What’s next on back-to-school supply lists? Mops and floor polish?
Now, back-to-school supply shopping can be a costly event. (AP Images)
Given the number of cleaning products showing up on back-to-school school supply lists, a friend jokes that she expects to see mops, brooms and floor polish next.
Over the years, I’ve seen school supply lists go well beyond pencils, paper and glue to paper towels, Clorox wipes and hand sanitizer.
As the number of items on back-to-school lists have increased, so have complaints about them.
As a reader said in a note to me:
My friends are complaining the lists are very costly and they are being asked to buy multiples of items such a scissors. Are schools asking more of parents, are fewer parents sending supplies or are parents just more strapped for cash? I’ve just never seen so much chatter and my complaining friends live in the most affluent county in the state. I wonder if the lists are affecting families in other areas even more. Do parents become detached when they can’t even fill the first requests of the school?
On my neighborhood listserv, I learned that my local elementary school has adopted what News/Talk WSB personality and AJC columnist Neal Boortz derides as a conspiracy to inculcate children with a tolerance of government control of property rights: The teacher puts all school supplies into a common pool used by all students. (As one parent commented: “In other words, don’t buy your child the Spiderman folder; he’s not going to be able to use it.”)
This wasn’t the case when my four children went through elementary school. (And they attended at a time when the percentage of low-income students in the school was higher than it is today.) Yes, we bought tissues, paper towels, Ziplock bags and hand sanitizer to share, but kids kept their own folders, markers and pencils.
With all the financial challenges facing schools today, I am not going to quibble about back-to-school supply lists. I dutifully go out and buy everything that’s listed, even though I’ve found that some stuff never gets used. (I still have some two pocket/pronged folders and six pocket dividers with tabs sitting around.)
But the ever expanding lists have become a point of contention among some parents.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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178 comments Add your comment
sloboffthestreet
July 29th, 2011
8:37 am
You’re awesome mecca. I hope my kids get you! I couldn’t agree more with your posts. Don’t let the crazies get you down.
call you out on your inconsistencies
July 29th, 2011
9:13 am
Mecca, so you think the government should provide supplies???? This sounds like socialism because wouldn’t everyone have the same supplies and there would be no individual choice. Funny how some of you talk out of both sides of your mouth, you are worried about individual rights and getting but don’t take away the things I want from my government.
School Supply - What’s next on back-to-school supply lists? Mops and floor polish? - Sale
July 29th, 2011
9:25 am
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Dave
July 29th, 2011
1:10 pm
Parents are increasingly leaned upon to supply basic school supplies that the school system used to provide. Yet school administrators’ salaries keep increasing to evermore astronomical levels.
Anyone consider this yet?
Roberta
July 29th, 2011
1:12 pm
SCHOOL’S FAIL TO BUDGET. A portion of the school budget should go directly for school supplies. parents should not have to bring in one thing to school. All the kdis get the same, and some parents are funding school supplies for dead-beat parents. Heck, buying in bulk might be cheaper! This year’s list. 12 Glue Sticks. 48 pencils. Yes, that is correct 48 PENCILS. The yellow #2 kind ONLY, no colors or patterns. Now what the heck is she going to do this year with 48 pencils! Supplies were over $45. Ridiculous. Big bottle of sanitizer. A box of Rit dye. A white tshirt. Pack of constuction paper. The boys fared worse, girls bought index cards and zip lock bags and the boys bought chisel-point Sharpies AND dry-erase markers. So much for ‘equal distribution’. and a 4 pack or Post-it notes. add along with tissues, cleaning wipes, sanitizer, folders, paper, scissors, and so on.
Dr NO
July 29th, 2011
3:22 pm
Roberta
July 29th, 2011
1:12 pm
You should bring only enough supplies for your child and dare those teachers to steal one thing.
Dr NO
July 29th, 2011
3:24 pm
Tychus Findlay
July 28th, 2011
2:34 pm
HERE HERE!!!
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
July 29th, 2011
5:32 pm
LOL! People wonder where all those pencils go? Some of my students EAT them, or break them into little pieces! They poke holes in the erasers and shave them into little bits. They shove cap erasers into their pockets and take them onto the playground to reenact the Civil War then leave them outside in the rain. They break the crayons or flush them down the toilets. Children are children, not adults with well kept office supplies in tidy drawers.
