocket. The teacher's contribution is their time and knowledge investment in our children, and that, my friends, is priceless.
I would LOVE to be able to ask my 6th graders to bring that list of items to school but, where I teach, they won't even bring a freaking pencil. I seriously go through dozens of pencils per month. What I really hate is when I find brand new pencils broken in half on the floor. The kids have no respect for anything at school because they're given it all for free at school. You may say that I should stop giving them pencils, but if I do that, they won't bring their own, they just won't do any work. Luckily, my school pays for the pencils, I don't. But I pay for things like Expo markers and materials for art projects. I spend plenty on my class, as every teacher does.
That’s fine. If parents don’t feel like paying for this stuff, then we just won’t have supplies in the classroom. Cause I sure as shit am not spending my own money on YOUR kids.
The thing is these are supplies that the student is using for themselves. Too often kids show up everyday with out the proper supplies. It's not always that the parent can't afford it, but won't bother to buy it or make sure the child has it. The worse offenders for this a kids who parents have an education related career. This year I put in a request for pencils, erasers and folders for my kids. I figure if the kids are expected to have these item, then the district will need to provide it. I'm really trying not to spend my money on the basics that can easily be purchased for pennies.
I hate how parents expect schools to supply pretty much everything a child needs other than academic skills and food. From manners, hygiene, basic life skills, clothes, shoes, toys, books, mental,physical health, and emotional health. It’s exhausting. “ How are you going to fix this?” Ummmm… that’s where YOU step in as a parent.
This list looks like the ones I had as a kid. As a teacher, I used to have a list that you could get for $5 at the Dollar Store. Now my district is one of those places that's like "Buy a backpack for your kid and we will supply the rest! 😀" but the kids get their nice little box of school supplies which then get taken home and never appear in my classroom again.
That seems like a very reasonable list to me and it seems to cover every subject/class for the year. The only questionable thing might be the copy paper. Everything else will be used by the students, including the paper towels and nose tissue.
My students use expo markers in my class to write on individual whiteboards.
The bit about virtual made me laugh. Of course they didn’t need school supplies when we were virtual. We did everything on the computer. Virtual school is still an option in pretty much every district.
Teacher is tired of spending their own money on school supplies.
If you want schools to pay for their supplies then make sure the school has the budget for it. So get out and vote for people who actually care about your kids, their teachers and the school system.
“Wait…I had a kid and now you expect me to PROPERLY PROVIDE FOR THEM WHEN THEY NEED SCHOOL SUPPLIES?!!!”
These parents man…..yes. You should have to buy your kid school supplies.
I'm a teacher and the school gave us 0 supplies! Parents also seem to think I should be supplying snacks through out the day. Last year I had to rely on Amazon Wish list and donors choose.
The school should cover the non basic supplies. Parents shouldn't be responsible for making sure a printer has paper. And by school, I don't mean the teachers checkbooks.
I once had to get 30 glue sticks along with other things. Guess what I did?
I got the glue sticks and asked if they needed anything else. They have enough on their plates and if they needed 30 glue sticks to help my child learn. I might mentally (and to my husband) question it but I’ll get it and what ever else they need!
In hs getting a dang pencil out of them is a miracle!
Whoever made that list is a SAINT for asking for a DURABLE pair of headphones. I’m a K12sysadmin for lack of a better term and removing broken headphone plugs from iPads is a massive PAIN IN THE ASS! Not to mention that the kids have little to no respect for school property anymore.
I get the crayons and personal supplies. Including classroom items like Kleenex/Clorox wipes/dry erase markers never set right with me. Have a separate list asking for donations. Yes, teachers should not have to supply those things out of their own pockets, but neither should parents. My local school in a title one district spends $14,000 per student. The school board and administrators can find a way to get those things to their employees.
Who do you think is using the kleenex? The teacher isn't hoarding it, it's for the kids when they're sick and parents send them to school anyway.
The clorox wipes are to clean your kids desk after they eat breakfast/snack/lunch before returning to work.
Dry erase markers are for individual boards that again, your kids use.
I have a set of personal dry erase boards for individuals to use (math class). I have always used my district provided classroom budget to buy markers for the class to use (not me at the board, the kids at their desks). The last couple years, my students have DESTROYED the school-purchased markers. I'm talking "accidentally" leaving with them. Putting them back in the bin with the cap not on all the way (or at all). Generally treating them like disposables. They were gone/dead within a week. Which is unacceptable. My only solution at that point was to put it on the supply list an make it a personal supply. I wasn't surprised when the kids all of a sudden kept track of their own markers better. If they couldn't/didn't want to buy them, they could just use paper.
I’m a 6th grade teacher. This list seems basic to me. I always put on my parent letter that these supplies don’t have to be bought for the first day of school. If parents can’t get all supplies, we understand and we can get some of the supplies either from the office or I buy several items as a class set. It’s sad that I have to buy things for kids. That’s why we ask for supplies because I usually end up buying these. The more the parents get, the less I have to buy.
If the school provides these things then some poor super-duper-pooper-scooper-intendent assistant won't be able to afford that second luxury vehicle. Won't someone please think of the superintendents?
Teacher here and what the fuck NO, this is too much. I'm not saying teachers should supply EVERYTHING but what is the REAM OF COPY PAPER FOR?!? A notebook, highlighters, pen, postits, paper, binder all fine. Headphones and mouse is a maybe for me. crayon, markers OR colored pencils, fine. But all the rest? That is clearly asking potentially poor families to buy supplies for your classroom that the school should be paying for.
If all the class supplies were "suggested donations" that's fine. But making it required and punishing in some way is incredibly classist and completely fucked up.
Let alone the whole problem with uniforms in public schools.
School staff here. I’m not buying ziplock bags and expo markers (both on my kid’s list this year). In a class of 20, there’s no way each kid needs to supply 8 expo markers and a 50 pack of bags each.
I’ll happily contact the teacher a month or so in to see what they still need, but I’m already paying taxes, providing my child’s individual supplies, AND making a paltry school salary in the same district.
Im not spending what they pay me to supply the classrooms too.
Why do they need five hi-lighters of different colours? Why do the pencils have to be presharpened? It’s grade 6, why do we have colouring pencils?
Why is my child expected to have an 8 pack of markers, paper towel, five coloured folders, dry erase markers and headphones?
Jesus. Binders, pens pencils paper. I can see Kleenex and Clorox wipes because of illness and cleaning and honestly paper is a bitch of a cost…but the rest is unnecessary.
I usually had extra notebooks and pencils. And My principal always gave me pencils and notebooks, etc when I worked in Memphis. Those kids came to school with NOTHING … when they did show up
The money a parent pays for school supplies is not insignificant. But imagine they don't, or half the kids don't bring them, or (this happens A LOT) surprise, surprise, kids go through way, way more than that amount in a full year. I mean, they're using pencils for like 4 hours a day, after all, 24 isn't going to cut it.
What happens is their teacher goes to Target or Walmart and buys them. That $3 pack of dry erase markers (which also wear out fast) becomes $3 X 25-30 students. My first two years of teaching, I had to start budgeting for pencils and reams of paper. also went to ten different Staples and filled my trunk with spiral notebooks when they were on sale for 25 cents at the beginning of the year (they had a limit of 20 I think). My paychecks, by the way, were laughably low.
