specific school supplies frustration

[Jennasis]

Becuase funding has been cut to that point. There is NO money for classroom supplies. They supply tissue and soap in the restrooms, but that is it. Or school services almost 2000 students and there is one laides room and one mens room per floor. If I have to send a kid to the RR every tiem they need a tissue or to wash hands (I teach science so we do that frequently) it would be a large amount of class time lost. I ask parents to send in paper towels, hand soap, and tissue, one container per child. That is all I ask for other than a pencil, paper, some kind of notebook, and a calculator. I usualy get about half the parents to send stuff in. I end up not only buying paper towels and soap, but supplying pencils and paper for a lot of the kids.

Like I said, the system is a wreck.

Hope you keep receipts for everything and write it off.

 

[daisyduck123]

I'll tell you why they want certain pencils. Kids will often want the ones that have designs on them and they are junk. They break all the time, the lead will slide right on out. The students will have to sharpen all freakin' day. Pencils are not made like they used to be.

Just make sure you buy decent pencils, not cheap ones or cute ones. They really shouldn't be too much more expensive than the other ones. GL!

OMG you said it!

Every year, on Back to School Night, I request to the parents to PLEASE only buy the regular, yellow pencils. Yes, I know they're boring to the kids, but those ones with all the graphics on them jam/clog up my pencil sharpener.

Many of them have some type of plastic wrap/coating on them. Drives the custodian crazy when he has to keep fixing our manual pencil sharpeners. We have an electric also, but I won't let those "other" pencils anywhere near my electric one.

 

[Plannin'Shannon]

fossil fuel.
Another pet peeve of mine is the composition notebooks. Every teacher insists that each kid get at least 8 composition notebooks. At the end of the year, said notebooks get sent home, each with no more than 10 pages used. But they are always too beat up from being jammed into tiny desks and cubbies all year to be recyclable for next year. Somebody knows somebody in the Composition Notebook Mafia.

Hilarious and oh so true.

 

[princessmom29]

Why is it such a big deal? Because if I've gone to every freaking store in town looking for the specific brand of a certain type of folder in the specified eight different colors (this happened exactly last year) and no place has them, well, guess what? Doing the School Supplies Scavenger Hunt isn't the only thing parents have to do in their spare time. Many hours of my life that I will never get back were wasted on these excursions. Oh, and gallons of fossil fuel.

I'm in my 50s and went to a school where we routinely had 40 kids in a class at a minimum, and yet the teacher managed to educate the children without a plethora of color-coordinated foldrers. It can be done.

Another pet peeve of mine is the composition notebooks. Every teacher insists that each kid get at least 8 composition notebooks. At the end of the year, said notebooks get sent home, each with no more than 10 pages used. But they are always too beat up from being jammed into tiny desks and cubbies all year to be recyclable for next year. Somebody knows somebody in the Composition Notebook Mafia.

Of course kidscan learn withotu color coded folders, and no, you should not have to run around to 10 places to get them. It is silly to ask for colors no one has, and that is something the teacher sould look at before makingthe list. I don't understnd however, why it is such a hardship for a child to have a plain yellow folder rather than one with a character on it if it makes things in the classroom run more smoothly? If it works better, why not do it?? There is no reason for a kid to need 8 composition books.

 

[princessmom29]

Like I said, the system is a wreck.

Hope you keep receipts for everything and write it off.

you can only write off $250 in educator expenses, and they come off your income, not your tax burden so I only really get about $30 back. At leat is it something!

 

[jen0610]

One year DD had to have "round barrelled pencils". ?? I took that to mean not the hexagonal (?) shaped regular ol' pencils. I could only find them in the funky design packs (more $ and since it was stated they pooled supplies, I knew it would cause issues.) I ended up just getting the regular ol' yellow nonround ones. I meant to ask the teacher when school started, but noticed every single pencil brought in was the same kind I had sent anyway .

I'm willing to get specifics (agree on Crayola products for sure)- but if a teacher wants something off the wall, they need to say where you can get them. (Or order enough for the class and folks sent $ in.) I can't look at every store in the city searching for odd ball things.

It really gets my goat too when they don't USE the oddball things. One year DS had to have a specific type composition book. I finally found it- it came home at the end of the year with like 5 pages used.

DS will be in 10th this fall. He will be taking the same graft notebook to school that he has had since 6th grade. It is a 100 sheet notebook and every year he has had to have one according to his teacher. And every year when he brings home his stuff, this comes home with maybe 2 or 3 pages gone.

For years now, we have had a backpack full of their left over stuff. Every year, we pull from this left over supply before we buy anything new.

