Back to school....

[bigpinkdaisy]

Back to school for us this coming Wednesday as my husband and I report back for faculty days before students return on the Wednesday after Labor Day. College boy starts his junior year of classes on Tuesday and his internship begins on September 8th. Sad to see our summer come to an end, but it will be really nice to be back into our routines.

 

[barkley]

I'd invite you to come to my school and spend 1 hour in a classroom on each grade level and you will be able to answer your own questions .

We have 5 classes of PreK and 4 classes of Kinder. Yes they have accidents and yes they eat like wild animals, baby wipes are a must for bathroom, snack, and lunch times. Older grades also use them to wipe hands and desk after snack. Baggies are used to put lost teeth in so they make it home, any supplies after the kids destroy the boxes they come in, math and reading station games and their materials, to separate supplies and hand out an individual baggie of whatever to each child, to put their device login card in so it isn't destroyed day 1, etc. The school doesn't give teachers cleaning supplies so the Clorox wipes are to wipe down spills, vomit, pee, snot and to give the room a wipe down daily to help keep germs down. As far as going through pencils and crayons, yes they go through them incredibly quickly. Even after the parents send in the required amount the teachers will spend their own money replenishing. I went into a 1st grade classroom yesterday and a little boy had a baggie of crayons that were broken and had all the paper torn off of them. This was day 8 of school. I asked him what happened and he said, "It was an accident" lol.

thanks for the offer but before I left the profession I taught ek, 3rd (personal favorite), a 4th/5th combo and 5th-i have no regrets leaving the profession and once my own kiddos aged out no desire to return to an elementary (or other) classroom (loved working with the kids but it was at a point in education that some changes were being implemented that I felt were going to have VERY negative consequences-sadly decades later I believe my instincts were spot on ).

I get the need/use of cleaning supplies but the amount of spec. quart and gallon bags seems excessive. a tooth? could'nt a snack or sandwich sized bag work? I also understand kids break crayons but broken crayons can still be used so I question if they really need 3 brand new packs per year (the practical person in me hopes those broken crayons are used for some purpose vs. being tossed).

p.s. I also think it's terrible that teachers are expected to purchase supplies for their classrooms. I never understood when my kids were in elementary (when it seems the largest number of individual supplies are requested of parents) why we (parents) were'nt given the option of letting the teacher of the grade our kid was leaving to keep any unused or good condition supplies our kids had left over. year after year my kids came home with unopened boxes of crayons, paints, pencils, pens...to this day (12 years after one graduated high school) I still have a large box of unsharpened new pencils, packaged pens, a wealth of markers (remarkably they still work) and colored pencils. pre COVID I was able to donate the dozens and dozens of new boxes of crayons and paint sets to a local charity but it would have been nice to have helped to offset some teacher's out of pocket expenses

 

[barkley]

My son works IT for a state agency, remotely. He switched jobs last year and he had to buy a computer and a cell phone for his job. He has never been on site at his employer, but if there is a reason he has to be on site, the travel expenses (400 miles each way) food and lodging will have to be at his own cost.

that's likely b/c the 400 mile away location is designated as his 'home office'. if he was called upon to travel to any of their other locations (or an alternate location in a work related capacity) he would be eligible for travel expenses (and any reasonable meal and lodging expenses at whatever the state's current per diem rate is). I recall when there was an overall on mandatory staff trainings b/c of these practices-initialy it was thought it was the most practical to have centralized trainings with a minimal number of sessions until all the travel/meal demand reimbursements came in from many hundreds of staff members. the numbers were run and it was discovered it was FAR less expensive to have contracted trainers do the same number of sessions but one at each individual office location.

 

[kdonnel]

My son works IT for a state agency, remotely. He switched jobs last year and he had to buy a computer and a cell phone for his job.

I can't believe that a legitimate IT job would require the employee purchase their own computer. I have not been allowed to connect a personally owned device to a corporate network in more than 15 years.

 

[tvguy]

I can't believe that a legitimate IT job would require the employee purchase their own computer. I have not been allowed to connect a personally owned device to a corporate network in more than 15 years.

Well, he is out of there shortly. He would agree with you. Very political environment where people with no IT experience are trying to dictate things that either they have no funding for, or that are impossible. Dozens of little fiefdoms. One department even insists they are not affiliated with the IT department, and they have their OWN IT people.
Covid changed everything In my own experience the need for remote work in my company, corporate IT and individual IT people at our 64 locations said NO to a lot of things from a security standpoint but they had to allow them because there was no other way for it to work.

 

[tvguy]

that's likely b/c the 400 mile away location is designated as his 'home office'. if he was called upon to travel to any of their other locations (or an alternate location in a work related capacity) he would be eligible for travel expenses (and any reasonable meal and lodging expenses at whatever the state's current per diem rate is). I recall when there was an overall on mandatory staff trainings b/c of these practices-initialy it was thought it was the most practical to have centralized trainings with a minimal number of sessions until all the travel/meal demand reimbursements came in from many hundreds of staff members. the numbers were run and it was discovered it was FAR less expensive to have contracted trainers do the same number of sessions but one at each individual office location.

The travel reimbursement you mention was the case with his previous state job. His current agency is exempt.