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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have to say, I am very impressed with the environmental ethic that so many people in this thread seem to share! I have to admit that using the rest of a half-used composition book for my own notetaking is not something that would even occur to me. I like having my own supplies that I choose for myself.

My kids went to elementary school at Taylor, and the great thing there was that you could just pay $40-50 to the PTA (depending on the class and the list) and they would take care of the supplies for you. They would take advantage of bulk purchasing, and I'm sure there would be leftover money for the PTA coffers, and that was fine with me. Boom and done. It was awesome. Such a nice change from daycare/preschool, where I would spend the night before the first day of the new "class year" running around from CVS to Target to Staples staring at depleted shelves, trying to find specific things on the supply lists. It was WELL worth the extra cost to do this (and honestly, I don't think there would have been much saved by buying everything myself, to say nothing of the time value of avoiding that chore).

I honestly don't remember getting back much at the end of the year in the way of unused or partially used supplies, e.g., leftover glue sticks or tissues or white board markers. It would be better if they would just keep that stuff at the school. In any event, I thought the idea was that most of the supplies were treated as a sort of "communal property," which is why brand names and sizes were often specified, as it makes it easier and more fair for everyone to have the same stuff.

Every year, those stupid kid scissors came home at the end of the year. Why on Earth do those need to be sent home with each kid instead of kept for the classroom year after year? How many kiddie scissors does one house need?!

The Edukits were great as far as efficiency - and to ensure all kids had the same supplies. But increasingly expensive and not particularly economical - almost $80 for one by 4th or 5th grade! And those same stupid scissors and extra glue sticks still came home at the end of the year. And the countless barely-used composition books. yes, I too, kept them and am still using them up with my personal uses, even though I absolutely HATE them because they don't open flat, can't fold them over, can't easily rip out pages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

Ugh. “Ungrateful” for what exactly? You didn’t do the teacher any favors. The supplies are for your kid and the other kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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!

Ugh. “Ungrateful” for what exactly? You didn’t do the teacher any favors. The supplies are for your kid and the other kids.

It’s actually the school’s job to provide these, that’s what the taxes are for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I'm sorry, I just realized I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you meant you encourage families to use them at home, not to bring them back!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

I don't understand why the teacher wouldn't just ask the kid to sharpen a new one whenever he needed it. Plug in/battery operated sharpeners are so much faster than the old wall mounted, hand crank ones we had to use when we were kidsS!

[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.

I'm not aware of anyone having to purchase any supplies to cover the gap. School principals have some discretion over it, so it might vary by school, but when I was teaching we had a whole supply room full of stuff and never had to buy any kind of school supply. My son's school had the same - in fact, at one point they "discovered" a cabinet that everyone forgot about that had been used to store unused supplies, and there were just tons and tons of school supplies sitting in there.

[Anonymous]

So we switched to an expensive private last year and I was surprised to find that for the first time ever, I can send in used school supplies. They didn't care at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to say, I am very impressed with the environmental ethic that so many people in this thread seem to share! I have to admit that using the rest of a half-used composition book for my own notetaking is not something that would even occur to me. I like having my own supplies that I choose for myself.

My kids went to elementary school at Taylor, and the great thing there was that you could just pay $40-50 to the PTA (depending on the class and the list) and they would take care of the supplies for you. They would take advantage of bulk purchasing, and I'm sure there would be leftover money for the PTA coffers, and that was fine with me. Boom and done. It was awesome. Such a nice change from daycare/preschool, where I would spend the night before the first day of the new "class year" running around from CVS to Target to Staples staring at depleted shelves, trying to find specific things on the supply lists. It was WELL worth the extra cost to do this (and honestly, I don't think there would have been much saved by buying everything myself, to say nothing of the time value of avoiding that chore).

I honestly don't remember getting back much at the end of the year in the way of unused or partially used supplies, e.g., leftover glue sticks or tissues or white board markers. It would be better if they would just keep that stuff at the school. In any event, I thought the idea was that most of the supplies were treated as a sort of "communal property," which is why brand names and sizes were often specified, as it makes it easier and more fair for everyone to have the same stuff.

Every year, those stupid kid scissors came home at the end of the year. Why on Earth do those need to be sent home with each kid instead of kept for the classroom year after year? How many kiddie scissors does one house need?!

The Edukits were great as far as efficiency - and to ensure all kids had the same supplies. But increasingly expensive and not particularly economical - almost $80 for one by 4th or 5th grade! And those same stupid scissors and extra glue sticks still came home at the end of the year. And the countless barely-used composition books. yes, I too, kept them and am still using them up with my personal uses, even though I absolutely HATE them because they don't open flat, can't fold them over, can't easily rip out pages.