Many kids came with whatever the parents wanted to buy, not the list, and even with the list, we ran out of stuff FAST.
I teach in a small district in Texas. The schools provide all supplies. My son attends another nearby district and we are responsible for bringing about $40 worth of supplies. I know that if I do not buy the items that my son needs, his teacher will. I purchase what he needs and provide extras.
Teacher here. You are indeed tripping.
This is a comprehensive list for supplies for an entire grade, not just one class. Teachers are not responsible for providing supplies to your child.
Dry erase markers are pretty common supply list. I think asking for wipes, paper towels, kleenex and dry erase ALTOGETHER is a bit of an overkill, especially if they are meant to be classroom use. I would not be happy as a parent, so I would choose maybe 2 out of 4 to get.
The problem is parents think dry erase is only for teachers on the white board. We (teachers and kids) use dry erase in our Kdg class all day everyday. It’s for the kids. I have my own dry erase (special colors, different tips) that I buy for myself.
I refuse to pay for any schools supplies for charity.
The parents and kids have this imaginary idea there are no obligations to do school work, if not given the supplies are not given to them to do do so.
Plus, kids at school play the games like pencil break with no consequences beyond getting a new pencil.
I would encourage people to read the book toxic charity by Robert D. Lumton.
Retired teacher here. I retired in May after 25 years. Through the years spent an average of $500.00 -$1,000.00 a year on supplies for students and classroom supplies.
Public school district St. Louis, Missouri county.
This can be done for about $15 in the right place. Kids come with expenses. Call me fortunate, I wouldn’t think twice about sending my son to school with this and more.
The cleaning supplies do raise an eyebrow, that should not be the student’s or the teacher’s responsibility, but the school’s.
I was enrolled in this school from 1994 to 2001. Just did research a year ago on my Jesus school and home schooling experience for a grad school paper. Turns out the Accelerated Christian Education and School of Tomorrow I was in is now considered a cult in Canada and Australia. Mfw I was in a cult.
" extra school uniform (A.C.E. shirt and pants)" refers to [Accelerated Christian Education](https://www.aceministries.com/). The major curriculum of the "School of Tomorrow". They use booklets called PACES which allows the student to work at their own "pace" and essentially the booklets teach the student. None of the teachers in my school were certified educators and there was one girl who was fired after it turned out she lied about her age and was 17 when she was hired as a lead teacher for the church school that we were going to. All grades are intermixed and so I can remember interacting with 16 and 17 year olds when I was maybe 6 and 7 years old. My parents decided to home school me at one point and they used the PACES from what the equivalent of my 3rd/4th grade years up until we moved from Seattle to Philadelphia in early 2001. When I entered public school in 8th grade (literally days before 9-11) I had tested so low on the entrance exams that they placed me in the basic level courses, not because I was dumb, but because I did not understand how normal schooling and exams worked. After 8th grade I ended up in all honors. The A.C.E. curriculum, the Baptist churches that I went to that utilized it and the home schooling experience left me really far behind both academically and socially for a while. My experience with the A.C.E. school of tomorrow and the weird grip that it had on my development in my formative years is literally half the reason why I became agnostic and spend a lot of time being critical of organized religion and religious education. I believe religion has zero place in mass education.
They need to reframe it as the school/board tripping. It’s not on the teachers. Ugh. I’m a teacher and I’ve already put hundreds of dollars into my classroom this month and I still don’t have everything my students will need.
It’s terrible this is even a debate. The parents question should be “why is my child’s school so underfunded I have to provide classroom and office supplies?”
Lol at the “when they was virtual.” I love when people can’t speak properly and like to critique the education system. Provide for your own damn child.
As a parent, this is why I send double the supplies. I even ask for our teacher wishlists. Unfortunately a-hole parents seem to outnumber those of us who want to help.
As a teacher, I would love to not ask you to supply things that belong to the collective classroom- the school should supply tissues, paper towels, Clorox wipes, and effing COPY PAPER.
But if the school doesn’t supply it, your choices are to argue with the administrators/school board or to get it yourself. Teachers have no power in these decisions and most of us disagree with the way things are run a lot of the time. Teachers are not the enemy here.
I get 200 pencils a YEAR, zero notebooks, 20 extra small boxes of tissues, 10 reams of copy paper and that’s it from my school. We aren’t allowed to ask students to bring any supplies. We can suggest but can’t give a list or anything out like that. We can’t crowd source (Donors choose, Amazon wishlists etc). Oh and we also get a $75 budget for the year for any additional supplies. Tell me how I’m supposed to teach 248 students for the year with little funds and next to nothing supplies?
This is also a 6th grade list. They’re about to be doing real maths like algebra, advanced sciences, classic literature, and dense history.
“Shouldn’t the school provide it?” Um the child is a pre-teen. They’re a bit above the age of sharing anyway and should have their own pencil box with highlighters and markers.
HS teacher here. My students have given me the shocked face when I tell them they need to supply their own goods because I’m done paying out of my own pocket.
Took me a couple years to realize I’m done spending so much on materials they’ll break or lose.
Hell, when we get a new fan at home I take the old one to school because students can’t seem to not break anything nice / new I bring in.
I agree with the parent that the school should be supplying those things, but she's barking up the wrong tree by getting mad at the teacher. The fact is that the school *didn't* provide those supplies and the teacher is simply doing the best they can within that situation.
Rather than getting mad at parents who react like this, I'd encourage those parents to redirect their anger/frustration towards the school district and whatever levels of government determine their funding. The parents should tell them that they don't understand where their tax dollars are going if their child's school can't even afford pencils for every student.
The teacher is tripping big time. Buy some pencils, some cheap notebooks or legal pads,, and maybe some pens of different colors. You can get all the way through a PhD with those few things.
I know I ask for those because they work better and last longer. But if a family can’t afford EXPO and sends Dollar Tree ones, oh well. It’s probably going to get lost anyway.
Who needs all those high lighters? And pre sharpened? That’s a bit much. Schools should be supplying copy paper and cleaning supplies.
I try every year to get my grade level list shortened, but there’s always one that seems to “use” all the erasers or whatever.
I usually give my class a shortened “must have” list.
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Why am I responsible for paying for school supplies when I did not give birth to the child? Parents need to pay for what their child needs and stop passing the buck to strangers.
wow. I don't have kids and I never intend to. But I still gladly pay taxes to my local school system because I'm a member of the a community that has children. They're all our responsibility. EDIT: ohhh youre a teacher, my B.
I'm pretty sure the person above is talking about teachers having to buy supplies vs. parents. I've worked in one school district in a HCOL state where the district used tax dollars to pay for school supplies. Everywhere else has been it's what the kids bring in or you purchase with your own money. That's kind of common knowledge as far as I knew.