 

[Pigeon]

Of course kidscan learn withotu color coded folders, and no, you should not have to run around to 10 places to get them. It is silly to ask for colors no one has, and that is something the teacher sould look at before makingthe list. I don't understnd however, why it is such a hardship for a child to have a plain yellow folder rather than one with a character on it if it makes things in the classroom run more smoothly? If it works better, why not do it?? There is no reason for a kid to need 8 composition books.

The folders with the pictures on them cost exactly the same price as solid color folders, so your scenario where the poor kids get teased because they have plain folders makes no sense at all.

It is just way easier to actually find decent quality folders that happen to have photos on them than solid colors. It is not a hardship for the kid to have a plain folder. That is not the issue. It is a hardship for me to find a teal folder, a magenta folder, a dark green folder, a light green folder, a sky blue folder, a navy folder, a black folder, and a maroon folder, all heavy duty laminated, two pocket, no center paper fasteners, preferably Mead. (Last year's list).

The teachers in our district never go looking to see where any of this stuff can be obtained, I guarantee it.

 

[mjantz]

AFA specific colored folders I use them in Kindergarten. Red is the daily folder for discipline, blue is for homework & yellow is for the weekly school packet. It's easier to say to them 'Get your blue folder' or 'I need your red folder' then it is for them to try & remember if the Hannah Montana or the Spongebob folder is the right one. I don't care if they put stickers on them but I do request those colors. It's these little things that make the classroom run smoothly.

 

[monsterkitty]

OMG you said it!

Every year, on Back to School Night, I request to the parents to PLEASE only buy the regular, yellow pencils. Yes, I know they're boring to the kids, but those ones with all the graphics on them jam/clog up my pencil sharpener.

Many of them have some type of plastic wrap/coating on them. Drives the custodian crazy when he has to keep fixing our manual pencil sharpeners. We have an electric also, but I won't let those "other" pencils anywhere near my electric one.

I won't let the "other" pencils near my electric sharpener either because when it breaks I have to buy the new one. The district took out all of the manual sharpeners a few years ago because a few custodians complained that they were always having to fix or replace them. As a result, the teachers got to buy their own electric sharpeners. Not only that, but many of us also had to buy our own surge protector chords to go with said sharpener because the district wouldn't provide them and the fire department will only let us use the surge protectors.

I have a bathroom in my classroom. If we want toilet paper, paper towels, or soap, I have to provide it. We are not allowed to ask the parents. Thank goodness for Costco as they even have the brands that have been approved by the fire department for us to purchase. Yes, we are even told what type of soap we have to buy or any other cleaner by the fire department.

 

[MichelleinMaine]

DS will be in 10th this fall. He will be taking the same graft notebook to school that he has had since 6th grade. It is a 100 sheet notebook and every year he has had to have one according to his teacher. And every year when he brings home his stuff, this comes home with maybe 2 or 3 pages gone.

For years now, we have had a backpack full of their left over stuff. Every year, we pull from this left over supply before we buy anything new.

YES< that is what is was, graph paper comp book. He plays Dungeons and Dragons, so it got relegated to that afterwards. Teachers since have only asked for looseleaf graph paper (totally fine, it lasts us far more than a year.)

DS is also going into tenth- and has been using the same binders for several years now. A neighbor gave him some metal ones they didn't need anymore at her work- indestructable!

 

[snarlingcoyote]

They treat your kid like he/she is Harry Potter and they're Snape. Forever. Blackmark next to the permanent records and everything.

Oh wait. I don't think you're kidding.

Actually, when I taught, I requested that the kids bring something to write with and something to keep their notes in. If they wanted paper with lines, they had to bring that themselves. (I kept a box of copy paper that had been used on one side in my room.) For essays, you had to use wide ruled notebook paper. Looseleaf was better, but if you cut the crumbly edges off before you turned it in, that was fine too.

And yes, it was amazing how many pencils and pens I gave away in a year. But I was smart. At the end of each school year, I went through the lockers with a couple of other teachers and got all the forgotten school supplies before they could be thrown out. Pens, pencils, paper, notebooks, binders scissors, coloring pencils, crayons, VCR tapes, jackets etc. I also stocked up at the el-cheapo sales at the beginning of the school year (this mostly for pens, pencils and a few reams of looseleaf paper. If I had those and my scratch paper box, I could teach almost all my classes even if no child brought supplies), and wasn't above a sob story to a store manager to get an extra percentage off if I could.