@slob: “Oh you ran out of copy paper. Stop sending home copies of everything that does not pertain to school. Stop the yearly deluge of papers parents have to fill out over and over again.”
True….much of the paper that gets sent home has nothing to do with school. However, we also don’t COPY those papers. They come from outside camps, classes, libraries etc. and are given to us to send home. We did try to go electronic last year. We had parents fill out forms on computer so we could easily update everything at once. We offered computers and assistance during open house and meet the teacher. We had after school sessions for the first two weeks offering parents computer use and support. It still took us MONTHS to get all parents to comply… thus; we had to keep sending home paper copy reminders to do so.
We tried going to an online electronic report card to save paper but parents had to log in to view their child’s grades. I had three parents log in. The teacher across the hall had two. Next door, she had four. We were typical, so the school had to go back to paper copies.
Last year I did my best to reduce paper use in my classroom. I posted all my information weekly on a blog. I set up a system to automatically e-mail parents with notifications of homework, class work spelling lists, upcoming test, lunch menus, activity schedules, my weekly newsletter, etc. I asked all parents for e-mails and noted those that did not have e-mail addresses. I sent those few parents who stated they could not access my blog or the e-mails hard copies of the same information everyone else got electronically.
Well, a few of my parents checked the blog weekly, and always knew what was going on. They were very pleased with my system, so much so that other teachers started using it. However, most of my parents never bothered to check the blog or read the e-mails, and I got called on the carpet by a few for, “not keeping them informed” like the other teachers did with a weekly hardcopy newsletter. A couple even went over my head and complained to the principal that I didn’t let them know when tests were, or about special events, or spelling lists etc. All the information was available on my blog which was updated two or three times a week, plus through the automatic e-mail system. These were NOT the parents who had indicated they did not have internet access; they simply did not want to take the time to check on anything. In the end, I had to keep up the weekly blog AND provide a hard copy in order to keep parents from complaining. Hopefully, in a few years, my parents will be more comfortable with using the internet to keep current with school information, and we will overcome these difficulties. However, it isn’t all as easy as you seem to insist.
I really do not understand you. You complain about the quality of teachers, but do all you can to tear down all of us – even those of us who are likely the kind of teachers you would prefer to have in your ideal schools. You keep insinuating I would not do well out there in the “real world” but you know nothing about me or my educational background. I assure you, I could have been anything from a marine biologist to a psychiatrist to a professor of literature. I CHOSE to go into teaching because I wanted to – not because it was the only thing I could do! I stay in teaching because I am not in a finacial position to be changing careers at this point in my life, and beause I believe I am still making a positive difference in my students’ lives.
And the schoolwide electronic report card? We had to go back to paper copies because so few parents were actually checking the report cards electronically. I had 3 parents who bothered to look up their child’s grades. The teacher next door had 2. That was typical.
abacus2
July 29th, 2011
5:45 pm
I teach middle school science. The only supplies I request from parents are tissues, roll paper towels (the ones the school provides are useless), and ziploc bags. I buy all other supplies, including cleaning materials and consumables needed for labs. I spent over $900 last year. My little darlings stole 23 pair of scissors and destroyed 2 hole punchers, 3 staplers, and 2 electric pencil sharpeners. I am not replacing them. If a parent sends in pencils, markers, erasers, paper, etc. I give their child a voucher for each item sent that they can use to get a pencil or other supply they may need. No voucher.nothing for free. I also keep a box where I put all the pencils I find on the floor – those pencils are up for grabs. A lot of kids are getting fed up with the kids that keep trying to borrow.
Somedontgetit
July 29th, 2011
6:14 pm
How about when parents would rather buy cigarettes and beer than buy pencils and paper? It happens. Believe me.
just watching
July 29th, 2011
10:42 pm
paper towels, Clorox wipes and hand sanitizer….
I resent these being on there. We don’t use them in our home. I don’t want my kids using cheap alcohol based hand sanitizer. Soap and water…and PLAIN soap, none of this anti-bacterial mess….are as if not more effective. I’ve taught my girls to refuse the hand sanitizer and ask to go wash…working on getting the plain soap available…
I do understand the paper towels in such group situations where laundry is not possible for cloth wipes.
