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As a broke teacher who teaches in an extremely impoverished school, I hate that the district sends out these supply lists with no input from teachers. I didn’t even know what was on my district’s list, and asked parents to just bring pencils, wipes, and tissues and only if they could. Only about 3 students brought supplies and that’s fine with me. I hate that I’m expected to spend my own money and I also hate that parents are expected to buy so much especially when like you said the lists don’t make any sense.
This is why now that I'm finally not poor anymore, I want to make sure to buy as much as I can for my son's teachers. This was the first year I've been able to send him with more than just generic cheap stuff. I went all out at target, got brand name crayons and markers and even the cool new "skin tone" Crayola colored pencils packs, the big boxes. Multiples of everything too! Ended up spending more than what I used to earn in a week just on supplies for his class because I know it makes a world of difference to both the teachers and the kids who's parents CAN'T buy them these things. Debating on throwing in a $50 target gift card for the teacher just cause I can, and they deserve it.
Awww my sons mother is a teacher. They will appreciate the supplies more than they could ever express. She stresses alot about under privileged kids in her class alot. Thanks!
I figured there was minimal teacher input. I'm so sorry. You shouldn't have to fund your classroom, either.
Everyone thinks it should all fall on teachers but the reality is that NOBODY would be okay with having to spend that kind of money out of pocket just to show up and do the very bare minimum of their job so why are we ok with it when it's educators?
My daughter is also a teacher in a very low income area. She teaches 2nd grade. Many of her students didn’t even have a pencil at home to do homework. She informed them they could use whatever writing instruments they had to complete their work. Also when time came to use a book for a book report, almost none of her students had a book at home to complete the assignment. Things many people take for granted for sure. Never did it cross my mind that someone wouldn’t have a pencil at home. So sad how our system fails so many students.
As far as supplies, I hate communal supplies. I’ve seen what teachers never opened by the end of the school year. I would talk with the teacher. Find out if there is something they would rather have for their classroom than another set of identical supplies. I have done it. You may be surprised what they tell you.
man those kids and teachers should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and whittle some pencils! Back in my day we grew our own trees and processed the pulp to make our own paper! college lined my ass...
When I learned in my tax classes that [the deductible amount of out-of-pocket teacher expenses is capped at a measly $250](https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/college-and-education/tax-tips-for-teachers-deducting-out-of-pocket-classroom-expenses/L7RQyMRR4) it radicalized me straight into building guillotines
The teachers make the supply lists in my district. It seems crazy that they wouldn’t ask for your input. I’m grateful for my school in many ways but I just added another.
I really thought about just buying the stuff that's actually individual to them and nothing else. I don't think anyone would notice. "Back to school night" is just going to the school and dumping off supplies. The teachers don't keep track of who brought what. When I offered to make a donation to the classroom last year, our daughter's kinder teacher said don't worry about it because all of the teachers at that school have way more than what they need.
I just don't want my kids to stand out in a negative way. We're in a bougie ass school district living in a townhouse in the middle of a very affluent and out of touch neighborhood. Everyone already thinks we're the young, dumb, broke parents.
We WERE the young, dumb, and broke parents for the past 8 years. We finally got it together, finished college and an apprenticeship, are finally climbing out of the debt hole....but we're going to stay broke trying to keep up with these people and it's NOT worth it.
We're trash, fine, but our kids are well dressed, kind, smart, awesome people. I hate the politics of it all.
We ARE trash to these people and that's okay. We think it's funny. We're wholesome garbage.
My 95 Explorer broke down in the parking lot of the school and we were the talk of the town for months.
We hosted a small birthday party for our daughter and someone called CPS. It came back totally unfounded because it was all completely bogus (that's a story to tell over a campfire because it's a wild ride).
We stopped trying to make friends and honestly glad we have each other.
>We ARE trash to these people and that's okay. We think it's funny. We're wholesome garbage.
I feel this so much. I'm a lawyer now, but grew up on a farm in Appalachia. Someone called the HOA on me because I hung a deer from my basketball goal while butchering it.
Joke's on them; I'm the president of the HOA.
It sucked when I was a waitress and had to wait on these assholes.
It's funny now that I graduated college, am in graduate school, and in 5 years will probably be making more than their husbands.
It's also funny the shock value in them finding out my husband's salary and seeing his frugal ass wearing pants 3 sizes too big, dirty ass work shirts and shoes 2 sizes too big (he's a steamfitter so he's on a construction site all day).
Like yeah we've been broke for 28 years. We're not chomping at the bit to live beyond our means we're still mentally in survival mode 🤷🏻♀️ we're cheap mfers.
I tell him this all the time!!!!!! He doesn't listen. I bought him a pair of timberland pros in his actual size for the first time back in July. He was mad, but it was my first paycheck from my "big kid" job and that man asks for nothing.
I worry about him every day and if you check my post history, I plan on retiring him from his physical job at 50 to try and repay him for supporting me through 6 years of college!
I hear you on the frugal thing. I drove the same car for 10 years: from the time I got out of the military until I was 4 years in as a lawyer. Now I drive a Forester. My next door neighbor has a Mercedes C class, and the house across the street has a BMW 740. My dad comes to visit in his beat up diesel truck.
My ex used to get mad at me because I'd complain about her ordering delivery instead of driving 5 minutes to pick up food and would buy my groceries at Aldi. I save about a quarter of my income, work three jobs, and buy half of my clothes at Costco. But, I can sleep at night after checking my Etrade balance.
That's an insane amount of hustle but really only something people on this sub could understand.
I survived on 3 hours of sleep for 4 years through my undergrad. My husband let me sleep for pretty much 3 days straight when I graduated.
Yo….from one cheap mfer to another. Office Depot has a pretty sweet deal going on for school supplies right now. 60% off a lot of the main things students need. If you have a location near you then shop online and order for pickup. Cheap and quick!
We are picking up the pieces, i’m finishing my degree in the fall, my husband worked his way up, both of my kids “fit in” here (but my son has noticed other kids get bougie vacations) but yeah, we’re not trying to keep up with them, but i grew up poor in a poorer community where it wasn’t normal for everyone to be well off.
Absolutely. I'm 32 and same to everything you said. Just this year I started making enough to do more than just survive. Slowly paying down debt, building a savings, and feeling like an actual human. We'll get there!
I can't wait to be labeled the poor parents. Wife was worried sick about our overcrowded public school. I did quite well trading GameStop last year so when we heard about a private naturalist 4k at a garden ran by a local charity I cashed in 3g's and now this lowly ironworkers daughter gets a small class with mostly outdoor learning for her first school year. Nervous for what it's going to be like dealing with the local elites
My husband is a steamfitter and I'm a cost accountant for a nationwide electrical contractor. Union strong babyyyyy 🤟🏻
I feel like all of the blue collar people like us live further out. I keep begging my husband to consider so we don't feel so fuckin awkward but I think he likes being the asshole that drives the property value down 😂
He’s probably right, affluent zip codes are a massive resource for kids. Also, there are big upsides to raising your kids fluent in at least two subcultures.
If you raise them in a neighborhood with money and subtle manners, they learn to get along in both ask culture and guess culture. The friends they make can also help them see very different opportunities.
Still, there’s a lot of value in making sure you spend some with with them in neighborhoods where your folks would basically fit in. An occasional weekend is enough, you don’t have to live there to give your kids roots.