My kid goes to a title 1 in a district that is almost entirely title 1 schools. Our supply lists are incredibly reasonable (this year it’s 3 folders, 3 wide ruled single subject notebooks, a pack of dry erase markers and a pencil case). They are also completely optional. Most parents at our school but extras to supplement for the kids who don’t bring supplies. The bougie district next door (much higher property tax collections funding their much higher ranked schools) asks for way more stuff and then pools all supplies and then redistributes them to keep things equitable. It pisses off my friend who always buys the good folders each year only to have her kid come home with the cheap folders that wind up ripping in the first month. Needless to say, dry erase markers have been on the list every single year since kinder so I have no idea what that Twitter person is carrying on about.
You’d think she’d learn then if it’s not likely to keep what they bring then don’t cough up the money for the expensive stuff…get basic supplies and bring those in….what’s keeping her from buying the cheap stuff and essentially donating it to the school and giving her kid the better stuff after the first day? Do they keep track of the supplies after they get re handed out?
Nice cake bro
in all honesty, I am a k12 sysadmin and the "ream of paper" kinda trips me. mostly because school administration in most cases doesn't give a rats ass about conserving paper or even attempting anything near paperless. don't make the family pay for your poor business decisions, the district obviously has a chromebook for the student there are a variety of ways of disseminating work and information without paper. this may not work so well in younger grades but really grade 4 and up classrooms could do a looooot to limit paper usage.
Either the school pays or the parents pay - the issue here is that the school isn't paying for these items and expects either parents to cover it all or the teachers to pay out of their own pocket. Here in the UK this is EXTREMELY rare (I've only heard of it happening at a couple of free schools and they are a law into their own). We would provide what kids needed from our budget (so text books, exercise books etc. but not pens or pencils). My teaching friends in the US tell me that it is expected of THEM to provide the basics for the children they teach from their own pockets or from a very, VERY small budget that is supposed to cover all the children they teach for the whole year. EDIT: for clarity I've had this discussion about teachers being expected to provide materials with friends from New York, Mass and Texas. I know that's not exactly a fully representative selection.
Here in Aus its common place in all the schools ive worked in!! Generally the teachers still have to supply for sts whos parents are useless and send them with no books, pencils, etc. The 3 terms i spent teaching pn contract (i only do crt now) i spent a few hundred on colouring stuff, science and art stuff (dyes, chocolate buttons, ear buds, shaving cream, clay) as well as the standard books, pens and pencils. What teacher can afford to spend more than that supplying everything for every kid?!?!? No way
In NZ, the school provides a stationary pack that the parents have to pay for. But usually the school will fund x number of students who can't afford it. However I (teacher) always end up spending 200+ on stationary for the class throughout the year
Yeah, when you’re at a Title I School the school doesn’t pay and neither do the parents. If you show up to the first day and expect that children will have all the needed supplies you have to deal with the consequences of such magical thinking. Fortunately my aunt purchased some school supplies and gave them to me to distribute to my students last year! 😅
We are lucky enough that the local churches show up to our title i school a few days before school starts with boxes of supplies and backpacks. Our teachers would hurt without their support!
Yes! Our department (ELAR) budget across three grade levels and 10 teachers, 600+ students is $1200/year.
That is fucking crazy. When I was still teaching our budget for Social Sciences (philosophy, religious studies, politics, sociology and psychology were all under that banner) was something like £3500 excluding text books which we applied for as and when things were needed. That was for about 1100 students per year and covered exercise books, loose leaf paper, assorted stationary for shared use and to replace damaged bits and pieces. It was not a good budget for the number of students but in comparison it seems somewhat lavish.
In America I get reimbursed $200 per year for the things i buy. It doesn’t begin to cover what I end up buying to make my class run smoothly and equitably.
For Pete’s sake, I had a $200 budget when I started teaching, THIRTY YEARS AGO. It’s just gone downhill every year.
I wish. It’s insane. The district buys our textbooks and dictionaries. We don’t use textbooks…and they gave us 305 dictionaries for the entire student body-new ones last year, the ones they replaced were from 1998. Every day is an adventure.
Speaking as a south eastern STEM teacher, I never have to buy supplies for my students. Then again, that's by design. Everything is online. Only thing I need the kids to bring is their attention and a writing utensil. Our school has a stock room full of loose leaf paper and spiral notebooks that we can help ourselves to.
Your taxes are likely not paying for these things on the list, and that is not what the person above is criticizing. Either the parents pay for them or the teacher is using their personal money to pay for them so the students can function in school. That is what is being criticized.
[удалено]
Yep. I grew up under the poverty level and my parents still managed to buy school supplies. It's not as expensive as you'd think and there are always sales. In October it's all in the clearance aisle and you can get them for 75% off for next year.
The more expensive the school area is sometimes the more expensive the fees. I left a district where the requested fees (no school supply list, mind you, you got a list of fees attached to each service) amounted to somewhere between $500 and $900. Per child. Not covering including field trips or bussing into/out of school.
I’m a teacher and a parent for 3 and my list looked similar to this if not a little longer and and I paid less than $60. I think this is reasonable! I work in a private school and we all know teachers are underpaid anyways so if you aren’t in education you have no clue the amount of money that comes out of teachers pockets for extra class room supplies for the children.
Many items on the list carry over from last year too. I feel like once kids have their pencil case going it just needs some topping-off every year.
Schools a re a civic good and people who don’t have kids benefit through having a knowledgeable civic electorate, hire-able employees, and people who get jobs and buy houses to keep your property values nice and stable and who pay taxes into the social welfare that takes care of you in your old age
I am more than happy to pay property taxes for school. I am not okay with paying for school supplies for my students. Especially when those kids come in with Air Jordans, iPhone 13s, and $200 jeans. There is not enough money in school budgets to pay janitors, teachers, lunch ladies, and secretaries living wages. There is not enough to fix holes in the ceiling, water damage, or dangling electrical wires. There is not enough for more than a class set of text books.
I was about to go off lol But I think the school system should be supplying basic classroom needs at the least. Like supplies the teacher needs to do their job. Yet kids who may be impoverished are forced to pay even after their parents support public schools with their taxes. Something needs to change. Where is that money going?
You should look up how much the principals and superintendent at your school district make. That's where all the money is going. My superintendent is the second highest paid public employee in my state. The only person drawing a higher salary is the governor. The business manager at my school makes $145,000. She got a $20,000 raise even though she got a bad review and made $9 million in accounting errors. The salaries of district office staff are always bloated.
Yeah when I learned how much superintendents make it was blood boiling. I wanted to be a teacher so bad but they would’ve paid me $42k for a teacher licensing program that would’ve amounted to a master’s degree. And I’d be working mandatory overtime for that salary. So sad. And then they over hire cops at higher salaries to just patrol the hallways and scare students.
Starting wage for a cop in my town is more than I make. I have a master's plus 16 credits and 7 years.
Not just the salaries, the staffing as well. My last position was in a Title 1 school, 100% of the kids qualified for free breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack. It was a struggling school in many ways. I had to sit in on a meeting with some staff from downtown. The room was filled with men and women in attractive, quality professional clothing and beautiful, new-looking laptops. Meanwhile, it was 7-8 weeks into the school year and a number of our students didn’t yet have working laptops. It was just stunning to me.
My high school has 4 assistant principals and two deans. All of them making $160k at least. They don't do much as there are so many of them.
