Mom to Mom

[missy1]

 School supplies are starting in Walmart and Big Lots. After the 4th they put this out, along with fall clothes.

[esmerelda]

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@CalminHeart wrote:

I started school in 1959 and always had a supply list to buy.  My kids started school in 1990 and always had to buy supplies.   My gradeschool nieces and nephews have to buy supplies.  This is how it will is and will continue until politicians realize that education is important and stop slashing its state and federal budgets every year.

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@CalminHeart I had a supply list too when I started each school year.  It never included antibac gel and boxes of tissues.

[CalminHeart]

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@esmerelda wrote:

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@CalminHeart wrote:

I started school in 1959 and always had a supply list to buy.  My kids started school in 1990 and always had to buy supplies.   My gradeschool nieces and nephews have to buy supplies.  This is how it will is and will continue until politicians realize that education is important and stop slashing its state and federal budgets every year.

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@CalminHeart I had a supply list too when I started each school year.  It never included antibac gel and boxes of tissues.

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Hi.  Anti-bac gel is a newer trend and I totally understand why it's now on lists (germs galore amond younger kids).  But my lists always included tissues.  

[Plaid Pants2]

I started school in 1975, and graduated in 1989, and in all of those years, especially jr. high and high school, I NEVER once has a supply list of what I would need to bring.

[happycat]

well, I don't think I did either, now that you mention it @Plaid Pants2. I think we were suppose to take a big chief tablet when learning to write and pencils, notebooks and pens when we got older. That is all I remember. I was just a few years ahead of you, btw.

Good point.

[esmerelda]

I'll never forget needing a protractor one year.  I guess we used it; I only remember having to get one.

[lovesrecess]

I could have written jewelwisher's post. I retired two years ago after 35 years of teaching students with special needs. Many times, my students' biggest disability was the fact they were being raised in poverty. There is a huge misconception that teachers retire with huge pensions and other benefits, so forget that as an excuse for cheating students out of adequate resources in public schools.

I kept peanut butter and crackers in my desk drawer for students who were hungry. Some had only the free lunch they had at school; it was usually so meager or gross it was almost worse than nothing.

I bought shoes for students who had none. I bought clothing for an 8th grader whose father kept promising to come back home and buy him new clothes. I bought hats and gloves for students who walked to school in bitter cold. The school supplies required by the school to bring were rarely brought by my students. I had such a supply budget, I bought supplies out of my own pocket every year I taught, because I had no other way for my kids to have what they needed for the classroom. I would gladly do it all again bcause I loved my students and wanted the best for them.

Regarding expensive supply lists, supposedly if everyone brings the same supplies, they are pooled and everyone has access to them for use during the year. Sometimes this works, but sometimes a few bing nothing not because they can't, but because they don't want to bother.