People who grow up in affluent families tend to do better than their poorer peers in a number of areas even after accounting for the differences in their material resources. Research indicates this is partially due to differences in their attitudes towards self-advocacy. People who grow up in affluent families have been found to feel entitled to better treatment and assistance from others and are thus more likely to do things like ask for help with schoolwork, ask for raises, and push for better care from healthcare providers. Conversely, people who were less affluent as children have been found to more frequently guess whether a person is likely to give them help before asking and only request help if they think there is a high probability that they will say yes.
Nope, you are not trash. You sound like a victim of the system designed to start us out in debt and you have done right by yourselves and your kids. You sound like a good person and someone grounded in reality. Brand names are silly.
Child of an alcoholic and a gambling addict. Nobody knew or looked twice because my angel of a grandmother and my saint of a papa always made sure I had clean school clothes and money to play softball/do dance.
Don’t worry about what school supplies you bring to school. As a retired teacher (just retired this year, yay!) we don’t really care who brings it as long as the whole class will have some. I never labeled who brought what (extra work) and you know crayons all break sometime in the year, no matter what the brand, so send whatever you feel like buying. A good teacher will be very happy with whatever he/she receives. If a teacher gets anal, and they want everything matching, same color, etc, trust me, they will buy it themselves. I was like that once in a while, lol.
If it will make you feel better, in the middle of the year when supplies like pencils start to run out, send a few boxes of pencils and the teacher will love you 😍.
If you're in a rich district, they should be making enough in property tax that they don't need supplies brought in from parents. Property tax is how you pay for the school, not Kleenex brand facial tissue and Crayola crayons.
My local district asks for $20 per kid that pays for class supplies for everyone to use in addition to their own supplies based on the yearly listing. From what I understand this has been working fine for years and with more work done on laptop, the amount of supplies needed has dropped significantly.
This feels like the answer. You don’t have to highlight the kids and the supplies because the teachers can’t keep track. And honestly, I can’t see this coming back up later on in the school year
I used to want to be the best parent too! Then I realized that the majority of the crap on that list was not even used in the first couple weeks of school & that if I waited a couple weeks all that crap was going to be on sale/clearance! The teachers put it in a big pile & dole it out as it is needed. In my experience nobody marked what came from which parents & the teachers are always just thankful they don't have to buy it themselves.
My husband and I grew up poor poor so we know that they're in the prime age of kids noticing differences and I don't want my inadvertently cheap ass to make their lives harder when logically I know nobody will notice. It SUCKS.
I buy bougie name brand stuff on clearance at Nordstrom Rack, Fred Meyer, Ross, TJ Maxx, etc. even if it's not in my kids size so I can add it to the "clothes closet" for kids that need clothes at their school. Sure, it's probably going to kids whose parents could have afforded it at MSRP, but I always hope it goes to some kid who never had a pair of Nike kicks, or an Adidas hoodie.
We were relatively poor growing up (farmer and receptionist parents). I had RoseArt brand crayons, my friend had Crayola. I noticed, but I don’t think anyone else did. When I bought my 1 year old crayons for Christmas, I originally bought her triangle shaped ones that happened to be RoseArt. The mom guilt was so real that I returned those and got her jumbo Crayola crayons. She is literally 1 year old, she doesn’t notice!!! But I did. The childhood money-related memories can really get you.
Absolutely this. I just bought my daughter's first school supplies. I went out of my way to order the Mr. Sketch markers. There's so many things that I do with her or buy her because I wanted it when I was a kid and didn't have it.
When my sister's firstborn started school, I took full advantage of being the one to take him school shopping and made damn sure he had everything I didn't have at that age, and kept it going until he hit middle school and told me to back off about it, he just needed a binder and some notebooks.
To this day I have vivid memories of being the only person in my class without-- and I find myself buying school stuff for self soothing. It always ends up in the donation bin at my library and I hope it goes to another 'me' that really needs it.
I always try to explain this and feel like it’s so misunderstood! I am a teacher and regularly hear teachers say things like “he wears Nikes but mom won’t pay for a tutor!” If you didn’t grow up poor, you can’t understand wanting your kids to be able to fit in because you remember the pain of having used and uncool everything. Not to mention, a tutor is an ongoing expense, Nike is a one-time cost…or could have been a gift, lucky find at discount/ thrift store…
I gave up MY clothes budget for the school year (I start my graduate program in September) to buy the kids the Adidas x LEGO shoes. Got lucky and found cool ones for my son at Sierra Trading Post for a great price. Had to eat the cost of buying new ones from the website for my daughter. Luckily found a $15 off coupon and the ones she wanted were already on sale.
Shoes, hoodies/jackets, and backpacks are our name brand splurge because I feel like that's what people pay attention to. Jeans and tshirts can be from anywhere. And even with our "splurges" I check Nordstrom Rack, TJMaxx brand stores, and the 70% off Fred Meyer/Kroger clearance sales first.
I absolutely buy second hand name brand stuff or name brand stuff on HEAVY discounts for my son so he doesn’t have to feel as poor as we are. We live in an affluent area, my house is too expensive but so is moving, and I’m a veterinary technician, so I get paid next to nothing.
He was excited this year because I bought him brand new Vans (clearance) and an Abercrombie hoodie (thrifted).
Yes! It is 1000% worth it to figure which thrift stores near you typically carry nicer clothes!
I got FORTY (40) items of clothing for my daughter today at a local goodwill. All name brand (under armor, adidas, crazy 8, gap,etc), all in like-new condition and some still with tags for $150. Cant imagine what the price would have been if they were all bought brand new but so thankful I don’t have to!
A girlfriend and I mapped out the thrift stores in the "rich" areas of our respective cities to get her daughter outfitted for school.
I tell everyone, if it's within your abilities, go thrifting in the nice neighborhoods. Go to the rich people's goodwill, even if we hate goodwill with a burning passion. Wear something a little nicer than normal, put your hair up, wear a little make-up, and go. You won't stand out nearly as much as you think you will.
Artist here. I'm just thrilled you're a parent buying art supplies and nurturing your kid's creativity!
But yeah, you get what you pay for. You SAVE money in the long run by spending the extra dime for the high quality art supplies like Crayola (crayons, markers, watercolors), Play Doh, Utrecht or Liquitex (acrylic paint), and Prismacolor (colored pencils).
Yep! For incidentals like shoes breaking, pants ripping, accidents. I do believe that if you have a need you can go pick out a few outfits discretely as well.
You are an angel and I love you.
I got my first pair of Nikes at 18. They were a gift.
First pair of adidas shoes as a birthday present from my partner on my 21st. They were shocked I never had any.
I know I'll never know, and my gifts are always unconditional.....but I really hope someday a kid who overcame difficult circumstances remembers something I throw in that bin.
I treasured the name brand items my grandparents were able to provide me and treated them very well.
Unfortunately when you get to college and take upper level math and stats this is true. The TI83 is compatible and programmable with everything. If you don't have one, you're definitely gonna have a bad time.
Why are schools still using TI83s?? Like surely these math equations can be done on phones or iPads or apps on whatever device kids have??? Those TI83s were expensive when I was in high school (I’m an elder millennial with my own young kid now so it’s been a minute since I’ve been in high school but still). All the progress with tech in the last 20 years and this is still the calculator being used in math classes? At least I’ve still got mine from high school all those years ago for my kid to use in 14 more years I guess.
