Shouldn't they be starting soon?

[kirstenb1]

The school supply vent threads, that is. I always enjoy reading them.

Looks like you've created one of your own!!

 

[Sparx]

This is directly related to the snowflake mentality-many schools won't allow teachers to use red pens because it hurts kids' feelings by having red marks on their papers. TOTALLY serious.

I used to have one english teacher who would rip my papers to shreds in bright green ink. Green ink to this day still sends shivers down my spine!

 

[NotUrsula]

Re: the ink debate. I guess this means that teachers can no longer tell students that they "bled all over" a paper in grading it.

I first encountered this in 8th grade, and I tended to run into it again any time that I had a really good teacher who really cared about having my work improve.

What that 8th grade teacher told my mother was that lots of red ink is a good sign, because it means that the teacher REALLY read the work and concentrated on what was wrong with it, or what was right with it, and cared enough to write extensive comments on the work. He took pride in "bleeding all over" papers that his students wrote.

 

[golfgal]

We are allowed to get our own rugs as long as they have a fireproof label on them. The sad thing is, if I asked my principal to order me one, we would have to go through one of the approved vendors and it would likely cost much, much more than what I paid, which is why it would probably be denied if I asked for it. For some things, it's easier to buy it myself.


Yep, here we can use green or purple, but no red. Eventually though, those colors will also be associated with wrong answers.

I used to have one english teacher who would rip my papers to shreds in bright green ink. Green ink to this day still sends shivers down my spine!

EXACTLY--contrary to what a lot of people think, kids aren't dumb, they will associate green ink with wrong answers just as much as red ink

Re: the ink debate. I guess this means that teachers can no longer tell students that they "bled all over" a paper in grading it.

I first encountered this in 8th grade, and I tended to run into it again any time that I had a really good teacher who really cared about having my work improve.

What that 8th grade teacher told my mother was that lots of red ink is a good sign, because it means that the teacher REALLY read the work and concentrated on what was wrong with it, or what was right with it, and cared enough to write extensive comments on the work. He took pride in "bleeding all over" papers that his students wrote.

Well, some people say they bleed Green (packer fans) or Purple (Vikings fans)

 

[Kath2003]

You are right, it is not. I've got family in both places and we talk about these things in actual dollars and pence terms, and we find that for the most part, at the same level of SES, people in the UK keep just about the same or a slightly larger percentage of their paychecks as Americans do, once you factor in the pre-tax private health care premiums we pay. (I won't go into any more detail than that, at the risk of having this stray into the political.)

Exactly. I'm not disagreeing that we do pay more tax, but when you factor in what we get "included", it works out pretty well.

It happens all the time in parts of my underfunded urban district. The teachers are underpaid as it is, and a lot of them just cannot swing the cost even if they want to. What happens is that the kids just do without. Even textbooks are an issue: the children are not allowed to take them home for homework, and they sometimes have to share one book between 3-4 kids whilst in the classroom. Quite a few teachers resort to selling emergency supplies to HS kids; $.5 for a pencil, $.1 for a sheet of paper, and the like.

There are at least 20 charity school supply drives being held in my community this month. One big one held last week gave away $130,000 worth of supplies and clothing items (mostly shoes) to 1000 carefully selected children.

It works differently in different schools here; in mine, we don't let the little ones (grades 6-8) take the textbooks home; we do for grades 9-12. Sometimes we share one textbook between two students if they're in demand (i.e. two classes running simultaneously that both want the books); that said, on the whole we tend not to use textbooks anyway.

We do have to deal with the kids that "forget" equipment. My reply to "I've not got a pen" is usually "Well you'd better hope one of your friends is feeling generous..." because it's a "sanction-able" offence to turn up to school unprepared. That said, I do a "sweep" of my classroom at the end of each period and "make" between 2 and 10 pens each day so there are always spares

We have uniform so that keeps the school clothing costs down a lot; you wouldn't believe how cheap they sell them for at places like our equivalent of Walmart - you could clothe your first grader for the year for $20, or your 15-year old for $40.

 

[daughtersrus]

The fee that gets me is the "textbook rental fee" that I think it's the schools in Indiana charge.

I have to pay a $75 "book fee" for my DD and she doesn't use any books as well as a $65 registration fee. (she is severely disabled and goes to a day school) They tried to charge me the driver's ed fee as well as fee for PE lock and PE uniform but I got them to take those off after a lengthy phone conversation. I'm tempted to ask them for the books when I go to the district school next week for registration.

