Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious and this is mostly to teachers- why does each child need 96 crayons and 120 Ticonderoga pencils? In a class of 20 children that is 1.920 crayons and 2.400 pencils! What do you do with the leftover at the end of the year? Also why do you need paper towels and wipes? Aren’t these janitorial supplies?

Lists this year are MUCH more reasonable than other years. I purchased most supplies for under $40 each child (K and 4th) the pta box is almost $100 each! But still genuinely curious about these excessive amounts of items.

Schools don't supply enough of these for the classrooms. At our school you get a spray bottle and a couple of packages of crappy paper towels. You need a handful to do anything and refills are limited.

Can you say more about this? If you go to the admin of the school and say you’ve used your paper towels and need to clean the desks, they say…?

Because I feel like a parent calling and asking would not be told a teacher wasn’t allowed paper towels.

They would say “ask the janitor” and the janitor would say “I’ll drop them off later” and then they arrive 2-7 days later. The thing is, the paper towels are awful. I’m requesting an item that is very subpar. I’d rather ask the parents to bring some in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious and this is mostly to teachers- why does each child need 96 crayons and 120 Ticonderoga pencils? In a class of 20 children that is 1.920 crayons and 2.400 pencils! What do you do with the leftover at the end of the year? Also why do you need paper towels and wipes? Aren’t these janitorial supplies?

Lists this year are MUCH more reasonable than other years. I purchased most supplies for under $40 each child (K and 4th) the pta box is almost $100 each! But still genuinely curious about these excessive amounts of items.

Schools don't supply enough of these for the classrooms. At our school you get a spray bottle and a couple of packages of crappy paper towels. You need a handful to do anything and refills are limited.

Can you say more about this? If you go to the admin of the school and say you’ve used your paper towels and need to clean the desks, they say…?

Because I feel like a parent calling and asking would not be told a teacher wasn’t allowed paper towels.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious and this is mostly to teachers- why does each child need 96 crayons and 120 Ticonderoga pencils? In a class of 20 children that is 1.920 crayons and 2.400 pencils! What do you do with the leftover at the end of the year? Also why do you need paper towels and wipes? Aren’t these janitorial supplies?

Lists this year are MUCH more reasonable than other years. I purchased most supplies for under $40 each child (K and 4th) the pta box is almost $100 each! But still genuinely curious about these excessive amounts of items.

Schools don't supply enough of these for the classrooms. At our school you get a spray bottle and a couple of packages of crappy paper towels. You need a handful to do anything and refills are limited.

Also, I would send in more through the year, as needed. Same with pencils, crayons etc.

Anonymous wrote:Just curious and this is mostly to teachers- why does each child need 96 crayons and 120 Ticonderoga pencils? In a class of 20 children that is 1.920 crayons and 2.400 pencils! What do you do with the leftover at the end of the year? Also why do you need paper towels and wipes? Aren’t these janitorial supplies?

Lists this year are MUCH more reasonable than other years. I purchased most supplies for under $40 each child (K and 4th) the pta box is almost $100 each! But still genuinely curious about these excessive amounts of items.

Schools don't supply enough of these for the classrooms. At our school you get a spray bottle and a couple of packages of crappy paper towels. You need a handful to do anything and refills are limited.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you to all the teachers out there dealing with these crazy penny-wise pound-foolish parents. They worry more about buying too many pencils and Clorox wipes than making it easier for their children’s teachers to do their jobs. Some like to complain that teachers are not doing enough to educate their kids and the quality of education in FCPS is declining. Yet, they want teachers to monitor dropped pencils and force kids to pick them up so parents can save $5.50 a year on ‘excessive’ pencils.

This! +1000
And if most families spent an extra $10/year to contribute to tissues and wipes, the underpaid teacher doesn’t have to spend hundreds of their own $ on enough for the whole class for the whole school year.
I’m embarrassed by this thread and it makes me feel even more for the teachers.

I’m happy to chip in the $2 that a 24-pack of paper towels and a 2 bottles of Clorox coat with all the other parents. That can last a year. Kids can bring own tissues. This really is not that complicated. It’s a kind of litmus test to find the parents who are most Type A and anxious about doing everything right.

What to do with the kid who forgets their tissues?

I am usually in school before school opens since I volunteer at the school occasionally. I will talk to the teacher and offer them the following for the classroom from Walmart and Costco.

Clorox wipes, tissue papers, lysol, windex, bounty, germex, masks. I can't let my kid fall sick because there are some cheapo parents or poor parents who are not sending supplies.

I also have bought electric pencil sharpners, wall clock, air purifiers for the teachers Do they get stolen? Yes, very often. Also, I donate copier papers, pens, scissors, glue stick, loose paper etc. I donate every semester.