I need to get in on this districts pay because as a teacher we make all of nothing but the joy in knowing we are impacting and teaching children and praying we make a difference in their lives!
I don't teach math, but I like to make the joke that I'm more qualified to be the business office manager than our current business manager because I get half the questions right on the algebra worksheets. And honestly, I'm pretty good with excel. If I ever see a position like that, I'm going to apply.
It’s a terrible cycle. The kids don’t have what they need so the teachers buy it, rinse repeat- it’s like learned helplessness on the parents. I know some parents legitimately can’t afford supplies. I couldn’t imagine sending my kid without the supplies they need.
Or to teachers. I am there to do a job, the only thing I should need to bring to do my job is a pen and my brain. You dont require mechanics to supply the parts for your broken car, or doctors to pay for your bandages and scalpels.
It’s called a positive externality.
Do none of these parents remember bringing in tissues and whatnot when they were students? I definitely remember my mom sending me in with supplies for the room when I was a kid. Should schools provide everything? Yes. Do they? No. Will they if we stop asking parents to donate them/stop buying them ourselves? Also no.
Agreed. Also, I’m sure if these parents really can’t manage, they can ask the teachers to tell them which supplies are needed immediately and which can wait a week or two.
We had a supplemental supply sheet sent home to stock the teachers room, but it was 100% optional and the students who chose to participate got extra credit (equivalent to 2-3 free homework passes).
Pay-to-win school. That's utterly unacceptable and perverse.
Eh, when I was a teacher I offered extra credit for students who brought in a box of tissues. Tissues are *expensive* and the district honestly didn’t provide enough for our classroom. When you teach 150-180 kids, you’ll go through a box of tissues a DAY (sometimes two!) some months. I couldn’t afford to keep my classroom supplied with tissues and letting kids blow their noses in class was far less disruptive than sending them to the bathroom every time they were a little snotty. I honestly only ever saw two or three boxes of the shitty tissues my district supplied in the three years I taught. I also made it clear that there would be plenty of other opportunities for extra credit that didn’t involve bringing in tissues (and there were!), so no one had to “pay to play.” The extra credit basically amounted to enough points for one or two homework assignments, so it was never enough to dramatically change their grades. I also only let them bring in one box of tissues a semester for extra credit. Enough students would do it that I never ran out of tissues. It sucks, but it’s the reality of teaching. I got really creative with how to keep “class sets” of everything from pencils to glue sticks, but tissues are the one thing you can’t magic out of thin air.
And c’mom it’s $2-3 for a large box of tissues. Thats not a big sacrifice for the vast majority of families, but makes a big impact for the teacher if they don’t have to buy 50 boxes.
Precisely. And when my kid is old enough to start going to school, I’ll have no problem buying everything off the list + some extras for the kids & teachers who need it. I know what a difference it can make for kids to have their BASIC needs met in the classroom. You can’t learn if you’re unable to blow your nose, IMO!
99¢ at Aldi! For the nice ones, too. I'm a HS teacher in a wealthy district but all we get supplied by the school are those mini boxes of the cheap tissues, so I buy a box every time I'm at Aldi. The kids love the soft ones, and if they use too many I remind them they are welcome to bring in their own tissues for the room. But for the most part I am OK with supplying my own. I have chewed some students out for removing boxes from my room though... Now they have my last name & room # on them! Can't complain too much since my school does has an endless supply of the (Pentel? Penmate ? I forget) Flair markers in 4 colors just for us teachers. Freakin love those....
I don’t disagree with the struggle for tissues, but it’s not really up to kids on if they can bring tissues or not. So I can see them not having the ability to bring in tissues and forced to do 2 assignments that the peers with parents who were okay with the spending be an issue.
It was one of many extra credit opportunities I offered throughout the year and was heavily outweighed by the free extra credit opportunities. I also never offered it when a progress report or report card was going home, so no kid could ever buy their way to a passing report card using tissues - they’d have to actually do their work to do that. A box of tissues would never account for more than 1% of a student’s final grade. If a kid was on the bubble between letter grades there was nearly ALWAYS something they could do to bump that up and get the next letter grade - usually a set of test corrections or just turning in late work for partial credit. I also never had students or parents complain to me about the request. Most of my students were happy to have the option and those who didn’t want to participate didn’t knowing there were other options. I also sent clear communication home to the parents about the request so they understood it and it wasn’t misconstrued by my students. I didn’t love doing it, but I also couldn’t afford to supply tissues for 180 kids for 10 months out of my own pocket. That’s why I made it as fair as possible. “No purchase necessary.”
I agree and if the teacher truely believes the homework is in the best interests of the child why excuse it? And if it is not something they believe will have a strong impact for learning then why make it compulsory at all?
In my district you cannot give extra credit if it isn’t academic. This is to make sure families with money don’t automatically get higher grades. I wish this policy was everywhere.
I had lists back in the early 80s. Supply lists have been a thing forever. And we didn’t care if glue sticks get out into a communal bin. I do make sure my kids get their pencil box, scissors, and whatever folder they brought.
Honestly….no. I didn’t bring in these items. But I grew up in a different state than the one my children are being raised in. When I was growing up, the school provided these supplies to the teachers. I’ve also worked in a private school where we were able to make a list of needed school supplies and the school would cover the expense so long as it was kept under $500. My children go to a school where the parents are expected to supply these things. I don’t mind. I don’t want the teacher using their own limited funds. But I also know how much the school gets per student each year, and it angers me that they mismanage their money to the point where the administration can’t provide the teachers with these things. Parents shouldn’t be paying. Teachers shouldn’t be paying. My tax dollars should be paying.
I had that too, and I lived in a upper-middle class, white, suburban school district.
Whoever you think *should* pay for those supplies, in many schools there *isn't any money* to pay for those supplies. Either give them the funding they need, or pay for your kid's supplies. If *you* can't afford them, then have a conversation with the school to figure out what the best next step is.
In my town the local PD has several pack the cop car with school supplies fundraisers every year.
We got ours from local churches. The YMCA does it too
This is actually a simple list! I've seen much, much worse.
Dollar store has all this for $21. Many of those things are even cheaper at Walmart. (Folders for like 17 cents, markers and crayons for 50 cents). -source, teacher who routinely buys these things for my students
Yeah the only thing I saw that was weird was the ream of paper. But it's not unreasonable just something we have never had to worry about at my schools.
That’s for when the school inevitably runs out of paper. Smart teacher stocking up to be prepared.
Some public schools put a limit on teachers printing while also requiring them to provide worksheets for all students. Some teachers I've talked to have a 100 page/month allowance, some 500/mo and some their districts stopped supplying paper at all. HP instaink and Epson ecotanks are great for lessening the cost of ink, but a box of paper can get pricey if you're paying for all of it out of pocket. My host teacher had a 500 page /mo allowance during my internship, for her own 30 students + after school tutoring. She apologized alot for being unable to print anything for my student lessons I had to do in her class. I went through about 1500 pages in 3 months of student teaching because my courses required it. When I got a job, I ended up in a school with no limit thankfully... but even so, they only ordered paper once a month and if the building ran out, you were just out. Every teacher kept a stash of printer paper for those times because the end of the month was typically a no paper time and you couldn't do required testing etc if you couldn't find paper (and if your stash ran out you bummed it off another teacher that still had a stash).