The kid whose parents actually cared about them would occasionally nab a pen or two because they forgot theirs. The others didn't have to worry about being without supplies when they needed them, even if it was for a class I didn't teach. (If you sidled up to me and asked, I'd get you what you needed without anyone else being the wiser, even if I'd never taught you.)

So no Snape. Not from me when I taught, but if your kid never had any supplies, not even a ripped backpack, he/she was in the "parents just don't care, let me keep an eye out for him/her" category in my mind from that point forward.

 

[scrapquitler]

AFA specific colored folders I use them in Kindergarten. Red is the daily folder for discipline, blue is for homework & yellow is for the weekly school packet. It's easier to say to them 'Get your blue folder' or 'I need your red folder' then it is for them to try & remember if the Hannah Montana or the Spongebob folder is the right one. I don't care if they put stickers on them but I do request those colors. It's these little things that make the classroom run smoothly.

The only year my DD had the specific color folders was in FIFTH grade. I can certainly understand telling K students 'take out the red folder for your homework' but by fifth grade, they certainly can handle "take out your homework folder" instead.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I think you guys solved my pencil issues.

I kept wondering why we had lead issues.

Might even explain my pencil sharpener issues. We just get the 97 cent simple sharpeners because I kept killing the powered ones with stuck lead.

Now to go through and catch the names of those American brand pencils again.

And boy have you solved the mysteries of my childhood and school supply lists.

Thankfully we homeschool and I am pretty flexible on what I will let the kids choose. But I will veto if it won't work. Last year I bought a cheap compass. It didn't even work for one use.

This year, I couldn't find a metal, so bought a plastic one that cost more and looked more sturdy. Then I found a metal one. We shall see which one lasts longer. Cheap supplies become expensive when they break so quickly or can't do what they were designed to do.

 

[krcit]

I have 3 kids and it took me until the oldest was in about 5th grade to realize that I don't have to drive myself nuts getting everything on the list. Like last year, my son's teacher asked for 12 green pens. They use the green pens for correcting their spelling tests once a week. I sent in 2 green pens and one came home never used. They ask for 72 sharpened pencils. No, sorry I send in about 30 and send in new ones when he needs them. 4 packages of looseleaf? Not when my middle dd found boxes of looseleaf in her 5th grade classroom that had my older dd's name on it from 3 years earlier. IO have no probelm sending in needed supplies and wipes and tissues but enough is enough.

 

[Mrs.Toad]

I don't remember pencils being so cheaply made when I was a kid, but they're a constant problem in my classroom -- students sharpen and sharpen and sharpen. It takes forever, and disrupts class.

I only volunteer in the classroom a couple of hours a week, but the quality of pencils drives me nuts, I can't imagine how bad it is for the teachers! Lead falls out, lead is crooked, so there is a thin film of wood over one side of even a sharp pencil point... And these are yellow pencils, not the cutesy kind. Have no idea if they are American or foreign-made, though.

I just wish that the schools would put together packages of items they want for each grade and let the PTA sell them for a slight profit. I would certainly buy them to save the gas from having to hunt down the items. I imagine that they could order/buy in bulk as a non-profit and sell at a decent rate- this would take care of some of the fund raising and making sure they have the supplies that are needed.

Our school used to do this through a company called EduKit, but had to stop this year for two reasons. 1. Budget shortfalls created such havoc that they didn't how many teachers they'd have at each grade level, what specials classes would be offered, and what supplies would be needed until far past the deadline. 2. Even though we used an outside company, it still requires quite a bit of volunteer time to administer the program, and our volunteers are stretched so thin already, even the PTA had to cut out some of their previous events, fundraisers and services simply due to lack of help.

Why? Why are basic bathroom necessities not provided by the district? On another note, I stock the bathroom (and soda machine) in my business out of my own pocket too. Toilet paper, paper towels, soap, laundry detergent, cleaning supplies, tissues, soda for the Coke machine. It gets written off a business expense. I don't ask my students or their families to supply these items, and yeah it's a pretty big investment but it's the business I'm in so I do it.

Not knocking teachers...just "the system".

In your case, and that of any other business, you can raise prices if you cannot afford to stock your bathroom, right? Public schools cannot do that. They are stuck with the budget given to them by the district, which is stuck with the funds it receives from state and local taxes. Our elementary school's site-based budget barely covers the teachers and administrators salaries, utilities, etc. There is not a lot left for bathroom and cleaning supplies, so all year long, they ask for donations of Clorox wipes, paper cups, TP, etc. (Wipes, tissues and hand sanitizer are on the supply list.) It was the principal's choice to keep staffing up and rely on donations for much of this, but we live in a pretty wealthy district where many parents are willing to help out. In other districts, I'd guess that the decision might have been made to let another teacher go, and increase class sizes or do away with art or PE, if they didn't think the parents would pitch in to provide supplies.