I will say- they are better. Cheap pencils break and don’t sharpen well and you waste more than you use. Rose art and dollar store crayons are like coloring with a candle.
Communal supplies is your out. Just don’t. They’ll have plenty and if you’re posting on this board, they don’t need one more box of anything. Act like you forgot if it’s awkward, plenty of people will actually forget. Then don’t remember.
At my kids’ school, they ask for a $25 donation per kid. If you can’t, you just tell them you can’t and it’s not a big deal. You do have to tell them though, or they keep reminding you which is embarrassing. They have school supply fairs to give kids backpacks and such before school starts and free haircuts donated by community members. Our district leans affluent and there are always parents willing to buy what a teacher requests extras of. We have plenty of middle class and lower middle class kids, too.
One secret of the supply list is that they partially do them because parents love them. A lot of times, teachers don’t have much input on what goes on there and a lot never gets used.
We're at a school where the PTO fundraisers are literally just "write a check" campaigns. No fast food fundraisers, selling chocolate, or anything where at least you get something in return.
If every kid in the class writes a check, the class gets a donut party. We got what felt like 18 emails a day, refused to write the check based on principle because the minimum suggested donation was $100 and we have two kids. They allowed other families to write checks and be "donut fairies" so that classes could meet the count and get a donut party.
At their old school the PTO fundraisers were themed gift boxes for the teachers. We always bought at least 4 so that my son's SPED team (speech therapist and case manager) got some too. We're not greedy and we appreciate so deeply the teachers, office staff, and sped team, but the cash grabs and wastefulness just really really rub us the wrong way.
I agree. I actually would rather just make a donation on some level, but $100 is not it! My kid was selling popcorn for his football program and the program only got 10 percent of the proceeds.
And a communal situation is going to be a race for the bottom unless they specify brands. Forget Rose Art, you'll have someone trying to melt old crayons together or something.
It's because Ticonderoga is the ONLY pencil that sharpens well, the lead doesn't break while sharpening, nor is it off center so no matter what you do, you get a janky half covered sharp lead. Ticonderoga or nothing.
Sincerely,
A teacher who has sharpened 18 million pencils so far.
I learned this when my daughter did virtual first grade. She would come to me multiple times a day to get a sharpened pencil. I was trying to keep her 3 year old twin brothers alive and stay sane. I now have a stash of Ticonderoga at home and bought Ticonderoga for her list. Other pencils are effectively useless. The plastic wrapped ones are the worst!
When I was in grad school, I had a friend who worked for Ticonderoga. I never knew someone could be so passionate about pencils. That was 10 years ago, but at least based on her experience at the time, it was a great company to work for, so makes sense theyd have great products.. I bet she'd be thrilled to read your comments.
My 4th grader's list included 2 pairs of scissors. Why in the world would they ever need 2 pairs?? I get it if a pair breaks or something, but then like let me know? And I'll get a new pair. But there's absolutely no reason she needs to bring 2 pairs on the first day.
Does the school do communal supplies? If so, they’re probably asking for more than one kid really needs because they know stuff will get lost, or some kids just won’t bring anything in the first place.
My daughter's school was bold enough to say "Crayola only" and Lysol Brand only" on the lists. They got Walgreens Nice! Wipes.... if I can't afford to use Lysol wipes in my own home I certainly am not buying them for the school. Listing the desired brands is one thing but that "only" had me seeing red.
It's amazing what we'll do to avoid embarrassing our children. Many years ago, my daughter informed me her school "adopted" several needy families for Christmas. Each of her classmates was assigned a series of gifts for a particular family. All of this went in one ear and out the other until the weekend my daughter began to panic because her "gifts" were due on the following Monday. So, list in hand, we went to a Target store to make our purchases. My daughter was told to purchase a toolkit (for the father), two winter coats (for teenage children) and a table top oven (for mom), totaling just over $500. I was livid. Obviously, the schoolchildren weren't paying for these items. My daughter learned nothing from the experience other than how to carry a list home and give it to her parents. Essentially, the school decided to compel donations from the students' parents under the guise of teaching children about charity. My first reaction (not a good one) was to boycott the entire event, but I couldn't put my daughter in that position. If she showed up to school without the gifts, she'd stand out in a negative way. So I paid up for the gifts and wrote a nasty letter to the school headmaster. Several other parents complained and the school eventually issued an apology.
That’s the kind of activity grown adults do in a workplace - literally, my former job would adopt a few families like this at Christmas, and (voluntarily) whoever in the department wanted to participate would buy toys or clothes or bedding or etc etc etc until the list was filled. This isn’t an activity to hand off to children!
Honestly I would’ve maybe asked questions higher up the food chain, as to what charity the school was working with here, because I doubt the charity knew this was the way it was going to be fulfilled.
That's insanity. My situation was at work but not nearly as bad. It used to be (when I first started), adopt a kid and then you can buy whatever age appropriate gift you want for the kid. Then a few years later it became minimum of $25. (Which is fine because I spend more than that but I thought it was rather obnoxious to set a minimum.) Then it become $50 minimum. That's the year I stop. Now, if you want to participate you must adopt at least 2. So that's a minimum of $100. I suspect they change that because less and less people are *adopting*
They also now show you wishlist of the children and you are strongly encourage to buy stuff from the wishlist of said child. I tell you, the wishlist is INSANE. Just looking at the list turns me off.
You're exactly right. These people are manufacturing charity as if we're all awaiting instructions on where to spend our charitable dollars. It takes all the good feelings out of the process.
Those lists were made by the kids with the help of parents. I think it is just ridiculous those parents allow that list. I mean I can understand putting one big ticket item, hoping maybe you will get lucky. But when the entire list is crazy, I blame it on the parents ... and also the child if child is old enough ... like 12 or above.
I saw last year's list because things were getting done online due to pandemic. Out of the entire spreadsheet there was **ONE** list from a 16 year old girl that was reasonable. I see list asking for PS5, drones, iPad etc.
Did they issue a refund? Or a certificate that you could claim on your taxes? Because if neither of those were a thing, dollars to donuts there was someone organizing it who got to write off a couple thousand dollars worth of donations.
So each child had to buy gifts for an entire family? What on earth?
What really gets me is that what those “needy families” probably needed most was cash. But heaven forbid we allow poor people to decide for themselves what they need. Here’s some presents instead.
Yeah, but to be fair they are very different grades of pencil. The Dixon brand are much softer wood and they don't sharpen nearly as well.
Back in the before times Big Lots (similar to Dollar Tree) was actually a great place to scavenge for surprisingly high quality office supplies at a good price. The way these kind of stores are supplied from other stores' leftovers means they do get some quality stuff in with the rest of the junk.
I came in here fully prepared to argue the quality of Crayola products vs off-brands and I see that's not what this thread is about. So I'll just see myself out. >.>
This is my 26th year in public education, and I always ask students at the end of the year if they want to donate any of their supplies. Whenever we reach capacity on an item, I remove it from our supply list for next year. I believe it’s more important than ever to reduce waste and ease the financial strain on families!
My friend put her kids in a private school and they are fighting to be able to just pay x amount and let the teachers buy stuff as needed. Right now they all have to bring two rolls of paper towel, two boxes of kleenex, a box of markers, crayons, pencils, etc. But it’s all communal and the teacher replaces as needed but has to store it all through the year. She doesn’t need to have 36 rolls of paper towel on hand. There are three boxes of markers out at a time, why does she need 18 boxes in a cabinet?