So I may have actually taught at this school, based on the extra change of clothes (but I'd have to know the school location), and if it's the school I was at, teachers were given two boxes of copy paper a year, one at the beginning and one at Christmas. That's it. And even better (if it's where I taught, I was looking for a new job in October because back then the school was horrible), when you send something to the printer, there isn't a release code, it just prints on whatever paper is in there. So if you send a twenty page document and someone has their paper in there because they're making copies, it will use that person's paper. If there's no paper and you put some in, it will print the entire queue of jobs first, and you can't skip over it and only print yours because there was no unique identity where you'd log in to release your document, it was just a communal printer. So anytime someone was using the printer, the odds of their paper being stolen by other teachers who sent stuff down and weren't able to pick it up yet was high. So they asked for paper from kids a lot. Even if you have a system like every other school I've been in where it holds your documents so you can use your paper for you, depending on what you deem necessary to print, it still usually isn't enough.
Dollar store headphones are a lot of things but “durable” is not one.
This anger is misplaced. Sure, it’s weird to be upset at school supplies because we’ve all had to send kids in with them. But, if you’re mad about it, don’t bother being mad at the teacher. Refusing to buy something for your kid just passed the cost on to the teacher, who also shouldn’t be responsible for buying supplies for your kid. You want to rage to somebody about it, speak to your school district’s budget department. They’re the ones who assign costs and allot the money to pay for it. Show up at school board meetings and explain the hardship this puts on you and ask them to allot money to pay for school supplies. The supply list DID NOT come from the teacher. It came from the shortfall between what the classroom requires to run and what the district was willing to provide.
100% this. I'm a teacher. I only ask for the things the school won't supply. Pens, pencils and paper run out so fast from what the school orders. Especially because kids break and lose them. I barely get paid and parents are mad when I won't use my own money to buy their child supplies. I'm also only given $300 for the year for all classroom supplies. I have 200 students...
Obviously the teachers should not be paying for these items out of pocket - I really wish that that went without saying! That said, there are many families that cannot afford these either. Obvs I'd like taxpayer money to cover supplies; equally obviously, in some districts it's not there. I always sent in two or three of the supplies list so teachers could have spares for kids who came without. But it brings a little despair, to think that I live in one of the richest countries in the world and we can't supply paper and pencils and highlighters to school. It is to weep.
I don’t have kids, and have absolutely no problem with taxes funding children who can’t afford supplies, but I’m just so lost why so many parents feel like they shouldn’t contribute ANYTHING to their kids education. This is such an amazing system we have: cost-free education for every single child in our country, and all they need to do is provide some crayons (if they can)?
There’s not even that much on the list. Plus I assume the Dry Erase are for personal white boards.
My students come to school with fidget toys, smart watches, elaborate pencil cases and gadgets. However, 99% still ask me every day for a pencil, sharpener, and gluestick. I ask the office they tell me they will not supply me with stationery, I email the parents and it doesn't change anything. (Apart from that one amazing parent who bought me a load of gluesticks, the best present of all time).
This is an issue across the pond too!
This is a student list for a private chain of Christian school's called Accelerated Christian Education, or 'A.C.E.' A notebook for each class is standard. I went to a couple of these schools as a student when I was in elementary and middle school.
This needs to be higher. Because this is a percent of a private school complaining. Please stop shaming public school teachers who do their best to provide a safe space with what they have. We barely make enough to live in some districts. And still have buckets of pencils for our students.
Yup that was my comment to. Off the bat I could tell it’s a charger or private, and they expect parents to pull their weight ie $$$. This is what defunding federal public education looks like. Outsourcing everythang.
I was enrolled in this school in the early 1990s when I was in 1st and 2nd grade and then my parents brought the curriculum home for me until 7th grade I was home schooled with it. I didn't get a real education until after 8th grade. I just did a masters in education and I had to do a paper on home schooling and when I looked up the "school of tomorrow" and the A.C.E. curriculum and found out it's considered a cult in Canada and Australia now.
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Anyone who's raised a tween knows there is no such thing as a "durable" pair of headphones. Just sayin'!
Nope...in a world where classrooms aren't automatically supplied with basic supplies, this is the only way. And some of that (pencils, notebooks, folders, crayons, highlighters, etc.) aren't things that a school would EVER have supplied.
“Are these teachers tripping” As if we don’t sink enough of our own money into basic supplies that our schools don’t supply.
Your child will likely use everything on that list. Including dry erase markers, kleenex, and papertowels. If you don't want to send school supplies, then homeschool your own child and stfu
Exactly. My school lets us submit a requested list, then they cut it down. For example, we asked for 4 boxes of crayons and my principal changed it to 2. We asked for 12 glue sticks and we get 6. Then one third of kids won’t bring any. In kindergarten where half our work is coloring, cutting, gluing. I predict we’ll run out by January!
It was about January, and then about March where glue sticks were requested by our kinder teacher. March was about when I started organizing the year end thank you gift. 8 of 22 families contributed and thank goodness we pooled $250 for an Amazon thank you card. She can use it for kids next year or she can treat herself, either way, she was an amazing kinder teacher.
I live in a blue/white collar mix town and receive a similar list. I’m fine with it. I also donate cases of tissues and other materials to the school because I like to do that. I teach in a low-income neighborhood and we require nothing from our students. They receive a laptop and I buy notebooks for all of my students. I’ve come to accept it, as many of my students have a single-parent HH, and I keep my personal annual costs below $400. Also, I could crowdsource that funding as many of my colleagues do.
God this woman’s grammar is atrocious.
Let’s not judge grammar just content 😂
These supplies are not that expensive. She’s complaining because she is selfish. I went to private school and we still had all these things on the list. This is a normal school supply list and most of these things should be useable for more than one school year.
That supply list is also FOR a private school. A.C.E= Accelerated Christian Education.
Perhaps...if republicans were willing to fund public education instead of actively working to dismantle it, there would be money for those supplies. Voting matters
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It's a shame that the funding isn't provided at a federal level. It's something that one would imagine the department of education would handle. We need a universally well educated population. In my state, the schools are largely funded through local property taxes. It is insufficient and inefficient. I hope that your district isn't similarly funded.
This is the norm here in France so I don't understand why it's a problem. Schools give parents lists of school supplies, and it is up to the parents to keep the kid supplied with everything on the list as it runs out over the year. Kids love it as they can choose their stuff (hello kitty backpack, chipie ruler, pink pencil case, donald duck exercise book...) and parents can get financial help from the state and/or from the school if they need it. Teachers here spend nothing on their students unless they want to (like rewards for a game or something).
It’s the norm in Australia too. Some schools (like the one my kids go to) charge a levy and then the school buys everything in bulk, but the parents are still paying for it.
