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Post by theboydbunch on Aug 6, 2014 19:53:38 GMT
Our PTO uses a company that sells the supplies in a kit for each grade level. The kids ate offered for less than $25. It includes everything on the supply list. I love this and wish our school did it! It would certainly eliminate the inconsistency among supplies!
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Post by 950nancy on Aug 6, 2014 20:03:13 GMT
Our PTO uses a company that sells the supplies in a kit for each grade level. The kids ate offered for less than $25. It includes everything on the supply list. I love this and wish our school did it! It would certainly eliminate the inconsistency among supplies! They do sell very cheap product, for sure. But it just does show that $125 for a supply list (except maybe a TI calculator) seems outrageous. I always shopped at Target or Walmart and never spent more than $40-50 bucks a kid. We got whatever brand the kids really wanted or the school specified.
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Post by doesitmatter on Aug 6, 2014 20:17:40 GMT
I just can't get worked up over the amount of pencils requested - and yes I have 4 kids, though 3 are much more expensive with college expenses now. I send in what is requested and send extra when I am able. Things are very tight this year so I won't be able to send all teh extra supplies I usually do but I will send what is requested- I trust the teachers to know what is needed.
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jj
Shy Member
Posts: 48
Jun 26, 2014 19:11:33 GMT
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Post by jj on Aug 6, 2014 20:44:46 GMT
I would send in the pencils. I bought and sharpened about 800 Ticonderoga pencils for my son's teacher last year as part of a teacher's appreciation gift. The motor on my electric pencil sharpener over heated twice! She said she usually buys around 400 pencils a year out of her own money. I can't even tell you how thankful she was. I don't know if she was more excited about the amount or the fact that they were all sharpened. I put them in a sears craftsman tool tote with a big red bow. This is going to be my go-to holiday gift for every teacher from now on. Forget the hand cream or decorative items, what they really want is a ton of sharpened pencils! (and a gift card!)
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Post by M~ on Aug 6, 2014 21:18:00 GMT
I'm fortunate in that I don't have to stress about the expense of school supplies. But I am absolutely sensitive to the fact that the $187 per child I spent for the list my kids' school sent is a burden on many families. I would guess that over the years, the average costs for supplies were between $100-125/child for school supplies and that would not count clothing/shoes or things like extra costs like lunch accounts and the like. It *can* be a burden, if for no other reason than all the costs are bunched up in one very short period of time and can't be spread out over time. If it were *just* $15 pencils I would dance naked in the streets. I understand that parents spend more money on school supply than *just* on pencils, but topic of the thread was ummmmm...just pencils. I also understand that for some families, school supplies are a financial burden, which is yet another reason that I would not quibble about sending whatever the teacher sent. Maybe your kid (and I mean the general you) will need a pencil at some point, not because his or her parent can't afford it, but for whatever reason. I'd like to think that no one on this thread would quibble about giving a kid a pencil when he or she needs one. How about this scenario. Let's just suppose that we do away with the dreaded "communal school supplies." And this rule is STRICTLY enforced. So, in this universe, if your kid doesn't have a pencil, or pen, or eraser, or whatever, your kid is going to have to deal with it. Insert in this hypothetical that your kid "forgets" to bring a pencil to school one day. He or she is supposed to take a test, but has no pencil. The teacher then gives your kid an "F" because, you know, after all, we aren't going to violate the strictly enforced no communal supply rule. Would you be OK with your kid getting an F?
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Oct 11, 2024 6:21:36 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2014 21:22:49 GMT
I would guess that over the years, the average costs for supplies were between $100-125/child for school supplies and that would not count clothing/shoes or things like extra costs like lunch accounts and the like. It *can* be a burden, if for no other reason than all the costs are bunched up in one very short period of time and can't be spread out over time. If it were *just* $15 pencils I would dance naked in the streets. I understand that parents spend more money on school supply than *just* on pencils, but topic of the thread was ummmmm...just pencils. I also understand that for some families, school supplies are a financial burden, which is yet another reason that I would not quibble about sending whatever the teacher sent. Maybe your kid (and I mean the general you) will need a pencil at some point, not because his or her parent can't afford it, but for whatever reason. I'd like to think that no one on this thread would quibble about giving a kid a pencil when he or she needs one. How about this scenario. Let's just suppose that we do away with the dreaded "communal school supplies." And this rule is STRICTLY enforced. So, in this universe, if your kid doesn't have a pencil, or pen, or eraser, or whatever, your kid is going to have to deal with it. Insert in this hypothetical that your kid "forgets" to bring a pencil to school one day. He or she is supposed to take a test, but has no pencil. The teacher then gives your kid an "F" because, you know, after all, we aren't going to violate the strictly enforced no communal supply rule. Would you be OK with your kid getting an F? The bigger question is, if your child has a cheap yellow pencil will the teacher give an "F" because it's not a beloved Ticonderoga pencil?