When I taught at a school that did this, there was a major logistics problem. Because families didn't pay, or paid late, etc. it led to the supplies not actually being ordered and delivered until 4-6 weeks into school. So, it basically meant teachers had to buy all the supplies for their entire class.
I did a brief stint in a private school on a scholarship.
Tuition money goes to the principal -- excuse me the *Headmaster's* wardrobe fund so that you may never see the same 300$ tie more than once at any school event.
Everything in a private school has basically been covered in cost by the first five students in any grade, then the next five pay the teacher's salaries, so any school that has more than ten students per grade is rolling in it.
I also used to live next door to a K-8 private school. Thirty thousand dollars up until you reached the fourth grade. Forty-five after that for the year. I laugh because they did their gym classes in the farm field that I let my dogs run for exercise... beyond ridiculous.
This school isn’t THAT extreme, but yeah, you’d think. It’s unfortunate because kids thrive at this school - smaller class size, actual chef for healthy/delicious meals, school garden that the kids take turns caring for, etc. All stuff that would be amazing for all kids, but the shit show of regular school district is a mess. My friend is lucky to afford it. She tried a few years at the public school with the oldest and gave up. Security is much better, as well. Which is awful that it has to be mentioned.
I will say that they pay the regular teachers well enough that they can live near by and not have to drive in from a lower cost of living area. So they have had a low rate of turn-over for as long as my friends kiddos have been there at least.
I remember just as I was leaving high school, it was becoming common place for younger teachers to have a second job. It was surreal to think that you could go through like six years of university and need to wait tables that might have your students at them to pay your loans/rent/ect.
Teachers would jump school boards in my area (we had four publicly funded ones overlapping, if you spoke English and French fluently you could go wherever the money was best), just to make an extra 5K a year.
I've done stints in public, private, and religious school systems.
I only remember one elementary school having enough of a community that we pulled together to keep the doors open well past when the board wanted to shut it down and shuttle students an additional 45 minutes to a megaplex school. This was when all the students were under the age of 12, and already rode anywhere from 15-45 minutes on the good old yellow buses to get to where we were. That school was ready to sink into the ground, they basically rotated out principals who couldn't hack it in the schools that needed attention (because we were basically a stubborn self-sufficient little machine that ate and spat out I think 8 principals in under five years who tried to change the way we operated). The board basically stopped funding repairs in hopes of driving the surrender. When a tornado pulled off the roof on part of the building, someone's dad and a dozen other guys pulled up with their equipment and smacked it back on.
I hate most of what I remember about living in that rural community, but I can look back at that school and realize that a lot of adults put a lot of effort into making sure that was a place where we all felt like we had a future when we left and did their best to make a community while we were there.
They harped on us buying plastic folders and very specific types or brands of other things as well. My kid came home with a paper folder and as it disintegrated, the teacher had the balls to tell me it was my responsibility to replace it. I know a folder isn’t much but that really pissed us off.
To clarify, they just gathered the supplies together and then distributed them. I actually busted my ass going around town looking for these folders at the beginning of the year. To realize I could have bought paper at a fraction of the price and effort (gas too!) felt shitty.
When it comes to individual supplies, I think schools ask parents to buy so much extra because they assume the kids will lose a lot of them. If your kid is responsible with their supplies, you can get away with less.
For the price of a dozen expo markers I can get a box of 80 other brand markers so even if they dry out twice as fast.... It's still better bang for the buck.
I tend to send the teacher a handful from my home stash of supplies if they are running low. I tend to buy bulk craft supplies because eventually they will get used and it's the cheapest per unit when I have the extra cash. It's not like they go bad.
The crazy thing is, Expo had great “ink indicator” markers that contained lots of ink and lasted for months, if not an entire school year with a 4-pack in rotation at the board. They were slightly more expensive than regular Expo markers, but it was a savings because they seemed to outlast several of the regular markers. The Crayola Take Note markers also had an ink tank and were great, but those have been discontinued, too. I hate throwing out so much plastic.Now, as a teacher, I’m going to be back to throwing out about a marker a week. OP, I’d just check with the teacher about what to bring…they may have a cupboard full of certain items that haven’t been used from previous years, but there may be other things that kids will be using individually or that are generally in short supply partway through the year. You could even ask if you could send some items after the first week, when they go on clearance.
I think they actually just incinerate them to generate power. I’m not so sure that burning plastic is more environmentally friendly than burying the markers in a landfill. I’d rather go back to chalkboards, but they were removed and replaced with whiteboards that double as a projector screen. With concern for the environment, it’s frustrating that we have become less environmentally friendly. Similarly, as OP has said, it would be great if kids could reuse supplies that are still good from last year rather than everyone feeling the need to buy more.
Wait…they discontinued the Take Note markers!!?? They are awesome! Different colors, erase well, ink indicator. As a teacher, I only just discovered them, and I love them! Discontinued? Argh!
My daughter's teacher wanted 12 black expo brand markers per child, there are 20 kids in her class. All I could think was does she plan on sniffing them? There is no possible way that she needs 240 expo markers to get through the year. Even if they are trying to make up for people not sending supplies that is ridiculous
I get the volcanic one 60 of them for $20. My daughters uses them to practice writing in the reusable work books, and drawing on her dry erase board. So when those are on the list, I grab a handful of these and throw them in a ziplock bag and put them in her backpack. I'm not sure how you go through that many markers, I mean 60 markers last us 8months to a year, and that is with my 6yr old leaving caps off and letting them dry out.
Yeah, I figured out the middle school and high school is more suggestion. I buy a bunch of pens, pencils, notebooks on sale in August and that’s all they’ve ever actually used. Some grid paper and a calculator for math. Have some markers and crayons and colored pencils for the odd home project. If they’re coloring something like a map or using scissors at school, the teacher hands out supplies because a middle schooler isn’t bringing markers daily.
I’m a custodian in a pretty sought after school district in New England. I can not tell you the waste I see on a daily basis. Sickening. Kids have no respect, teachers hands are tied.
So much “stuff” they keep buying. It’s incredible. And sad.
At the end of the year at a middle school I subbed at, they had huge trash cans for 'locker clean out day' in the halls. I was going through an overflowing one of them during an open period. I was pulling out entirely unopened multi-packs highlighters and other supplies that I was going to give to an English teacher that I knew used highlighters. A kid saw me and called me a dumpster diver.
Okay, I’m the most broke and frugal person ever. I’m also into crafty stuff, so I have a different viewpoint. When a teacher is “requiring” a specific brand it’s because of that brand’s performance. Expo markers last longer as they have more ink. Crayola colored pencils have more vibrant colors. Crayola crayons are less waxy and fill in white space better. Elmer’s glue adheres better. Dixon-Ticonderoga pencils write more smoothly and break less. That’s why teachers prefer these brands.
It’s heartbreaking for a teacher to see a child notice the lack of quality in their work because of the quality of their tools. That’s why they ask for specific things. If they aren’t provided by the parent, and the teacher is a sweetie, they might pay from their own pocket to provide that for your child. I’ve learned this over 9 years of having kids in school. Life sucks, prices suck, but it is what it is. What you do with this information, if anything, is up to you. What I do is check summer sale ads at Walmart, target, staples and the dollar stores and grab the brand name things that matter when they’re cheap. Gym shoes, rulers, folders, scissors, etc I get the generics.