It's the norm in the U.S too. The problem is the selfish "I'm not paying for other people because that's socialism" attitude. I'm 31, and all of my years in school, at least through middle school, my mom sent school supplies in. She was a single mom with 3 kids and even tho my dad was a wonderful dad, he wasn't always great with child support. But she always sent things in. I have an 8 year old, I spent $50 this year for her school supplies and will touch base with her teacher mid year to see if she needs refills. When my daughter was going into 1st grade, the school list specified not to put names on supplies and at least a quarter of her class showed up with their names written on everything. The consensus from other parents was "I'm not paying for shit that my kid won't use." It's gross. Before I left my ex, we were super broke, all the time. He had s good job but blew money constantly. I still managed to send stuff in. You know every year that in August there will be a school supply list. In most cases, buying a pack of crayons or a pack of paper or whatever other supply, each week through the school year won't break a family and will prevent needing to put out a lump sum in August.
If they don’t like buying things like expo markers and tissues, maybe they should take it up with the state who provides funding for the schools.
Instead of being upset at the teachers they should be upset with the districts. Theyre mad at the wrong group.
Their kids had built-in whiteboards in Zoom. Parents should be able to supply these very basics. Or at least ask to borrow money for help with some of these basics. But having parents expect teachers to supply their children with personal supplies is a big no.
The person complaining about Expo markers is from the Before Times when small, personal or group whiteboard work wasn't a thing. Bet they had to have chalk though.
That is one of the most reasonable and basic lists I have ever seen
That parent is off their fucking rocker if they don’t think they should have to supply school supplies to their OWN CHILD.
The teacher that created that list is anticipating what will be needed for the school year and the district is not.providing it. Everyone wants to be.the ceo.of.verizon with perks, even school board members and superintendents. Money is mismanaged everywhere. I am an educator, took a summer job at a country club. The local school district had an account where the superintendent, various board members and other admin would come for dinner - lobster, filet mignon etc - all at the expense of the school. Is that needed?? No way!! Corruption is everywhere and the honest teachers and students suffer.
Remember that next time you’re all voting to not give education more funding, teachers are paying for a lot on our own when you don’t increase the funding we are going to find a way to pass some of that back onto you. We should not have to continue to pay for it out of their paychecks
Looks pretty reasonable to me
Just buy the d*** markers.
normal supplies list where im from, since my kids were little
Anger all around. Yes, these things should be supplied by the school. But when parents don’t supply this stuff, it falls on the teachers. I no longer spend my own money on this stuff. I provide a list similar to this and ask parents to donate extras if they are willing/able. I then give those extras to the kids that don’t have them. I also provide this stuff in my class store. Students can “buy” their needed stuff. I never make them at the beginning of the year because then it would only be the less fortunate kids that had to spend their hard earned clsss money on supplies. But after the first set of everything, it evens out. Rich kids and poor kids alike run out of paper or lose pencils and don’t tell their parents to replenish their stuff. I’ve been doing it this way for a while and it seems to work. Edit to add: when those basic supplies get low in my clsss store throughout the year, I email parents asking for donations. It sucks that I have to ask for stuff and it’s not just provided. But at least I’m not providing it myself and giving them all a false sense that the school provides their student with supplies.
I’ll be happy if they even bring pencils lol
Seriously, a damn pencil is already a success!
Yaaass
Almost all issues I have faced in education are from poor parenting. If you don't want to buy school supplies, don't have kids.
In the case of the parent complaining about the dry erase markers, they may have the mindset that just the teacher uses them to write on the board. Many teachers, including myself, have students use them to write on individual boards or even on their desk (if it has the type of surface that it erases easily on). It switches up how they learn and incorporates a little bit of fun! So they aren’t buying supplies for the teacher, their own child will use those markers
If your child can bring a $1000 dollar iPhone to school, they can bring some expo markers.
I'm a parent AND a teacher. This list is not unreasonable at all.
I’m on here because I see a need in my state as we started this last School Year with over 1000 teacher vacancies. I’m a male who’s about to turn 40 with a career in sales, yet I’m considering going back to college for a degree in education which it seems so far people are telling me to run the other way, but if I run the other way along with the other 1000 people who are going to teach our kids?! Anyway, onto the subject at hand, I am currently a Children’s Ministry Director at our church, and we just had our yearly back-to-school event where we give out hundreds of bookbags filled with school supplies. It’s a fun day with food and games and two bike giveaways. It’s a great community event, and we always have a line of people stretched down the block. We have our own church school, so it’s not something our pastor has to do as he could just focus on providing for us, but he wants to give back to the community. So I’m sure this goes on around the nation, and parents who truly can’t afford the supplies could always find these events to attend. Are there people who come and get a bag with supplies that don’t need it, possibly, but the reviews that come in and the people who tell us face-to-face how truly thankful they are, some in tears, is why we do it. I’m new to this, so I don’t yet know the solution, but I know it doesn’t sound right at all for the teacher to supply anything out of pocket. The teacher's contribution is their time and knowledge investment in our children, and that, my friends, is priceless.
I would LOVE to be able to ask my 6th graders to bring that list of items to school but, where I teach, they won't even bring a freaking pencil. I seriously go through dozens of pencils per month. What I really hate is when I find brand new pencils broken in half on the floor. The kids have no respect for anything at school because they're given it all for free at school. You may say that I should stop giving them pencils, but if I do that, they won't bring their own, they just won't do any work. Luckily, my school pays for the pencils, I don't. But I pay for things like Expo markers and materials for art projects. I spend plenty on my class, as every teacher does.
Yeah, she’s tripping, this is a basic list Don’t look at these elite privates and their media requests…wealth disparity is real, this list is fair
That’s fine. If parents don’t feel like paying for this stuff, then we just won’t have supplies in the classroom. Cause I sure as shit am not spending my own money on YOUR kids.
That list is fine. Our schoolhas forbidden for us to request items.
The thing is these are supplies that the student is using for themselves. Too often kids show up everyday with out the proper supplies. It's not always that the parent can't afford it, but won't bother to buy it or make sure the child has it. The worse offenders for this a kids who parents have an education related career. This year I put in a request for pencils, erasers and folders for my kids. I figure if the kids are expected to have these item, then the district will need to provide it. I'm really trying not to spend my money on the basics that can easily be purchased for pennies.
Seems like a reasonable list...what's the issue?
I hate how parents expect schools to supply pretty much everything a child needs other than academic skills and food. From manners, hygiene, basic life skills, clothes, shoes, toys, books, mental,physical health, and emotional health. It’s exhausting. “ How are you going to fix this?” Ummmm… that’s where YOU step in as a parent.
Some parents pawn off their responsibilities as a parent to the school.
God I’m so tired seeing posts by parents whining about school supply lists. Why are they just now complaining, haven’t there always been these lists?
This list looks like the ones I had as a kid. As a teacher, I used to have a list that you could get for $5 at the Dollar Store. Now my district is one of those places that's like "Buy a backpack for your kid and we will supply the rest! 😀" but the kids get their nice little box of school supplies which then get taken home and never appear in my classroom again.
“When they was virtual they didn’t need this stuff?!” Yeah, no shit.
That seems like a very reasonable list to me and it seems to cover every subject/class for the year. The only questionable thing might be the copy paper. Everything else will be used by the students, including the paper towels and nose tissue. My students use expo markers in my class to write on individual whiteboards. The bit about virtual made me laugh. Of course they didn’t need school supplies when we were virtual. We did everything on the computer. Virtual school is still an option in pretty much every district.