Anonymous wrote:

Nope. We found out the reason they wanted 3 Clorox wipes was because each teacher was giving one to the Art teacher. The school can pay for Clorox wipes. They can place team orders.

I’m a former FCPS teacher and I can tell you I had tons of leftover supplies at the end of the year. We don’t need 24 packs of pencils of 24 glue sticks whatsoever. I also ended each year with a ton of paper towels and tissues, hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes. It’s gluttonous.

You don't think the specials teachers deserve supplies? They get shafted, it's nice of the classroom teachers to share with the specials teachers. What is your snowflake supposed to do when you send her to school with a cold and her nose is running in art class? Use her shirt? You nasty b1ch.

DW and I are both ES teachers. I have over 30 years in FCPS. We have never had to use our own money to buy things like crayons and pencils. I’ve never pooled supplies and I go through maybe 3 containers of wipes in a school year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you to all the teachers out there dealing with these crazy penny-wise pound-foolish parents. They worry more about buying too many pencils and Clorox wipes than making it easier for their children’s teachers to do their jobs. Some like to complain that teachers are not doing enough to educate their kids and the quality of education in FCPS is declining. Yet, they want teachers to monitor dropped pencils and force kids to pick them up so parents can save $5.50 a year on ‘excessive’ pencils.

This! +1000
And if most families spent an extra $10/year to contribute to tissues and wipes, the underpaid teacher doesn’t have to spend hundreds of their own $ on enough for the whole class for the whole school year.
I’m embarrassed by this thread and it makes me feel even more for the teachers.

This may be true about tissues. But wipes is a false choice— it’s not between the teacher buying them and the parents. It’s between the teachers buying it and the school. I really doubt most Fairfax administrators would say that there are no cleaning supplies available to teachers.

Anonymous wrote:Clorox wipes - 75 count are expensive. Asking us to do 3 of those at over $5 a pop is ridiculous. I’ll donate 1 now and then one mid year.

And why do kids need 2 full packs of dry erase, when most of the curriculum is on schoology on a laptop?! And an eraser? How about an old sock which works just as well and is cheap.

I meant dry eraser.

Clorox wipes - 75 count are expensive. Asking us to do 3 of those at over $5 a pop is ridiculous. I’ll donate 1 now and then one mid year.

And why do kids need 2 full packs of dry erase, when most of the curriculum is on schoology on a laptop?! And an eraser? How about an old sock which works just as ell and is cheap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you to all the teachers out there dealing with these crazy penny-wise pound-foolish parents. They worry more about buying too many pencils and Clorox wipes than making it easier for their children’s teachers to do their jobs. Some like to complain that teachers are not doing enough to educate their kids and the quality of education in FCPS is declining. Yet, they want teachers to monitor dropped pencils and force kids to pick them up so parents can save $5.50 a year on ‘excessive’ pencils.

This! +1000
And if most families spent an extra $10/year to contribute to tissues and wipes, the underpaid teacher doesn’t have to spend hundreds of their own $ on enough for the whole class for the whole school year.
I’m embarrassed by this thread and it makes me feel even more for the teachers.

I’m happy to chip in the $2 that a 24-pack of paper towels and a 2 bottles of Clorox coat with all the other parents. That can last a year. Kids can bring own tissues. This really is not that complicated. It’s a kind of litmus test to find the parents who are most Type A and anxious about doing everything right.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My students leave their new supplies in their locker and me and my para deal with them from there. We know who doesn’t bring anything.

Elementary school kids bring supplies on open house day and have to give up the pencils, pens, dry erase markers, wipes and tissues. No one knows if you donate 1 box or 2. It’s absolute chaos at Open House.

+1

Anonymous wrote:Thank you to all the teachers out there dealing with these crazy penny-wise pound-foolish parents. They worry more about buying too many pencils and Clorox wipes than making it easier for their children’s teachers to do their jobs. Some like to complain that teachers are not doing enough to educate their kids and the quality of education in FCPS is declining. Yet, they want teachers to monitor dropped pencils and force kids to pick them up so parents can save $5.50 a year on ‘excessive’ pencils.

This! +1000
And if most families spent an extra $10/year to contribute to tissues and wipes, the underpaid teacher doesn’t have to spend hundreds of their own $ on enough for the whole class for the whole school year.
I’m embarrassed by this thread and it makes me feel even more for the teachers.

Anonymous wrote:My students leave their new supplies in their locker and me and my para deal with them from there. We know who doesn’t bring anything.

Elementary school kids bring supplies on open house day and have to give up the pencils, pens, dry erase markers, wipes and tissues. No one knows if you donate 1 box or 2. It’s absolute chaos at Open House.