As for the OP, I don't mind when they ask for brands. I know Rose Art crayons and markers are junk. But dd was asked for three spiral notebooks (80 or more sheets) this year. All Target had were 70 sheets (other than cutesy ones that cost 4 to 8 times as much.) I bought them, because I also know that when she brings them home at the end of the year, each one will have about 10-20 sheets filled in, and if she really uses up the 70 sheets in one year, I will be happy to buy more notebooks part way through the year.

 

[POPCITY]

I just wish that the schools would put together packages of items they want for each grade and let the PTA sell them for a slight profit. I would certainly buy them to save the gas from having to hunt down the items. I imagine that they could order/buy in bulk as a non-profit and sell at a decent rate- this would take care of some of the fund raising and making sure they have the supplies that are needed.

Our school did that for a couple of years, it was AWESOME! I think it was $54, you paid at the end of the year, and when you went to open house for the new year, there was a big box.

They quit doing it last year, I don't know why...

 

[Poohforyou]

AFA specific colored folders I use them in Kindergarten. Red is the daily folder for discipline, blue is for homework & yellow is for the weekly school packet. It's easier to say to them 'Get your blue folder' or 'I need your red folder' then it is for them to try & remember if the Hannah Montana or the Spongebob folder is the right one. I don't care if they put stickers on them but I do request those colors. It's these little things that make the classroom run smoothly.

I get this for kindergarten and even most of elementary school but my DD will be in her 2nd year of middle school and there are still specific color requests being made. My DD said it really doesn't matter as long as she has a different color for each class and she knows which is which. She said her teachers last year never made mention of a folder by color.

So we went to Target and I let her pick out the colors she wanted. We were done in about 15 minutes which was a big change from the hours spent last year looking for burgundy and cream colored folders.

 

[snowy76]

We have to supply tissues in our building. The only ones stocked are in the nurse's office and they won't let us have any.

That being said, the district buys the worst, sandpapery tissues so I never argue with them I buy Puffs with lotion 2-3 year at BJs and I find kids I don't know coming in between classes to ask for a tissue Word spreads which teachers have the creature comforts (especially when sinus infection season rolls around).

To the PP who asked about snacks - if every child brings in a certain number of juices, snack packs, etc. right off the bat, then the teacher has a pool of snacks to pull from for some time. No more signing up for snack hosts, like DS's preschool has, or worrying that some kid's parents didn't give enough of a crap to send a juice box and baggie of pretzels. No trades between kids or arguments over who traded what. Heck, I teach high school and *I* keep a stash of snacks for students for some of the same reasons!

 

[kamik86]

I can somewhat understand teachers needing tons of extra pencils and paper in elentary school. However in my middle school the teachers only had a few pencils they would loan out and in most of the classes you had to give something to have them (some did your backpack, so if you forgot to turn in the pencil you would be back next period so that you could get your homework back, some made you leave a shoe, etc). Most of us would just borrow from our friends to avoid this. In high school the teacher would generally ask why you were telling them that and to borrow one. They also didn't keep extra calculators so if you forgot yours at home and no one had an extra you had to take your test with no calculator, one time of that and most remembered to keep one at school at all times.

As for notebooks if you didn't have it you generally got plan lose leaf paper to take notes on that was scrap. Most kids hated this so they remembered there notebook next time. In high school again you would be expected to borrow paper from someone elses notebook.

 

[ccgirl]

We have to supply tissues in our building. The only ones stocked are in the nurse's office and they won't let us have any.

That being said, the district buys the worst, sandpapery tissues so I never argue with them I buy Puffs with lotion 2-3 year at BJs and I find kids I don't know coming in between classes to ask for a tissue Word spreads which teachers have the creature comforts (especially when sinus infection season rolls around).

To the PP who asked about snacks - if every child brings in a certain number of juices, snack packs, etc. right off the bat, then the teacher has a pool of snacks to pull from for some time. No more signing up for snack hosts, like DS's preschool has, or worrying that some kid's parents didn't give enough of a crap to send a juice box and baggie of pretzels. No trades between kids or arguments over who traded what. Heck, I teach high school and *I* keep a stash of snacks for students for some of the same reasons!

Why doesn't every student just bring their own snack? In my DD's school there is no sign up for snack duty. You pack a morning snack/drink and lunch/drink for your child. No sharing allowed.