 

[Indiana Rose Lee]

I have to pay a $75 "book fee" for my DD and she doesn't use any books as well as a $65 registration fee. (she is severely disabled and goes to a day school) They tried to charge me the driver's ed fee as well as fee for PE lock and PE uniform but I got them to take those off after a lengthy phone conversation. I'm tempted to ask them for the books when I go to the district school next week for registration.

I would. That takes some nerve!

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

After spending 2 hours with my 9th grader at the High School dodging the fabulous stop dead in front of you people and walking back and forth from one end of the school to the other to meet all of his teachers I was exhausted.

Then we hit the school supply shopping - 163.00 later his is done and there was nothing really odd on the list. Just lots of stuff.

Oh and we also had orientation for the elementary school at 8am this morning. I still have to finish shopping for those supplies.

I hate orientation day. I'm going to go take a nap.

 

[Kath2003]

Then we hit the school supply shopping - 163.00 later his is done and there was nothing really odd on the list. Just lots of stuff.

$163?! That's over $10 a MONTH on school supplies for ONE child!

 

[allison443]

$163?! That's over $10 a MONTH on school supplies for ONE child!

That poster's son is in high school. High schoolers often need to purchase a certain kind of calculator which costs $100 or so for the math classes they will be taking. So that could be the bulk of the cost.

 

[Kath2003]

That poster's son is in high school. High schoolers often need to purchase a certain kind of calculator which costs $100 or so for the math classes they will be taking. So that could be the bulk of the cost.

$100 for a CALCULATOR? For high school MATH?

 

[MoniqueU]

My oldest DD skipped a year of math and in 8th grade is in the subject my son was as a sophmore. I sure hope I don't need a calculator this year or that in high school it isn't a different one every year. Those things are so overpriced it galls me just as printer ink does. Hell for what the ink costs you can pretty much buy a new printer!!

I do have to ask the kids to find all the flash drives though, we really use those here.

 

[golfgal]

$100 for a CALCULATOR? For high school MATH?

Yes, graphing calculators are pretty common in high school for kids taking advanced math classes. Don't your kids take advanced math (Calculus, etc.)?

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

$163?! That's over $10 a MONTH on school supplies for ONE child!

Now that I'm all rested, I'm back. DS is going into 9th grade.

70.00 was the silly calculator. Supposedly it will be used for more than 1 year.

The rest of the stuff was the normal items. I didn't have anything left at home so I had to buy it all including looseleaf paper, binders and pens.

I'll be going out tomorrow to get DD10's stuff. At least I know it won't be near as expensive.

 

[BellePrincessBelle]

$100 for a CALCULATOR? For high school MATH?

We need the $120 calculator in middle school.

 

[C.Ann]

$100 for a CALCULATOR? For high school MATH?

I think this might be the calculator that my DD was telling me about the other day that my DGD needs for 7th grade.. All she said was that it was very expensive and didn't even go into the rest of the list..

 

[golfgal]

My oldest DD skipped a year of math and in 8th grade is in the subject my son was as a sophmore. I sure hope I don't need a calculator this year or that in high school it isn't a different one every year. Those things are so overpriced it galls me just as printer ink does. Hell for what the ink costs you can pretty much buy a new printer!!

I do have to ask the kids to find all the flash drives though, we really use those here.

DS18 has been using his since 9th grade and it is the same one he needs for college. All 3 of our kids have them .

 

[TheZue]

I'm getting off easy again this year. It's an easy list with crayons, a basic calculator, markers, then the rest I can reuse from last year. For all the nitpicky stuff the teacher is just collecting $20 which beats the hell out of grade one when I drove all over town looking for an abscure notebook I never did find. My only minor beef is she wants pencil crayons made in Canada...I think she'll be getting crayola made in Taiwan.

 

[MoniqueU]

DS18 has been using his since 9th grade and it is the same one he needs for college. All 3 of our kids have them .

Ok good to know. I have bought them before for my son but chalk that up to yet another missing item that he must not of really needed as he lost it and didn't ask for a new one. My oldest DD is super responsible so that seems doable to me.

 

[MoniqueU]

Ok read through the rest of the thread and I want to hear from a few teachers on why they are asking for enourmous amounts of stuff and bizarre stuff to boot. I am not talking tissues and hand sanitizers or stuff like that. But I can never find college ruled paper on sale which apparently here they have to have instead of regular lined paper, the search all over hell and gone for 3 green pens and the safety goggles? I get bookcovers, folders (only one 3 one here for my kids I don't care what they say we don't have lockers here) and they want all this crap actually sent into school some of the times and give out reward points for those that get everything on the list. I am not anti teacher or anti education I am just wondering what mindset causes some of these inane requests.