Anonymous wrote:I would not allow this. Sounds like a lack of moral ethics.

Oh bull. Get off your high horse. I’ve never worked in a MCPS school where the office personnel didn’t encourage the cleaning out of the lost and found because of the amount of crap that accumulates. In fact several times a year in the high schools this club or that club drives the stuff to a shelter or some place.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My advice:

Our kids mostly went to public schools in a nice district. The list and found for their schools was quite a bit like OP described. No one from school staff paid any attention.

What the PTO decided to do was simply dig thru every 2 months and see what could easily be returned. Coats and hats often had names and even telephone numbers. It turned into one of the big connection things between parents and PTO which is pretty non-existent as far as most are concerned in high school. I helped sort a couple times and my favorite find was a jacket with a kids name and number on it, and $50 in a pocket.

This is GREAT. We label everything and the kids claim to “look” in lost and found but often there’s not sufficient time. And they are terrible at finding things. As a parent I’m not allowed to jump out of carline, into the school to check it out. Also there seem to be several locations and no order.

It peeves me that our stuff is there, labeled, and nobody can be arsed when they drop it by to notice or care. I would certainly volunteer to do this and reconnect. There are lots of people who can’t easily afford these losses.

OP mentioned water bottles with other names. Get those items back to their rightful owners!

Our school used to make kids with in school suspension go though items and look for name tags. I doubt that’s allowed anymore

Um, can my kid get her Yeti water bottle back, please?

Anonymous wrote:My advice:

Our kids mostly went to public schools in a nice district. The list and found for their schools was quite a bit like OP described. No one from school staff paid any attention.

What the PTO decided to do was simply dig thru every 2 months and see what could easily be returned. Coats and hats often had names and even telephone numbers. It turned into one of the big connection things between parents and PTO which is pretty non-existent as far as most are concerned in high school. I helped sort a couple times and my favorite find was a jacket with a kids name and number on it, and $50 in a pocket.

This is GREAT. We label everything and the kids claim to “look” in lost and found but often there’s not sufficient time. And they are terrible at finding things. As a parent I’m not allowed to jump out of carline, into the school to check it out. Also there seem to be several locations and no order.

It peeves me that our stuff is there, labeled, and nobody can be arsed when they drop it by to notice or care. I would certainly volunteer to do this and reconnect. There are lots of people who can’t easily afford these losses.

OP mentioned water bottles with other names. Get those items back to their rightful owners!

Anonymous wrote:Maybe a reason to put a name in things?

Plus 1
Using sharpies

This post is strange. The whole dumpster stealing on a regular basis is weird. And yes, it is stealing. It isn't yours, and you take it, whether it is for one day or one week, it is stealing. Imagine you leave your coat at work in the conference room. You completely forgot where you left it, and one of your coworkers decides to "borrow" it for a couple of days. C'on, that is stealing, are you seriously not realizing this? You are blinded by the fact that this is your child, who doesn't need these things, so it can't be stealing, but then you are posting the question on this board, which leads me to believe you are now doubting your self assessment and justification of your child's behaviour. That doubt is your conscience telling you that you got it all wrong.

Just so you know, we as parents do care if our child loses a $200 coat. What if my kid went to look for his coat on a day when your child "borrowed" (stole) it? My child would assume that it was stole because it was not in the bin. In elementary school my son used to lose nice hoodies all the time. Our assumption became: if is a brand name (Nike, Adidas), he most likely won't find it ever again. Twice when volunteering in the lunchroom, where the lost and found was located, I saw a parent with their child looking for "nice" coats. I overheard the conversation, once in English and once in Spanish. In both situations both parent and child were not looking for a specific lost hoodie, but for a nice hoodie: "Look there's a Nike one, try it on". You are pretty much that parent if you allow your child to do this.

My advice:

Our kids mostly went to public schools in a nice district. The list and found for their schools was quite a bit like OP described. No one from school staff paid any attention.

What the PTO decided to do was simply dig thru every 2 months and see what could easily be returned. Coats and hats often had names and even telephone numbers. It turned into one of the big connection things between parents and PTO which is pretty non-existent as far as most are concerned in high school. I helped sort a couple times and my favorite find was a jacket with a kids name and number on it, and $50 in a pocket.

Maybe a reason to put a name in things?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t die on this hill. Eventually one of her peers will call her out for stealing their stuff and she’ll be embarrassed.

No. It doesn't work like that in large high schools. She's stealing and the people she's stealing from are missing their stuff and might not ever see her in the corridor or in class.

plus her peers/friends are also doing it so not sure they really care

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t die on this hill. Eventually one of her peers will call her out for stealing their stuff and she’ll be embarrassed.

No. It doesn't work like that in large high schools. She's stealing and the people she's stealing from are missing their stuff and might not ever see her in the corridor or in class.

I wouldn’t die on this hill. Eventually one of her peers will call her out for stealing their stuff and she’ll be embarrassed.