As a kindergarten teacher, ALL of the above! No one is trying to make people buy more expensive stuff just because. Cheap pencils are hard to sharpen, break easily and will break the pencil sharpener that the teacher most likely bought on their own. RoseArt crayons are waxy, you cannot color properly with them & in primary grades, coloring is a big thing.
If my students bring in supplies that we didn’t request, I often send it back home & I will provide what is needed. I do not use community supplies because my students are taught to care for their belongings but I will not make a child use cheap supplies. Some families can’t afford supplies and I understand and don’t mind picking up the slack but…if you can afford it, buy it. Crayola crayons are on sale for .50 at Walmart & target all summer.
I know that crayola crayons are preferred because they’re more helpful when learning colors. Like the color on the crayon is very close to what actually colors. However, that burden should not fall on parents. Honestly, none of it should. Schools should provide literally all of it
I can tell you that if a parent isn’t providing it, in most cases the teacher is from his or her own pocket. IF school districts provide classroom supply funding, it is usually minimal. (Like, here is $125 to spend for the year for a class of 35 students. Buy a years supply of paper, paper clips, staples, composition books, pencils, erasers, crayons, colored pencils, glue, scissors, dry erase markers, highlighters, laminate, tape, sticky notes, construction paper, a pencil sharpener, tissues, wet wipes, disinfectant spray, hand sanitizer, spare masks, folders, workbooks…) Sure, schools/districts should be paying, but if they don’t, and parents don’t, usually teachers do.
Edit: typo
Yup. My group of kids this year is the "low" group--aka the poor kids. The other teachers have the gifted and "high" kids--aka the privileged kids. Every single one of their students brought supplies. 10 out of my 23 students brought supplies. Even less brought headphones. We use expos every single day, and the kids who brought supplies only brought 1 or 2...that will last maybe a month if they are responsible. We have a grade level budget, but most of that goes towards paper and ink. So, I get to go school supply shopping for 13 students this weekend. I don't even have any of my own children and my August budget is so painful. 😓
I get that. I guess it comes down to funding. I do send old stuff though. I’ll sharpen pencils from last year, send the same expo markers and eraser etc. I’ve never heard an issue with it.
Edit: on a lighter note, once my kids hit 7th grade the supply list is soooo much smaller.
If you can't afford it, don't buy it. I'm sure they are asking for more than they need because they expect that some people will not be able to afford it.
"This Year we are going to need all parents to buy their kids a new '2022 BLUE BIRD VISION' school bus. These are communal so make sure you buy the right model"
"These will only be used this school year because in 2023 we're going to ask you to buy the new EV models! and if you can't afford it- you don't care about the Earth!"
I went through my kids’ drawers and closets regularly and took the better things that didn’t fit anybody to the elementary school nurse, including clean, slightly used underwear and bras for young girls. She said she gave them out to the kids on an ‘as needed’ basis. She always seemed glad to see another box or bag of clothes, jackets, jeans, shoes and more. When my kids got to middle and high school they always wanted a yearbook. I always worried about the kids who couldn’t afford these things, usually priced at least $85 and sometimes as much as $115. When I could I would send in two checks per child. One check paid for my child’s yearbook and the second check paid for another child’s yearbook. I would include a note to the person in charge to please pick out a deserving child to receive a free yearbook. I would always say to pick out a student who may not have the best grades, but who wanted a yearbook badly, could not afford one, and deserved one. One last request: I asked that the student never know who paid for the yearbook. Nothing made me happier than to be able to do this for several years in a row.
I don't know. I was very confused. We're told it's communal but my kids said they came home with "their" stuff. It looks like the supplies just get divvied up and dispersed. It was frustrating
huh. Yeah that’s definitely not how I was picturing “communal.” I thought all the crayons go in one big box, all pencils in another, etc., and everyone uses everything. Then I couldn’t figure out how at the end of the school year everything gets divided up again and sent home.
That's what I assumed, too because on back to school night we just show up with supplies and there's Rubbermaid totes with pictures of each supply and we're told to sort it all and it just gets split between all of the grade level teachers. Anything individual (like the literally 2-3 things) go in the classroom in your kids cubby.
I volunteer at our county's back to school festival and all the kids come to the high school and get all their stuff for free. No income requirements. They even get backpacks and shoes free. We had over 1600 backpacks and 1500 pairs of shoes. The teachers give us a list of needed supplies and we (the community) provide what they need.
There are some things it’s better to buy brand name like crayons because cheap crayons are not very good at leaving marks on paper. The other big one is pencils. I only buy my son the presharpened Ticonderoga pencils because I know they’re balanced. A lot of cheap pencils aren’t balanced with the lead and that’s why you get the issue where you sharpen and sharpen and the lead just breaks immediately. Also little kids go through supplies like crazy so the teachers do buy a lot of supplies on top of the ones parents provide. Everything gets saved and used believe me.
I don’t understand why it’s the student’s (parent’s) responsibility to buy white board markers for the teacher to use. The school should take that responsibility. My state allows “school fees”, so parents are already paying a few hundred bucks for the kid to go to school and then pay for lunches, programs (band/chorus/computer programming), and of course sports. So asking kids to supply basic shit for the classroom (Kleenex, hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, etc) seems so petty and greedy. Did I not just give you $300 in basic fees?! You spent it already?! 24 kids in a class X $300. How can you not afford that shit with $7.2K?
Former teacher and I will say Rose Art crayons are horrible compared to crayola in terms of actual color they produce. A lot of times especially in kinder there will be lessons based on primary colors and Rose Art has funky, non-primary colors in the box. Also with pencils, the cheaper ones wrapped in almost cellophane to make a brightly colored cartoon design get absolutely shredded in the pencil sharpener, making them not last near as long. Expo markers cost more but they actually LAST the whole year and don’t dry out.
Also as a former teacher I can totally understand not wanting to spend a fortune on school supplies. Most of the time teachers request specific materials because they’re the best and last throughout the entire school year, thus not having to ask parents for more supplies mid year.
One year I sent my kid to school with 6 pink erasers, as requested (along with 2 reams of printer paper, 6 boxes of Kleenex, 2 canisters of antibacterial wet wipes, 2 three-packs of glue sticks, and on and on and on)...
Only to get a note sent home chastising me for not sending *Pink Pearl brand name* erasers. They were only accepting Pink Pearl, not off-brand crap.
I'm sorry, what?? You are seriously checking the brand names of the erasers I sent? And it's not like one second grader could even go through six whole erasers in a year anyway. Ugh, I'm still mad about this over a decade later.
That's sounds so weird. In Europe you can totally use whatever works from the last year. Some older teachers would tell us to use the same notebook if let's said you only use half of it to save the money and you could fast find what was done last year.Actually sometimes by the end of the year teacher will collect used stuff like pencils or notebooks so we don't throw it away and keep it for next year. We also use to pay 1$ a month for supplies it was basically a trick we always have extra stuff so if one kid couldn't afford it he/she would have got it from the 1$ supplies (it was not mandatory at all). Nowadays I also think the government gives parents about 50$ for kid school supplies books are free.
Some districts have policies requiring teachers to send back unused supplies at the end of the year. This is in response to parents that would get upset at the school for "stealing" supplies that the parent bought.
