"Whatever you do, don't bring used supplies to school"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At least some of you get back the unused supplies. We usually don’t. I’ve sent in so many pairs of scissors & never get them back. I sent in a pencil pouch one year that never got used or returned. These aren’t consumable items like crayons & paper. This year, apparently my 3rd grader needs 72 pre-sharpened pencils. SEVENTY-TWO.

FYI I have never bought pre sharpened because they are so much more expensive and nobody has ever complained. I feel bad for the pp who had to sharpen them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was posted by a teacher in my local moms group. Why? The fact that our children bring home tons of slightly used pencils/erasers/scissors/folders/etc is testament to the fact that they don't get fully used up during the school year and you don't NEED brand new supplies. What harm is it to you if we send those same items in for the coming school year?

Exactly and I agree

and I would have posted "whatever you do, don't request ridiculous amounts of supplies that are really not needed and won't even get used"

Teacher lists need to be way, way trimmed down and they need to only add what a kid really needs.

I'm talking to YOU 4 glue stick, 24 pack of pencils, 6 binders Teacher. You will see my used pencils, erasures, scissors etc again. It's called being good stewards of the environment ! Recycling.

4 glue sticks? lol my dd's list wants TEN!

I am really annoyed by the requests for supplies that are hard AF to find. Like 8 packs of markers (they come in 10 packs! 10 packs are on sale and the only 8 packs are on amazon for $9), 8 packs of multicultural crayons when they come in 24 packs (at least at Walmart and Target).

I will say that I can't send used supplies back to school. I should have taken a picture of my dd's supplies on the last day of school- 1 inch crayons that were broken and all missing the wrappers, pencils that were broken, not one pencil had an eraser, the supply box was busted and missing the latch, pencil shavings galore, marker caps with no markers. It was like a big box of trash. The only thing reusable was the scissors.

OP here, in June, my 9 year old came home with four composition books that had her name and 0-2 pages used. 4 erasers that were barely used, a dirty but in tact pencil box, scissors, and ruler and several pencils that had barely been used. I am sending all of those items back this year (will wipe down the box, scissors, ruler). I really don’t care what the teacher thinks, it’s so wasteful not to send in things that can be reused. Obviously I would not send the type of stuff you are talking about.

Same for my FCPS 5th grader. They spent the whole year on the laptops, hundreds of web pages a day, completely insane, and no work on paper ever came home! Then the end of the year all these books with one or two pages written in them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Content aside, the group where this was posted has a community guideline of not sharing things externally, if I remember correctly.

I’m not sure DCUM is the forum to use to call out this comment. Or at least ask it in a more oblique way, eg “Does anyone send in used school supplies?”

Also, if you had a question, why not respond to the poster and ask directly? I did that once when someone posted something that made me kind of curious/a little uncomfortable

I did not post identifying details, nor did I exactly quote that individual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At least some of you get back the unused supplies. We usually don’t. I’ve sent in so many pairs of scissors & never get them back. I sent in a pencil pouch one year that never got used or returned. These aren’t consumable items like crayons & paper. This year, apparently my 3rd grader needs 72 pre-sharpened pencils. SEVENTY-TWO.

I apologize. My ADHD kid is the reason you never get scissors back. I send in scissors for her. She “loses” them. Teacher gives her another pair. This happens multiple times. When her desk is overflowing with papers, someone helps her clean out her desk, and buried within the mess are 4 pairs of scissors. I send in lots of extra supplies to make up for dd’s using an inordinate amount.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my experience (mom, SIL are teachers), teachers count on the supply list to cover everything for the year, and have to make up any gaps out of their own pockets. So if everyone brings in half packs of construction paper and partially used erasers, that might be economically sound on the parents' parts but it pushes the cost onto the teacher at the end of the semester when there's not enough supplies left.

Spouse of a teacher, and have spent years in the school in various ways. The Elementary classrooms generally have more than enough supplies. Too much goes home unused.

Op, when I actually got supplies back (our school pooled supplies) I sent used the next year. I always let the teacher know that if more was needed (as in, my child used his supplies) I would send more. Anything that came home unused didn't go back the next year. Or, I sent very basics on day 1 and waited for a list from the teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was posted by a teacher in my local moms group. Why? The fact that our children bring home tons of slightly used pencils/erasers/scissors/folders/etc is testament to the fact that they don't get fully used up during the school year and you don't NEED brand new supplies. What harm is it to you if we send those same items in for the coming school year?

Exactly and I agree

and I would have posted "whatever you do, don't request ridiculous amounts of supplies that are really not needed and won't even get used"

Teacher lists need to be way, way trimmed down and they need to only add what a kid really needs.

I have multiple composition books that I now use for notes. Yes, I still write things down. My comp books have stickers on them, have been colored on, have my kids name on them. They also have nothing written in them.

Lol, do you have any idea how many "red pens" I have. Every freakin' year teachers request a package of red pens and every freakin' year I get them back. Package opened, of course---so they aren't "new." But completely unused.

[Anonymous]

We encourage our families to use items from the previous year. Scissors still cut, crayons still color.

