Who is responsible for school supplies?
8:43 am July 30, 2009, by Laura Diamond
Today begins the annual sales tax holiday. Families will hit the stores to purchase back-to-school clothing, computers and supplies.
Many schools and teachers mail letters or put on their Web sites the items they expect students to have. The lists include everything from specific types of notebooks and binders to requests for tissues, hand sanitizer, copy paper and other items.
Some families buy all the items. Some don’t. Often teachers use their own money to plug in the holes.
But I wonder what the school supply turnout will be like this year.
With the recession and many families facing tight budgets, I wonder how many parents will refuse to buy items they think the school should supply - like tissues or copy paper.
(Although the hand sanitizer would be pretty useful with all the worries about swine flu.)
At the same time I wonder how many teachers will stop using their own money to pay for these items. Between the furloughs, no raises and increased health care costs, money is tight for educators.
What supplies are you planning to buy? Is the economy forcing you to reconsider what you’re willing to contribute?
[the comments are interesting: http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2009/07/30/who-is-responsible-for-school-supplies/?cxntfid=blogs_get_schooled_blog]
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How about you? By this point, I have usually spent over $100 of my own money on paper and stuff. I have been rethinking how I will teach, but I will not be providing paper and pencils for my students this year. By this point - and they have been in high school at least two years - they know this and know the consequences.
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2 comments:
During my first couple years as a teacher, I must have spent hundreds of dollars on my students -- mostly on little things such as prizes. It adds up. At that time, I made the conscious decision to no longer buy things for my students, without exception. There is pressure. I see other teachers buy things; I see students that need things; I see something in the store that one of my students would love. Sometimes, it feels as though we as teachers are expected to pay for classroom supplies out of our own pocket. Teachers who don't buy things are cheap and uncaring. Nevertheless, I refuse to waver from my resolution. It is not my job to buy classroom supplies.
Imagine a business requiring its employees to bring their own staples, paper, pens - and yet teachers are expected to do this every day.
The arguments in the AJC point out that by doing furloughs during preplanning the state superintendent is assuming that the teachers will do the work THAT HAS TO BE DONE BEFORE CLASSES START anyway. So - no money and no school time but do the work anyway.
We are not the only group being furloughed but we are the only group that appears to come with the assumption that we will still do the same amount of work.
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