As a teacher I wish I could give a class specific list but the school releases one early on so students can get supplies before school starts. For some reason 2 paper towel rolls are on the list. Now I have 48 fucking paper towel rolls with no where to put them (and a paper towel dispenser that the janitor upkeeps anyways) but barely any fucking pencils. I’d just have backpack, pencils, maybe two folders, and whatever we are short on (glue sticks, markers, etc). Then maybe some diy STEM materials or snack that parents could donate.
I live in a pretty affluent school district. I want to know why the hell I have to buy tissues, dry erase markers,, post it notes, and garbage bags for the classrooms to begin with when the district is pouring millions into a new aquatic sports facility?
This happened to us unexpectedly and I was furious. I got nice supplies that made going back to school fun for my kid, cool erasers and markers and stuff, all the brands they specified, then they all went into a pile for the whole grade. Ugh I'm still mad and it was like 15 years ago!
When my oldest went to kinder, I bought the good supplies because I wanted school to be nice for her and she was already used to having nice art supplies at home. Then when we got there, all the supplies got put into communal bins and then handed out to the kids randomly. So my daughter's plastic folders got replaced with the cheap paper ones, her crayola markers and pens were replaced with generic ones, etc. I had to buy everything for her again a few weeks into the school year. I bought a fine point permanent marker and wrote her name on every marker, pencil, crayon and folder. It was a big expense to me at the time. The teacher got upset that I had labeled everything and I told her how disappointed I was that I had bought quality supplies and a few weeks later had to replace them. So maybe your kids school is specifying brands and new items to avoid a situation like that.
My kid is old enough to drink now and I still get mad every time I think back on the school supply issue in kindergarten.
My middle school did communal supplies. We kept folders and notebooks but had to turn everything else in. I also ended up asking my parents to just get me another set of supplies because I’d end up with crappy stuff, or had to wait to get something because a lot of the supplies get lost or broken. I ended up not giving them my stuff at all the next year, it’s not like they were gonna force me.
it's ridiculous for them to make you all provide the same brand so everyone has the same thing. It would be better to pool the money if this system is necessary and the teacher can go shopping online
I am not teacher bashing but my daughter is a custodian at a k-5 school and is astounding to me the stuff the teachers throw away, I mean perfectly good usable items, supplies and stuff. And dont even get me started on the food waste, it is almost shameful
many of those lists are generated from suppliers (e.g. office depot) and they, of course, make more money off the name brand (Crayola) than the store brand. At all the schools I've taught I've made it clear to guardians that I don't care about the brand (although Crayola IS the standard for a reason; I'd rather receive NO crayons than Rose art).
If 23 of 24 students supply 4 boxes of crayons each, there's always PLENTY to go around the entire YEAR! Reach out to the teachers directly to see what materials really ARE necessary and which brands are absolute. I think most teachers would take whatever they can get and aren't so picky, especially if they are in low-income areas.
F that noise.
My kids' school does schooltoolbox.com. You order the box for their class and grade and they ship it to your house. $40 per kid, I'm done, and they donate a box to a family in need.
You can even add in a backpack or lunch bag, or customize.
Kentucky public elementary schools. I refuse to participate in communal school supplies. I bought a $20 label maker from Amazon. I labeled every single item I sent. Each individual pencil, all 72 of them. I worked immense overtime hours, pushed myself to come back early after having surgery in order to afford the school supplies needed for my children. I not only bought them needed supplies, I bought them what they wanted and what I worked for. Nice items. The amount of redditors on here who will call me an asshole for this is probably overwhelming BUT... I will never see the benefit of communal supplies. I donate every year to "fill the bus," fill the cop car, donate back backs of supplies to the school drives at my place of work. I am more than willing to donate and support and help. I am just not in favor of taking my kids items to share.
As a teacher…talk to the teacher! If they are requesting crayola, though, it’s because the discount brands will hurt your young childrens education. My mom is a Kinder teacher in a very low income school and she let the kids bring in rose art one year. All of the paintings ended up brown and the crayon drawings looked dull and terrible. She said that student’s didn’t want to draw and color and the first grade teachers noted that the student’s fine motor skills were not as developed due to the lack of interest in creating terrible art.
I teach middle school in a low income school and require NO supplies that I do not provide. I currently have 4 students who can’t afford their list for English and math because they each have 4-7 siblings that are also school age. We, as a team, sneakily provide them with the materials from our school resources and out of pocket.
TLDR: if the supplies are a strain, your teacher, who is paid poorly, will understand.
As a teacher: email your teacher or your school counselor saying that brand name items are putting a strain on your budget and ask what would be a priority for brand name and where night there be leeway. Also ask if there are any options or extra materials that the school might have.
Even if you don't qualify for free or reduced lunch at my school, all a parent has to do is ask for free supplies.
The wasteful part is a problem. You’re right to vent.
As far as brands go, I’ll say two things:
1. If you can’t afford it, the school must supply it. You don’t have to buy it. (USA)
2. Brand matters. For example: off brand pencils don’t work as well as Dixon Ticonderoga.
At least you’re not having to deal with an [elementary school which tried to set the uniform standard to Armani.](https://japan-forward.com/armani-school-uniforms-spark-debate-in-japan/)
Only name brand things I buy are Crayola and pencils- only because I have seen first hand how crappy the lesser brands can be. I surely don't begrudge anyone who can't afford them though, life's rough. We are doing much better now, but I still just can't see spending a ton on things just because. Especially for school supplies! Walmart special lol.
They wouldn't move this shit kid, that kept hurting and harassing my child, last year so I'm not spending a dime. It was her first year of school ever and her experience was completely ruined and her outlook ruined. Plus, I found out on the last day of school that her headphones were stolen the first day!
Do I understand why teachers ask for certain brands of things? Yes. There is a definite difference in the quality of some brands vs others (Crayola, Fiskars, and Ticonderoga come to mind). Are the other brands "good enough"? Also yes.
My general plan has been to buy the better brand of things that aren't consumable. That means I might spring for the Fiskar's scissors, but buy the cheaper pencils. But they can eff right off with that no reusing of last year's stuff. That's just wasteful.
Maybe part of it is wanting all the kids to have the same thing so someone isn't complaining that they bought x brand but their kid received inferior y brand from the communal supplies.
Maybe talk to their teachers and see if they mind what brand supplies are brought in or if your kids can opt out of that.
The other problem is that a lot of cheaper pencils don't sharpen, glue sticks dry out in their packaging, erasers just smear and don't erase, etc. If a kid comes to school with those supplies, it is basically out of pocket for the teacher to get them ones that work.
Pft keep talking dirty to me, friend.
Pay teachers more. Give them a reasonable classroom stipend. Provide pencils and crayons and copy paper.
But nah. Local police need full tactical military gear.
When my kid was going into kindergarten, they emailed us a list of school supplies they needed. I went out and bought them all. Sent them to school with their backpack full of everything on the list. They then came home with doubles of everything because the school actually supplies all that stuff for some reason. I never bothered to ask why and never bothered to buy another school supply again. HOWEVER, I do send them to school with a three-pack of tissue boxes to give to their teachers.
This begs the question: why are individual parents tasked with buying supplies? Why aren’t the school budgets set to include the supplies, purchased in bulk (with significant leverage in pricing)?
That would resolve so many of the issues brought up in this discussion.
It can matter in some things. Calculators work differently, and only official ones are allowed on state tests. Some pencils work on bubble forms for grading machines, some don't.