As for the Clorox wipes….sheer waste. A spray bottle of cleaner (even a “greener” less toxic one) and paper towels are MUCH cheaper. A little lemon juice, a few drops of tea tree oil, white vinegar and water make a fine cleaner for such situations…..and VERY inexpensive!
just watching
July 29th, 2011
10:49 pm
And I HATE the community supply bins on each table. Just think…if we went back to individual supplies kept in a pencil box and used only by that one child, then maybe so many germs wouldn’t be passed around the class. I knew that if someone at my children’s table at school was out with the tummy bug that we weren’t far behind b/c of the sharing of supplies.
Plus…at what point are the schools going to assist those of us that ARE trying to teach our kids about personal responsibility for personal property in reinforcing those principles? I really don’t think the teacher wants to share all the supplies on her own desk with my kids. Why do my kids have to share their markers with the rest of the class? Especially when little so-and-so doesn’t ever put the caps on correctly?
Arrrggghhh….
just watching
July 29th, 2011
10:53 pm
@I love teaching….for those parents that complain about wanting a hard copy even though they have email….give them the info in 10 point type. Takes less paper.
East Cobb Parent
July 30th, 2011
10:25 am
Lots of comments here and I’m going to add mine. As a substitute teacher I’ve seen teachers, at the end of the year, carting out quite a few paper towels, ziplocks, dry erase markers etc. When my youngest was in K I was very friendly with the room mom. I found out that most of the kids in the McMansions did not bring school supplies. In K all supplies were community property. After the third or fourth request for extra glue sticks and crayons, I told the teacher I was no the personal school supply person. I would send what my child needed, label and no longer provide for the rest.
Private school has worked better, the list is much smaller and my child uses their own.
notsomadanymore
July 30th, 2011
1:58 pm
when my kids were in elementary school, I would get so mad when all the labeling of their supplies were just marked off and put into a communal pot. one day when I was furious that the expensive Fiskar scissors were taken from my daughter by the teacher and put in the “scissor jar,” I went into the classroom ready to get those scissors back. I’m a broke single mom and lost my job and had to forgo the water bill to buy supplies for my kids. well, I went in, mad as H.E.double toothpicks, only to find my child’s scissors in the jar with 6 others??? why only 6 in a classroom of 22 kids?? my heart broke as I realized that I was NOT alone in my financial dilemma. I left without saying a word.
my kids are in high school now and I’m still in a struggle to pay my debts and buy supplies but I DO IT! I do my best and so should everyone. I have also cleaned many a classroom and helped in the office, library, art room and anywhere I can when I have the time. stop all the whining and help as much as you can. I’d be scared to death of the karma that would hunt me down when these kids are the ones making all the decisions when we are in our golden years. DO THE RIGHT THING AND STOP ALL THIS SELFISHNESS AND GREED! we all are in this together.
oldtimer
July 30th, 2011
2:46 pm
I too have problems with people that can afford beer, nails, hair salons, better cars, cell phones..not the cheap kind, game boys, Xbox, Ipads…you name it and will not proberly feed, cloth, or provide basic supplies for school. It is all about choices.
Ole Guy
July 30th, 2011
3:04 pm
Philo, your remarks give rise to an issue of grave importance: what kids WANT and what they GET may not always be in accord. This offers them the opportunity to learn one of life’s best lessons: ADAPT and ADJUST. The whole damn world isn’t about to stop spinning on the axis because people can’t observe this simple axiom.
school observer
July 30th, 2011
3:50 pm
Stop whining! My school provides every teacher with 100.00 to buy whatever supplies they needed. Parents don’t mind paying 100+ dollars for tickets to concerts, sporting events etc… but they complain about supplies. Go figure!!
school observer
July 30th, 2011
3:54 pm
oops! meant ” supplies they need”
NewMinority
July 31st, 2011
1:05 am
If the government wants the privilege of requiring our children to attend school, then parents should have reasonable expectations that said government should supply certain “basics” in this endeavor. Maintaining sanitary conditions is job number one. Janitors and teachers should have employment priority. Hand sanitizers are not as effective as soap and water. Regular bathroom breaks with enforced hand washing is all that is needed. Janitorial staff should clean rooms every day. Tissues during cold season should be supplied by the school as well as a basic school supply kit! Any extras can be purchased by parents. This way we don’t have children who can’t do their school work because the parents don’t/can’t buy their supplies. Schools would have the advantage of high volume purchasing resulting in cheaper costs FOR THE TAXPAYER. All teachers should have a reasonable amount of discretionary money each year for their class. It should be against the rules for any teacher to personally finance her own supplies. If taxpayers are not happy because the BASICS are not being supplied for their students, then they know to put pressure on the elected officials to look into THEFT OR MISMANAGEMENT of funds. This is the feedback citizens need to oversee their government. Once these priorities have been met, enabled teachers and janitorial staff, then extra funds could go to anything else the citizens are willing to pay for with their taxes. If government wants to squander tax dollars and not meet these basic requirements to run a school, then they need to GET OUT OF THE EDUCATION BUSINESS!