OMG yes, those stupid composition books!! Three pages used and now I have stacks of them at home and can't use them for anything. Why can't they use spirals???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is kind of disingenuous. I’m not even sure it’s the teachers who make these lists. But if the kids are going to use 3 pages of a composition book, they don’t need one. They can use notebook paper. Or one composition book for all the subjects. The point is, just don’t ask for supplies that aren’t actually needed. But yes, if stuff is leftover, send it Back to the people who paid for it in the first place. Why is that hard?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is kind of disingenuous. I’m not even sure it’s the teachers who make these lists. But if the kids are going to use 3 pages of a composition book, they don’t need one. They can use notebook paper. Or one composition book for all the subjects. The point is, just don’t ask for supplies that aren’t actually needed. But yes, if stuff is leftover, send it Back to the people who paid for it in the first place. Why is that hard?

It's not disingenuous at all, because I'm not trying to accurately describe your personal complaints. Everything I listed has been complained about in the thread by different people. You're just complaining from yet another angle - these lists are stupid, who makes them?! And I personally would prefer that they keep any leftovers rather than send it back to me, but I've never in life complained about it either way.

I don't envy teachers. I get the list, I buy the crap, I send it in. It's not particularly expensive, but I know that some families can't afford it so I buy extra or make a donation for that purpose. At this point I haven't even met the teacher yet but look at all these parents pissed off at her from the jump because of . . . everything and nothing! It's not like these teachers invented the concept of bringing in school supplies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is kind of disingenuous. I’m not even sure it’s the teachers who make these lists. But if the kids are going to use 3 pages of a composition book, they don’t need one. They can use notebook paper. Or one composition book for all the subjects. The point is, just don’t ask for supplies that aren’t actually needed. But yes, if stuff is leftover, send it Back to the people who paid for it in the first place. Why is that hard?

It's not disingenuous at all, because I'm not trying to accurately describe your personal complaints. Everything I listed has been complained about in the thread by different people. You're just complaining from yet another angle - these lists are stupid, who makes them?! And I personally would prefer that they keep any leftovers rather than send it back to me, but I've never in life complained about it either way.

I don't envy teachers. I get the list, I buy the crap, I send it in. It's not particularly expensive, but I know that some families can't afford it so I buy extra or make a donation for that purpose. At this point I haven't even met the teacher yet but look at all these parents pissed off at her from the jump because of . . . everything and nothing! It's not like these teachers invented the concept of bringing in school supplies.

You're whining that other people think the process could be better? Ok. Your complaints are valid, others are not.

[Anonymous]

Always include some of the gently-used stuff amid the new items. It's good for your kids to learn to re-use school supplies in our throw-away culture. The teacher sounds wasteful. Also, I didn't always buy the brand requested, I might buy the Target "Up and Up" brand color markers instead of the Crayola markers that were more expensive. I never had a teacher say one word about it. Ever.

Then again, we stocked up on extra of everything and dropped off a big bag of extra (new) supplies in August and January to the teacher, unprompted, for classroom use. We were good like that.

But Up and Up vs. Crayola? I'm taking the better deal, baby. A barely-used pencil, half-used pen or nearly-new eraser from last year? Put that in the pencil carrier.

Mom of HS graduate

[Anonymous]

Here is what elementary kids really need these days considering a lot of stuff is done online or teacher provided worksheets

folder - no more than 2 any color - more than that and it’s too much, little kids are not organizing mavens, your lucky when papers make it into a single folder much less 5 folders in rainbow colors

notebook - no more than 2 any color - composition books suck imo but I get the point about the spirals coming out and poking, a compromise would be soft bound notebooks.

pencils/erasers/pencil case

scissors, glue, crayons, protractor, compass, rulers - schools buy in bulk and provide to teachers. If parents really want they can purchase and send in these items labeled.

schools should bring back workbooks - no loose pages; everything in one spot

[Anonymous]

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

ES Teacher

Exactly. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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!

Ugh. “Ungrateful” for what exactly? You didn’t do the teacher any favors. The supplies are for your kid and the other kids.

"Ungrateful" for the pencils. Just because they needed to be sharpened? Send them BACK to the parent? You will never convince me that the classroom does not have access to a pencil sharpener or that it is an undue burden to get those pencils sharpened at the school - whether the teacher spends 5 minutes with an electric sharpener, or a student does it, or somebody just sharpens a few of them each day. Schools should be providing pencils anyway. I think it was rude of the teacher - like giving a gift of a sweater back to the giver to get you a color that goes better with your favorite skirt instead of just wearing it with jeans. It's not like the teacher or the class won't be sharpening any other pencils throughout the year. Or is the teacher going to send them all home all year to get sharpened?