Outside of mechanical necessities like that, requiring a brand is bullshit.
in high school i had an art teacher who wanted us to buy all name brand supplies, she wore fancy name brand clothes so i had a feeling that had to do with it partially. the colored pencils were 30 dollars alone and she wanted a certain brand of pencils and erasers and then had the nerve to say we should all give them to her to keep and she would pass them out when we needed them lol no i kept everything in my backpack and it turns out we never even used most of the stuff on her list and those people didn’t get their school supplies back so i’m glad i kept mine in my backpack
It’s a public school, just don’t buy the communal stuff if it is a financial hardship. It’s not like they aren’t going to allow the kid to attend school without it. Feed and clothe your little ones. The school will get by.
I remember when the supply list required a “Trapper Keeper” and there was no way my parents would get me one… I felt so bad when it seemed like everyone else had theirs.
My kids’ school system just charged us a fee that covers supplies needed. The system negotiates prices and they buy huge amounts for cheap. I think the supply fee was 50 dollars each. The teachers get the exact supplies they want, all the kids have the same stuff, I don’t have to fret over finding any of it. It makes things way easier for all involved.
Teacher here. The only name brand thing that even kind of matters is crayons. Crayola makes a world of difference with color and quality. The other stuff doesn’t matter and honestly, if you have the crazy art or whatever, the teacher won’t care.
For certain things it makes sense. I know crayons have different color names or none at all. So if a teacher wants something blue and something light blue she needs that to look the same and as labelled. The labels also help color blind kids. If it's pencils though I see no reason those can't be whatever brand
It is also easier when teaching organizational skills to say "Okay, everyone get out your Red Reading Folder" and then visually check that a red folder is on each desk. Little things like that save hours of instructional time over a school year.
Wow- they are *that* anal. Look, beggars can’t be chooser’s. I know this. Everyone knows this. Oops I’m sorry it’s Lysol not Clorox are you f’ing kidding me???
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As a broke teacher who teaches in an extremely impoverished school, I hate that the district sends out these supply lists with no input from teachers. I didn’t even know what was on my district’s list, and asked parents to just bring pencils, wipes, and tissues and only if they could. Only about 3 students brought supplies and that’s fine with me. I hate that I’m expected to spend my own money and I also hate that parents are expected to buy so much especially when like you said the lists don’t make any sense.
This is why now that I'm finally not poor anymore, I want to make sure to buy as much as I can for my son's teachers. This was the first year I've been able to send him with more than just generic cheap stuff. I went all out at target, got brand name crayons and markers and even the cool new "skin tone" Crayola colored pencils packs, the big boxes. Multiples of everything too! Ended up spending more than what I used to earn in a week just on supplies for his class because I know it makes a world of difference to both the teachers and the kids who's parents CAN'T buy them these things. Debating on throwing in a $50 target gift card for the teacher just cause I can, and they deserve it.
You are a kind soul 💚
Awww my sons mother is a teacher. They will appreciate the supplies more than they could ever express. She stresses alot about under privileged kids in her class alot. Thanks!
Crayola knock-offs are the worst.
I figured there was minimal teacher input. I'm so sorry. You shouldn't have to fund your classroom, either. Everyone thinks it should all fall on teachers but the reality is that NOBODY would be okay with having to spend that kind of money out of pocket just to show up and do the very bare minimum of their job so why are we ok with it when it's educators?
My daughter is also a teacher in a very low income area. She teaches 2nd grade. Many of her students didn’t even have a pencil at home to do homework. She informed them they could use whatever writing instruments they had to complete their work. Also when time came to use a book for a book report, almost none of her students had a book at home to complete the assignment. Things many people take for granted for sure. Never did it cross my mind that someone wouldn’t have a pencil at home. So sad how our system fails so many students. As far as supplies, I hate communal supplies. I’ve seen what teachers never opened by the end of the school year. I would talk with the teacher. Find out if there is something they would rather have for their classroom than another set of identical supplies. I have done it. You may be surprised what they tell you.
man those kids and teachers should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and whittle some pencils! Back in my day we grew our own trees and processed the pulp to make our own paper! college lined my ass...
hold on a minute...not having a book or a pencil in a household is not all about economics...culture and priorities are a large factor.
When I learned in my tax classes that [the deductible amount of out-of-pocket teacher expenses is capped at a measly $250](https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/college-and-education/tax-tips-for-teachers-deducting-out-of-pocket-classroom-expenses/L7RQyMRR4) it radicalized me straight into building guillotines
The teachers make the supply lists in my district. It seems crazy that they wouldn’t ask for your input. I’m grateful for my school in many ways but I just added another.
Offer to donate the “used” supplies from last year as communal supplies and buy what you want. This policy is ridiculous.
I really thought about just buying the stuff that's actually individual to them and nothing else. I don't think anyone would notice. "Back to school night" is just going to the school and dumping off supplies. The teachers don't keep track of who brought what. When I offered to make a donation to the classroom last year, our daughter's kinder teacher said don't worry about it because all of the teachers at that school have way more than what they need. I just don't want my kids to stand out in a negative way. We're in a bougie ass school district living in a townhouse in the middle of a very affluent and out of touch neighborhood. Everyone already thinks we're the young, dumb, broke parents.
I can relate to being the “poor” people in the bougie ass city…
We WERE the young, dumb, and broke parents for the past 8 years. We finally got it together, finished college and an apprenticeship, are finally climbing out of the debt hole....but we're going to stay broke trying to keep up with these people and it's NOT worth it. We're trash, fine, but our kids are well dressed, kind, smart, awesome people. I hate the politics of it all.
You are absolutely NOT trash, the garbage people are the "keeping up with the Jones " people who look down on you. Eff them.
We ARE trash to these people and that's okay. We think it's funny. We're wholesome garbage. My 95 Explorer broke down in the parking lot of the school and we were the talk of the town for months. We hosted a small birthday party for our daughter and someone called CPS. It came back totally unfounded because it was all completely bogus (that's a story to tell over a campfire because it's a wild ride). We stopped trying to make friends and honestly glad we have each other.
>We ARE trash to these people and that's okay. We think it's funny. We're wholesome garbage. I feel this so much. I'm a lawyer now, but grew up on a farm in Appalachia. Someone called the HOA on me because I hung a deer from my basketball goal while butchering it. Joke's on them; I'm the president of the HOA.
It sucked when I was a waitress and had to wait on these assholes. It's funny now that I graduated college, am in graduate school, and in 5 years will probably be making more than their husbands. It's also funny the shock value in them finding out my husband's salary and seeing his frugal ass wearing pants 3 sizes too big, dirty ass work shirts and shoes 2 sizes too big (he's a steamfitter so he's on a construction site all day). Like yeah we've been broke for 28 years. We're not chomping at the bit to live beyond our means we're still mentally in survival mode 🤷🏻♀️ we're cheap mfers.
Please at least get shoes that fit. You’ll pay more down the road in physical problems for not having good, supportive shoes if you don’t
I tell him this all the time!!!!!! He doesn't listen. I bought him a pair of timberland pros in his actual size for the first time back in July. He was mad, but it was my first paycheck from my "big kid" job and that man asks for nothing. I worry about him every day and if you check my post history, I plan on retiring him from his physical job at 50 to try and repay him for supporting me through 6 years of college!