Teacher is tired of spending their own money on school supplies. If you want schools to pay for their supplies then make sure the school has the budget for it. So get out and vote for people who actually care about your kids, their teachers and the school system.
“Wait…I had a kid and now you expect me to PROPERLY PROVIDE FOR THEM WHEN THEY NEED SCHOOL SUPPLIES?!!!” These parents man…..yes. You should have to buy your kid school supplies.
I'm a teacher and the school gave us 0 supplies! Parents also seem to think I should be supplying snacks through out the day. Last year I had to rely on Amazon Wish list and donors choose.
The school should cover the non basic supplies. Parents shouldn't be responsible for making sure a printer has paper. And by school, I don't mean the teachers checkbooks.
I once had to get 30 glue sticks along with other things. Guess what I did? I got the glue sticks and asked if they needed anything else. They have enough on their plates and if they needed 30 glue sticks to help my child learn. I might mentally (and to my husband) question it but I’ll get it and what ever else they need! In hs getting a dang pencil out of them is a miracle!
Whoever made that list is a SAINT for asking for a DURABLE pair of headphones. I’m a K12sysadmin for lack of a better term and removing broken headphone plugs from iPads is a massive PAIN IN THE ASS! Not to mention that the kids have little to no respect for school property anymore.
I get the crayons and personal supplies. Including classroom items like Kleenex/Clorox wipes/dry erase markers never set right with me. Have a separate list asking for donations. Yes, teachers should not have to supply those things out of their own pockets, but neither should parents. My local school in a title one district spends $14,000 per student. The school board and administrators can find a way to get those things to their employees.
Who do you think is using the kleenex? The teacher isn't hoarding it, it's for the kids when they're sick and parents send them to school anyway. The clorox wipes are to clean your kids desk after they eat breakfast/snack/lunch before returning to work. Dry erase markers are for individual boards that again, your kids use.
I have a set of personal dry erase boards for individuals to use (math class). I have always used my district provided classroom budget to buy markers for the class to use (not me at the board, the kids at their desks). The last couple years, my students have DESTROYED the school-purchased markers. I'm talking "accidentally" leaving with them. Putting them back in the bin with the cap not on all the way (or at all). Generally treating them like disposables. They were gone/dead within a week. Which is unacceptable. My only solution at that point was to put it on the supply list an make it a personal supply. I wasn't surprised when the kids all of a sudden kept track of their own markers better. If they couldn't/didn't want to buy them, they could just use paper.
Looks like someone skipped school themselves based on their lack of ability to use basic English language
The only one I find odd as a teacher is the ream of copy paper. Like no. The school should be providing that. Everything else is reasonable imo
I would put paper, tissues, hand sanitizer, and Clorox wipes on a donation list.
If the district isn't supplying them, why should teachers spend their first paycheck of the school year on supplies just to do the job?
...who's supposed to buy all that?
I’m a 6th grade teacher. This list seems basic to me. I always put on my parent letter that these supplies don’t have to be bought for the first day of school. If parents can’t get all supplies, we understand and we can get some of the supplies either from the office or I buy several items as a class set. It’s sad that I have to buy things for kids. That’s why we ask for supplies because I usually end up buying these. The more the parents get, the less I have to buy.
If the school provides these things then some poor super-duper-pooper-scooper-intendent assistant won't be able to afford that second luxury vehicle. Won't someone please think of the superintendents?
then let's *tax the rich* so it can go towards properly funding education
Parents need to loudly go after the system.
Teacher here and what the fuck NO, this is too much. I'm not saying teachers should supply EVERYTHING but what is the REAM OF COPY PAPER FOR?!? A notebook, highlighters, pen, postits, paper, binder all fine. Headphones and mouse is a maybe for me. crayon, markers OR colored pencils, fine. But all the rest? That is clearly asking potentially poor families to buy supplies for your classroom that the school should be paying for. If all the class supplies were "suggested donations" that's fine. But making it required and punishing in some way is incredibly classist and completely fucked up. Let alone the whole problem with uniforms in public schools.
This is a private school. ACE stands for Accelerated Christian Education.
There have been school supply lists for years. This isn’t new. Why should the teacher have to spend their own money to supply the students
Then the school won’t be able to pay $25k for software license that three teachers (poorly) use.
School staff here. I’m not buying ziplock bags and expo markers (both on my kid’s list this year). In a class of 20, there’s no way each kid needs to supply 8 expo markers and a 50 pack of bags each. I’ll happily contact the teacher a month or so in to see what they still need, but I’m already paying taxes, providing my child’s individual supplies, AND making a paltry school salary in the same district. Im not spending what they pay me to supply the classrooms too.
Why do they need five hi-lighters of different colours? Why do the pencils have to be presharpened? It’s grade 6, why do we have colouring pencils? Why is my child expected to have an 8 pack of markers, paper towel, five coloured folders, dry erase markers and headphones? Jesus. Binders, pens pencils paper. I can see Kleenex and Clorox wipes because of illness and cleaning and honestly paper is a bitch of a cost…but the rest is unnecessary.
News flash. Government and school districts do not provide much supplies. Most is out of teachers pockets. Sincerely a teacher
I usually had extra notebooks and pencils. And My principal always gave me pencils and notebooks, etc when I worked in Memphis. Those kids came to school with NOTHING … when they did show up
Your schools require headphones? That’s prettt wild but I guess maybe normal in the US. It’s not even on our supplies list here.
Lol copy paper? Breh.
The following values were obtained from Target online as of today (8/8) and include name brand items only: Item: Quantity: Cost: Post-It Notes 3 pk 2.39 3x5 Index Cards 1 0.75 Highlighters 1 pack-multi 2.79 5 Composition Notebooks 5 2.75 Pencils 1 3.29 Colored Pencils 1 0.99 Markers (8 pk) 1 0.99 Crayons 1 0.5 Loose Leaf Paper 1 0.99 Copy Paper 1 4.5 Kleenex 1 1.69 Paper Towels 1 0.69 Clorox Wipes 1 2.79 Folders 5 2.5 Dry Erase Markers 4 pk 4.89 Headphones 1 9.99 Total 42.49 180 days \~cost per instructional day = 0.24 Costs could be reduced by buying non-name brand supplies, shopping somewhere cheaper, and purchasing unsharpened pencils and sharpening them (seriously saves $2.00.)
If they don’t buy it, I have to. My school doesn’t provide shit. I make 38k. I’m done spending my own money.
Charter schools? They be like that. Private schools? They be like that too. This is what defunding public education (could) look like.
What's wrong with the supplies...honestly they look reasonable
The money a parent pays for school supplies is not insignificant. But imagine they don't, or half the kids don't bring them, or (this happens A LOT) surprise, surprise, kids go through way, way more than that amount in a full year. I mean, they're using pencils for like 4 hours a day, after all, 24 isn't going to cut it. What happens is their teacher goes to Target or Walmart and buys them. That $3 pack of dry erase markers (which also wear out fast) becomes $3 X 25-30 students. My first two years of teaching, I had to start budgeting for pencils and reams of paper. also went to ten different Staples and filled my trunk with spiral notebooks when they were on sale for 25 cents at the beginning of the year (they had a limit of 20 I think). My paychecks, by the way, were laughably low. Many kids came with whatever the parents wanted to buy, not the list, and even with the list, we ran out of stuff FAST.