Mad Mother
August 1st, 2011
5:31 pm
My child’s school supply list included FORTY EIGHT PENCILS! Really? 48? That’s two a week. Ridiculous. I had a pencil box at school with my liquide glue, scissors, pencil and ruler. I had a notebook. I kept up with it. It was never a problem. Spoiled teachers! Part of the lessons of school is to be responsible. We were taught to be responsible for our things. Now K through 5th grade has community supplies. OUTRAGEOUS. I hate this mentality.
long time educator
August 1st, 2011
8:08 pm
NewMinority,
I agree with you completely! Teachers first!
Ole Guy
August 2nd, 2011
2:36 pm
Minority, you’re right on target. The problem is simply the fact that parents, traditionaly buy into this “back to school” nonesense. Schools, in an effort to “get the monkey” off their backs, get parents to think that, by not supplying their kids with all this stuff, they’re, somehow, bad parents. And, of course, the retail community is thrilled to “help” in this mis-guided ruse. When parents stop with the guilt complex over “not doing all I can to help my kid”, an ultimate sense of reason just may (someday) prevail. As it stands now, the school systems have convinced parents; when parents cannot/will not step up to the plate of (perceived) responsibility, the teacher corps, out of fear of reprisal, comes to the rescue. All-the-while, the educational community “saves” money which then goes into “special coffers”, presumably “for the children”.
In all fairness, however, one reason for so many pencils lies in the fact that kids simply do not exhibit the minimum level of responsibility to keep track of their stuff. Rather than enforce this responsibility, it’s easier for the schools to bow to the kids’ irresponsibility by placing the monkey on parents’ backs.
Get involved, Minority, and insist on classroom enforcement. If there are X number of weeks in the school year, the kid should get X number of pencils…NO MORE! If the kid comes up short, DEMAND to know why. Let’s stop coddling these damn kids!
Michelle from Dallas
August 3rd, 2011
12:26 pm
The teachers at my daughter’s school have a wish list during “meet the teacher.” You can choose (or not choose) to offer to help them out with an item they wouldl like to have for the classrom. LOVE it!!
Ole Guy
August 3rd, 2011
4:40 pm
Teacher’s pet, Dallas! This may seem like a “warm and fuzzy” way of “getting to know you” (can you hear the lilt of Julie’s voice?). I don’t care what the “modern-day experts” say…the teacher, in all grades, must maintain an arms-length association with the kids. After a period of time (half-way), the kids’ MIGHT EARN teachers’ more personal side.
Lady J
August 3rd, 2011
7:39 pm
Yes if they keep cutting budgets. And teachers will be using them if they keep cutting personnel.
teachla
July 16th, 2012
2:18 pm
IN California, state law tells us that students in public schools must not be asked to provide ANY supplies for when they are in school. ALL is to be provided for them at no cost to the student. Why is it that this corruption has been allowed to go on for so long? As an educator, I provide all supplies to my students. I get tax deductions to cover the costs and my students have NO excuses for why they are no prepared, unless they do not do their work at home, where supplies should be made available by parents, because this is not the same supplies needed while in school. IN SCHOOL is not the same as FOR school. A differentiation that has been left to wide interpretations by administrators, district policies and educators that are even made aware of the education codes they work under, at all. Any attorneys out there?
teachla
July 16th, 2012
2:30 pm
I have wondered why students have no supplies they know they will need beyond the supplied, dull, generic supplies, yet the only time I get to have two way communication with some parents is when they come to my classroom to pick up their child’s confiscated CELL PHONE! I have this rule to cut down on off task time to deal with such management issues, and so that I can get mini conferences completed with parents of my ‘especially devoted to disrupt the class’ students. If they don’t show the phone sits there until they do. Parents often wait for weeks. One waited for a year and a half. I still had it waiting for them. I did take out the battery so it wouldn’t leak. I think they just needed the contacts in it for their replacement phone.