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Post by Dixie Lou on Aug 6, 2014 22:43:50 GMT
I'm a teacher. We make class lists by grade level. My grade level, first grade, asked for 2 packs of 24 pencils. We WILL use them all by the end of the year, probably much sooner and I will go buy more. Some of the students need a new pencil for each assignment and other students hoard them in their desks or pencil boxes. Sometimes I will go around to desks while they're working and have them give all but two yellow pencils to me so I can sharpen them and put them back in the pencil bucket. We have a pencil machine at school and it's amazing how many fancy pencils the kids have. They keep them in their pencil boxes. I only sharpen pencils once or twice a week so they learn to hang on to the sharpened ones (not break them on purpose.) The colorful, fun pencils don't sharpen as well as the plain yellow ones.
PE, Music and Art teachers do ask for each classroom to donate a couple boxes of tissues and germ-x. Anytime I have left-overs of anything I offer it to specials. I changed classrooms this year and last year's teacher has an entire shelf full of manila paper. I already gave the art teacher my (much smaller) stash of manila paper. I hope he wants more!
Folders, paper, pencils, spiral notebooks, index cards, post-its are all put in one place. Glue, glue sticks, crayons, markers, scissors, and those kinds of things are put in a special place for each child. It's kind of sad when a student doesn't have any extras when I am passing out the refills. If there is a true need I will go buy them some myself.
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Post by LavenderLayoutLady on Aug 6, 2014 23:20:00 GMT
Funny you should ask this. Two years ago, my youngest dd's teacher was caught by quite a few parents & the asst. principal taking home the unused boxes of tissues, hand sanitizer, hand soap, and paper towels on the last day of school. Just absolutely loading up the back of her car! When she was asked on the spot, "Shouldn't you leave them for next year?" She shrugged and said, "The parents next year need to bring them in for their kids." Funny enough, she didn't teach at that school the next school year. I'd hope this is not the norm! At my school hand sanitizer and baggies are "optional" on the supply list, not mandatory; so I end up buying a lot of these myself. I truly doubt it is the norm.
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Post by LavenderLayoutLady on Aug 6, 2014 23:22:45 GMT
Our PTO uses a company that sells the supplies in a kit for each grade level. The kids ate offered for less than $25. It includes everything on the supply list. If I have extras of things at the end of the year I share with the teachers that don't have regular classrooms. There are a lot of these teachers. I wish this was an option for the kids at our school. I've spent more than $80 for my two school aged kids and that has been just buying the absolute basics without the extra things I will send in during the year. And that is not accounting for the school uniforms I had to buy for them (public school with mandatory uniforms. What do parents do if they can't afford to clothe their kids regularly & in uniforms?)
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Post by freecharlie on Aug 6, 2014 23:44:40 GMT
Our PTO uses a company that sells the supplies in a kit for each grade level. The kids ate offered for less than $25. It includes everything on the supply list. If I have extras of things at the end of the year I share with the teachers that don't have regular classrooms. There are a lot of these teachers. I wish this was an option for the kids at our school. I've spent more than $80 for my two school aged kids and that has been just buying the absolute basics without the extra things I will send in during the year. And that is not accounting for the school uniforms I had to buy for them (public school with mandatory uniforms. What do parents do if they can't afford to clothe their kids regularly & in uniforms?) In out district (it might be a state mandate) if the school requires uniform, it must supply them to those who cannot afford them
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Post by theboydbunch on Aug 6, 2014 23:51:41 GMT
I would send in the pencils. I bought and sharpened about 800 Ticonderoga pencils for my son's teacher last year as part of a teacher's appreciation gift. The motor on my electric pencil sharpener over heated twice! She said she usually buys around 400 pencils a year out of her own money. I can't even tell you how thankful she was. I don't know if she was more excited about the amount or the fact that they were all sharpened. I put them in a sears craftsman tool tote with a big red bow. This is going to be my go-to holiday gift for every teacher from now on. Forget the hand cream or decorative items, what they really want is a ton of sharpened pencils! (and a gift card!)
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Post by theboydbunch on Aug 6, 2014 23:52:51 GMT
I'd hope this is not the norm! At my school hand sanitizer and baggies are "optional" on the supply list, not mandatory; so I end up buying a lot of these myself. I truly doubt it is the norm. I agree... it's certainly not at my school, but I'm never sure what happens outside of my own little school house
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Post by marmargirl on Aug 7, 2014 0:09:55 GMT
This is interesting to me. I don't have kids so I don't have to deal with this stuff but back in the old days when I was in school, we didn't even get supply lists. We just brought brought in the basics (a couple of pencils, paper, folders, erasers, etc.) for our own use. If we needed something else or different, we got it when it was time.
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Post by freecharlie on Aug 30, 2014 22:58:16 GMT
Bumping so a refuse a can find a link to a sharpener
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