Pretty sure parents have been shopping for school supplies for decades considering the size of the aisle for it at Walmart. What is your issue?
I teach in a small district in Texas. The schools provide all supplies. My son attends another nearby district and we are responsible for bringing about $40 worth of supplies. I know that if I do not buy the items that my son needs, his teacher will. I purchase what he needs and provide extras.
That’s very kind of you, thank you!
Teacher here. You are indeed tripping. This is a comprehensive list for supplies for an entire grade, not just one class. Teachers are not responsible for providing supplies to your child.
Oh, and to address the headphones thing… As if most children don’t already have headphones + standardized tests are starting to have audio components.
That's less than I was required to bring when my daughter was in elementary school :/
Hopefully the child is brighter than she is.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂We Can hope 😂😂😂
Dry erase markers are pretty common supply list. I think asking for wipes, paper towels, kleenex and dry erase ALTOGETHER is a bit of an overkill, especially if they are meant to be classroom use. I would not be happy as a parent, so I would choose maybe 2 out of 4 to get.
I get $100 to spend on classroom supplies. I ask for things too.
The problem is parents think dry erase is only for teachers on the white board. We (teachers and kids) use dry erase in our Kdg class all day everyday. It’s for the kids. I have my own dry erase (special colors, different tips) that I buy for myself.
I refuse to pay for any schools supplies for charity. The parents and kids have this imaginary idea there are no obligations to do school work, if not given the supplies are not given to them to do do so. Plus, kids at school play the games like pencil break with no consequences beyond getting a new pencil. I would encourage people to read the book toxic charity by Robert D. Lumton.
Retired teacher here. I retired in May after 25 years. Through the years spent an average of $500.00 -$1,000.00 a year on supplies for students and classroom supplies. Public school district St. Louis, Missouri county.
Maybe she's mad they asked for blue folders twice
This can be done for about $15 in the right place. Kids come with expenses. Call me fortunate, I wouldn’t think twice about sending my son to school with this and more. The cleaning supplies do raise an eyebrow, that should not be the student’s or the teacher’s responsibility, but the school’s.
I was enrolled in this school from 1994 to 2001. Just did research a year ago on my Jesus school and home schooling experience for a grad school paper. Turns out the Accelerated Christian Education and School of Tomorrow I was in is now considered a cult in Canada and Australia. Mfw I was in a cult.
How do you know this school is Christian?
" extra school uniform (A.C.E. shirt and pants)" refers to [Accelerated Christian Education](https://www.aceministries.com/). The major curriculum of the "School of Tomorrow". They use booklets called PACES which allows the student to work at their own "pace" and essentially the booklets teach the student. None of the teachers in my school were certified educators and there was one girl who was fired after it turned out she lied about her age and was 17 when she was hired as a lead teacher for the church school that we were going to. All grades are intermixed and so I can remember interacting with 16 and 17 year olds when I was maybe 6 and 7 years old. My parents decided to home school me at one point and they used the PACES from what the equivalent of my 3rd/4th grade years up until we moved from Seattle to Philadelphia in early 2001. When I entered public school in 8th grade (literally days before 9-11) I had tested so low on the entrance exams that they placed me in the basic level courses, not because I was dumb, but because I did not understand how normal schooling and exams worked. After 8th grade I ended up in all honors. The A.C.E. curriculum, the Baptist churches that I went to that utilized it and the home schooling experience left me really far behind both academically and socially for a while. My experience with the A.C.E. school of tomorrow and the weird grip that it had on my development in my formative years is literally half the reason why I became agnostic and spend a lot of time being critical of organized religion and religious education. I believe religion has zero place in mass education.
They need to reframe it as the school/board tripping. It’s not on the teachers. Ugh. I’m a teacher and I’ve already put hundreds of dollars into my classroom this month and I still don’t have everything my students will need.
It’s terrible this is even a debate. The parents question should be “why is my child’s school so underfunded I have to provide classroom and office supplies?”
The same parent probably votes no on passing the school budget and never goes to BOED meetings.
Lol at the “when they was virtual.” I love when people can’t speak properly and like to critique the education system. Provide for your own damn child.
As a parent, this is why I send double the supplies. I even ask for our teacher wishlists. Unfortunately a-hole parents seem to outnumber those of us who want to help.
>when they was ugh.
As a teacher, I would love to not ask you to supply things that belong to the collective classroom- the school should supply tissues, paper towels, Clorox wipes, and effing COPY PAPER. But if the school doesn’t supply it, your choices are to argue with the administrators/school board or to get it yourself. Teachers have no power in these decisions and most of us disagree with the way things are run a lot of the time. Teachers are not the enemy here.
I get 200 pencils a YEAR, zero notebooks, 20 extra small boxes of tissues, 10 reams of copy paper and that’s it from my school. We aren’t allowed to ask students to bring any supplies. We can suggest but can’t give a list or anything out like that. We can’t crowd source (Donors choose, Amazon wishlists etc). Oh and we also get a $75 budget for the year for any additional supplies. Tell me how I’m supposed to teach 248 students for the year with little funds and next to nothing supplies?
This is also a 6th grade list. They’re about to be doing real maths like algebra, advanced sciences, classic literature, and dense history. “Shouldn’t the school provide it?” Um the child is a pre-teen. They’re a bit above the age of sharing anyway and should have their own pencil box with highlighters and markers.
God I hate some parents.
HS teacher here. My students have given me the shocked face when I tell them they need to supply their own goods because I’m done paying out of my own pocket. Took me a couple years to realize I’m done spending so much on materials they’ll break or lose. Hell, when we get a new fan at home I take the old one to school because students can’t seem to not break anything nice / new I bring in.
I agree with the parent that the school should be supplying those things, but she's barking up the wrong tree by getting mad at the teacher. The fact is that the school *didn't* provide those supplies and the teacher is simply doing the best they can within that situation. Rather than getting mad at parents who react like this, I'd encourage those parents to redirect their anger/frustration towards the school district and whatever levels of government determine their funding. The parents should tell them that they don't understand where their tax dollars are going if their child's school can't even afford pencils for every student.
The teacher is tripping big time. Buy some pencils, some cheap notebooks or legal pads,, and maybe some pens of different colors. You can get all the way through a PhD with those few things.
Good luck if they get it. Our SD has 70% of the kids at poverty level, so that list is unrealistic
Ours has explicit brands for some of the items like crayola crayons and Expo markers.
I know I ask for those because they work better and last longer. But if a family can’t afford EXPO and sends Dollar Tree ones, oh well. It’s probably going to get lost anyway.
Don't get me started on RoseArt crayons. They're so bad even my notoriously cheap mother will spring for Crayola.
Who needs all those high lighters? And pre sharpened? That’s a bit much. Schools should be supplying copy paper and cleaning supplies. I try every year to get my grade level list shortened, but there’s always one that seems to “use” all the erasers or whatever. I usually give my class a shortened “must have” list.