Posted on 07/28/2013 3:45:35 AM PDT by MacMattico
Wow—what needless junk!
Been there, done that when our daughter went to school. I read the replies and most people here have the same message. This is nothing but redistribution of wealth. We had the same thing happen back in 2000. We bought the cheapest stuff at the dollar stores.
Good for you! It’s amazing how bad public schools have become.
100% of the students in the San Antonio ISD are in the “free” lunch program, so there is no feeling of being inferior among the majority Mexican population.
This same population manages to pack the arena for Spurs games, which is about the only thing they have to pay for in SA.
Exactly. The entire 1960s space program, from Mercury through Apollo 17, was made possible by geeks with slide rules.
"The lists get bigger every year," said Damion Hester when talking about school supplies. He has five children so he has a lot of supplies to buy this year. But it's tough, he and other parents say it's not just the issue of longer lists. "It's actually getting more and more pricey," said Antwon Williams Sr.
Parents aren't liking the numbers they're seeing behind the dollar signs for school supplies. And it's not all in their heads. According to Huntington Bank's Annual Backpack Index for an elementary school student you'll pay an average of $577 for supplies, $763 for a middle schooler, and over $1,000 for a high school student. For every age it's more than a 20 % increase since 2010.
I frequently give extra cash when paying to get a five or ten back. I might pay $22.50 on $17.50.
Half the people I do this with try to give me $2.50 right away telling me I gave too much. I tell them to punch it into the computer and see what happens. They are amazed at the result as if it is magic.
I sound like a broken record on these threads saying that I often thank God that my kids are out of public school.
Y’all have my sympathy. All that can be said is there will come a time when your kids are grown and the nightmare of direct involvement with the social engineering educrats will be over.
My sympathies re your granddaughter’s situation. Public school is toxic as street drugs and likewise expensive.
As I peruse this thread I wonder what would happen if the parents who can afford to comply with the demand for supplies, simply declined to do so.
Would some school official contact the parent and make demands? Do a shakedown? an act of extortion if performed by a person not employed by a government!
Won’t anyone try it and let us know how it goes?
But I fear no one will. I often urge people to go Galt, and everyone’s got a reason not to go. I tell them to consider moving to places where the property tax is low, to buy a house they can afford with NO mortgage, to cut the cable and the credit cards. There’s always some reason they just can’t do the things that make a difference; they can only spout theory and whine discreetly about practice.
At this point it would not surprise me if they are too craven to ignore the public school shopping list.
Will it take a James O’Keefe to contact a school and say “Yes I can afford it but no I won’t do it” and record the reaction?
“The teachers then redistribute the supplies, giving the costlier items to low income kids and the cheaper stuff to kids they know come from better circumstances.”
Doesn’t it make you wish that all the parents would get together and go to the same Dollar Store and send all their kids in with the exact same cheap stuff? The teacher’s head would probably explode.
“Yeah, my daughter gets the list, stuff like handi-wipes, sani-wipes...”
The children have to bring in janitorial supplies? My, times have change since I was a wee lass...
This thread needs a touch of wintertime!
*ducking*
I know teachers like your wife. And I blame Administrations that just push good teachers out the door because they expect them to make up for the bad teachers and make the school look good! It’s a lot of pressure and extra work with no reward.
At a recent BOE meeting, the Super spoke about cutting teachers, but Administrators were already cut to the bone. Really? Our Administrators have Administrators!
When I was in college, a group of us said about 40-50% of our graduating teachers would be good at it. That “other” 50% I see are still working as teachers. I left to help my husbands business. I like many things about my kids school. But I take a stand when I see an injustice. I don’t think the school likes me much, I know their “secrets” and I have my “contacts” within the school district, which is why my kids are still there.
I used to raise holy hell when my kids came home with questionnaires asking for information about me and my wife as parents. Where did we work, did we serve in the military, are we government employees, and so on.
I always refused profusely, adamantly. I even got calls from the principal and teachers. The reason they wanted the information was to apply for more government funding because of the stress my working for the government put on that particular school.
I always told them to stop taking this government blood money - and the other money the US Dept of Ed gives them because it leads to no good. I paid my property taxes which should have been enough to pay the schools. If they can’t make it without Government money, then they should be disestablished in my opinion because they are giving up my child’s freedom for effing money.
I do the same thing, so I don’t have a bunch of change in my pockets. I didn’t even want a refund for the overcharge. I just told them they needed to make the prices the same on the pump and sign.
That one's going to stick in my memory.
You wrote, “And most schools don’t use their funds wisely, that’s not the parent’s fault.”
It most assuredly IS the parents’ fault; and the fault of every taxpaying citizen of the district (and beyond). If the din of the masses of aggravated taxpayers is loud enough at meetings of School boards, village and city councils, county boards, and at the State and Federal levels, then things will begin to change.
To say that people don’t bear the responsibility for oversight of these officials is simply wrong.
I don’t pay $17,000 in school taxes, that’s what the school spends per student. I pay about $2800 in school taxes in a suburb. Your house probably is bigger. It’s pretty safe around here. We are a close knit community with a whacked out NYS school system! Which would mean a normal upstate school system.
I never did the school supplies thing; I bought my kids what they needed but did not buy the communist what’s-yours-is-ours things at all. No one came to arrest me; no one harassed my kids; no one denied my kids an education.
I suggest you click “ignore” for these demands. The school superintendent is not going to throw your kid out in the street. And if he did, that would be a good thing.
So I strongly recommend that you quietly decline to cooperate. No arguments are necessary because they won’t change anyone’s mind. Just don’t do it.
Let me rephrase, yes it’s parent’s fault but we’re outnumbered by the ones that get the freebies and vote in the same darn people.
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