ES Teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my experience (mom, SIL are teachers), teachers count on the supply list to cover everything for the year, and have to make up any gaps out of their own pockets. So if everyone brings in half packs of construction paper and partially used erasers, that might be economically sound on the parents' parts but it pushes the cost onto the teacher at the end of the semester when there's not enough supplies left.

So why don’t the teachers just ask parents for more supplies when they need them? Our teachers did this multiple times a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was posted by a teacher in my local moms group. Why? The fact that our children bring home tons of slightly used pencils/erasers/scissors/folders/etc is testament to the fact that they don't get fully used up during the school year and you don't NEED brand new supplies. What harm is it to you if we send those same items in for the coming school year?

Exactly and I agree

and I would have posted "whatever you do, don't request ridiculous amounts of supplies that are really not needed and won't even get used"

Teacher lists need to be way, way trimmed down and they need to only add what a kid really needs.

I have multiple composition books that I now use for notes. Yes, I still write things down. My comp books have stickers on them, have been colored on, have my kids name on them. They also have nothing written in them.

Lol, do you have any idea how many "red pens" I have. Every freakin' year teachers request a package of red pens and every freakin' year I get them back. Package opened, of course---so they aren't "new." But completely unused.

Why do schools in VA send back unused school supplies?? Schools in DC keep them for the next year.

[Anonymous]

So what I've learned from this thread is that people will complain if they get back unused supplies (wasteful!) and complain if they don't get back the unused supplies (those are mine!). I don't believe there's anything the teachers could do that wouldn't lead to complaining, so I don't see the point in wondering why they don't do things differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We encourage our families to use items from the previous year. Scissors still cut, crayons still color.

ES Teacher

If we didn't send the same scissors every year, we would have 10 pairs of scissors in our house right now. We only get back broken crayons, so those don't go back to school, but hell yeah, used scissors, headphones, plastic folders that are in good condition, barely used pink erasers, and Ticonderoga pencils that are not in the package but barely used get sent back. You said 48 pencils, you didn't say anything about 48 new and in pristine condition pencils.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was posted by a teacher in my local moms group. Why? The fact that our children bring home tons of slightly used pencils/erasers/scissors/folders/etc is testament to the fact that they don't get fully used up during the school year and you don't NEED brand new supplies. What harm is it to you if we send those same items in for the coming school year?

Exactly and I agree

and I would have posted "whatever you do, don't request ridiculous amounts of supplies that are really not needed and won't even get used"

Teacher lists need to be way, way trimmed down and they need to only add what a kid really needs.

I have multiple composition books that I now use for notes. Yes, I still write things down. My comp books have stickers on them, have been colored on, have my kids name on them. They also have nothing written in them.

Lol, do you have any idea how many "red pens" I have. Every freakin' year teachers request a package of red pens and every freakin' year I get them back. Package opened, of course---so they aren't "new." But completely unused.

Why do schools in VA send back unused school supplies?? Schools in DC keep them for the next year.

I live in VA, we don't get back unused supplies, we do get back barely used supplies plus things like scissors, headphones, pencil case/pouch, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was posted by a teacher in my local moms group. Why? The fact that our children bring home tons of slightly used pencils/erasers/scissors/folders/etc is testament to the fact that they don't get fully used up during the school year and you don't NEED brand new supplies. What harm is it to you if we send those same items in for the coming school year?

Exactly and I agree

and I would have posted "whatever you do, don't request ridiculous amounts of supplies that are really not needed and won't even get used"

Teacher lists need to be way, way trimmed down and they need to only add what a kid really needs.

I have multiple composition books that I now use for notes. Yes, I still write things down. My comp books have stickers on them, have been colored on, have my kids name on them. They also have nothing written in them.

yes, we are amassing unused composition books in the early elementary years. What are your intentions with these teachers? Why are they blank at the end of the year?

What drives me nuts is when the composition notebooks come back with worksheets glued into them, but nothing written. You couldn't just ask for a binder and hole punch?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We encourage our families to use items from the previous year. Scissors still cut, crayons still color.

ES Teacher

If we didn't send the same scissors every year, we would have 10 pairs of scissors in our house right now. We only get back broken crayons, so those don't go back to school, but hell yeah, used scissors, headphones, plastic folders that are in good condition, barely used pink erasers, and Ticonderoga pencils that are not in the package but barely used get sent back. You said 48 pencils, you didn't say anything about 48 new and in pristine condition pencils.

PP here.
Yep. We're good with that too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4 glue sticks is great. My kids need 8 and 12. Plus 3 boxes of Ticonderoga pencils each. They are expensive. Every year their supply list is outrageous, everything is brand specified, and we don’t get anything back except a couple highlighters.

By mistake I bought unsharpened Ticonderoga pencils one year. Probably around 3 boxes. The teacher sent them home for us to sharpen all of them. I remember as a kid going to the back of the room to use the wall sharpener and sharpening as slow as I possibly could. I guess kids don't get the small freedom anymore.

I would have found that quite rude and ungrateful, and would have kept the pencils for my household.

I honestly can't understand the supply lists for so many pencils, gluesticks, notebooks, papers or binders, when almost everything is done digitally now anyway. I WISH these things were actually needed!