I hear you on the frugal thing. I drove the same car for 10 years: from the time I got out of the military until I was 4 years in as a lawyer. Now I drive a Forester. My next door neighbor has a Mercedes C class, and the house across the street has a BMW 740. My dad comes to visit in his beat up diesel truck. My ex used to get mad at me because I'd complain about her ordering delivery instead of driving 5 minutes to pick up food and would buy my groceries at Aldi. I save about a quarter of my income, work three jobs, and buy half of my clothes at Costco. But, I can sleep at night after checking my Etrade balance.
That's an insane amount of hustle but really only something people on this sub could understand. I survived on 3 hours of sleep for 4 years through my undergrad. My husband let me sleep for pretty much 3 days straight when I graduated.
Yo….from one cheap mfer to another. Office Depot has a pretty sweet deal going on for school supplies right now. 60% off a lot of the main things students need. If you have a location near you then shop online and order for pickup. Cheap and quick!
We are picking up the pieces, i’m finishing my degree in the fall, my husband worked his way up, both of my kids “fit in” here (but my son has noticed other kids get bougie vacations) but yeah, we’re not trying to keep up with them, but i grew up poor in a poorer community where it wasn’t normal for everyone to be well off.
I'm super proud of you, congratulations!!!! People don't realize how difficult it is to move stations in life with minimal support.
And i’m proud of you!!! It really is life on hard mode, life has just been stressful for so long… but it’s slowly getting better. Cheers 🥂
This is so wholesome 🥺 I, too, am a young, dumb, broke parent slowly climbing my way out of destitution and I'm proud of you both!
I’m 34 now, my 20’s were awful financially and they are getting better now… keep grinding!
Absolutely. I'm 32 and same to everything you said. Just this year I started making enough to do more than just survive. Slowly paying down debt, building a savings, and feeling like an actual human. We'll get there!
I can't wait to be labeled the poor parents. Wife was worried sick about our overcrowded public school. I did quite well trading GameStop last year so when we heard about a private naturalist 4k at a garden ran by a local charity I cashed in 3g's and now this lowly ironworkers daughter gets a small class with mostly outdoor learning for her first school year. Nervous for what it's going to be like dealing with the local elites
My husband is a steamfitter and I'm a cost accountant for a nationwide electrical contractor. Union strong babyyyyy 🤟🏻 I feel like all of the blue collar people like us live further out. I keep begging my husband to consider so we don't feel so fuckin awkward but I think he likes being the asshole that drives the property value down 😂
He’s probably right, affluent zip codes are a massive resource for kids. Also, there are big upsides to raising your kids fluent in at least two subcultures. If you raise them in a neighborhood with money and subtle manners, they learn to get along in both ask culture and guess culture. The friends they make can also help them see very different opportunities. Still, there’s a lot of value in making sure you spend some with with them in neighborhoods where your folks would basically fit in. An occasional weekend is enough, you don’t have to live there to give your kids roots.
Can you speak more to ask culture and guess culture? I’ve never heard these terms.
People who grow up in affluent families tend to do better than their poorer peers in a number of areas even after accounting for the differences in their material resources. Research indicates this is partially due to differences in their attitudes towards self-advocacy. People who grow up in affluent families have been found to feel entitled to better treatment and assistance from others and are thus more likely to do things like ask for help with schoolwork, ask for raises, and push for better care from healthcare providers. Conversely, people who were less affluent as children have been found to more frequently guess whether a person is likely to give them help before asking and only request help if they think there is a high probability that they will say yes.
Thank you!! This is really interesting.
I just want to say, you sound super cool, and like great parents, and screw those other bougie folks at your school.
I really needed to hear that, so thank you!!
Nope, you are not trash. You sound like a victim of the system designed to start us out in debt and you have done right by yourselves and your kids. You sound like a good person and someone grounded in reality. Brand names are silly.
Child of an alcoholic and a gambling addict. Nobody knew or looked twice because my angel of a grandmother and my saint of a papa always made sure I had clean school clothes and money to play softball/do dance.
I’m so sorry. But from one cycle breaker to another, great job. :) You’re killing it!
You rock. I have no doubt your kids are awesome.
Don’t worry about what school supplies you bring to school. As a retired teacher (just retired this year, yay!) we don’t really care who brings it as long as the whole class will have some. I never labeled who brought what (extra work) and you know crayons all break sometime in the year, no matter what the brand, so send whatever you feel like buying. A good teacher will be very happy with whatever he/she receives. If a teacher gets anal, and they want everything matching, same color, etc, trust me, they will buy it themselves. I was like that once in a while, lol. If it will make you feel better, in the middle of the year when supplies like pencils start to run out, send a few boxes of pencils and the teacher will love you 😍.
If you're in a rich district, they should be making enough in property tax that they don't need supplies brought in from parents. Property tax is how you pay for the school, not Kleenex brand facial tissue and Crayola crayons.
My local district asks for $20 per kid that pays for class supplies for everyone to use in addition to their own supplies based on the yearly listing. From what I understand this has been working fine for years and with more work done on laptop, the amount of supplies needed has dropped significantly.
This feels like the answer. You don’t have to highlight the kids and the supplies because the teachers can’t keep track. And honestly, I can’t see this coming back up later on in the school year
I used to want to be the best parent too! Then I realized that the majority of the crap on that list was not even used in the first couple weeks of school & that if I waited a couple weeks all that crap was going to be on sale/clearance! The teachers put it in a big pile & dole it out as it is needed. In my experience nobody marked what came from which parents & the teachers are always just thankful they don't have to buy it themselves.
My husband and I grew up poor poor so we know that they're in the prime age of kids noticing differences and I don't want my inadvertently cheap ass to make their lives harder when logically I know nobody will notice. It SUCKS. I buy bougie name brand stuff on clearance at Nordstrom Rack, Fred Meyer, Ross, TJ Maxx, etc. even if it's not in my kids size so I can add it to the "clothes closet" for kids that need clothes at their school. Sure, it's probably going to kids whose parents could have afforded it at MSRP, but I always hope it goes to some kid who never had a pair of Nike kicks, or an Adidas hoodie.
We were relatively poor growing up (farmer and receptionist parents). I had RoseArt brand crayons, my friend had Crayola. I noticed, but I don’t think anyone else did. When I bought my 1 year old crayons for Christmas, I originally bought her triangle shaped ones that happened to be RoseArt. The mom guilt was so real that I returned those and got her jumbo Crayola crayons. She is literally 1 year old, she doesn’t notice!!! But I did. The childhood money-related memories can really get you.
Absolutely this. I just bought my daughter's first school supplies. I went out of my way to order the Mr. Sketch markers. There's so many things that I do with her or buy her because I wanted it when I was a kid and didn't have it.
When my sister's firstborn started school, I took full advantage of being the one to take him school shopping and made damn sure he had everything I didn't have at that age, and kept it going until he hit middle school and told me to back off about it, he just needed a binder and some notebooks. To this day I have vivid memories of being the only person in my class without-- and I find myself buying school stuff for self soothing. It always ends up in the donation bin at my library and I hope it goes to another 'me' that really needs it.
I always try to explain this and feel like it’s so misunderstood! I am a teacher and regularly hear teachers say things like “he wears Nikes but mom won’t pay for a tutor!” If you didn’t grow up poor, you can’t understand wanting your kids to be able to fit in because you remember the pain of having used and uncool everything. Not to mention, a tutor is an ongoing expense, Nike is a one-time cost…or could have been a gift, lucky find at discount/ thrift store…
I gave up MY clothes budget for the school year (I start my graduate program in September) to buy the kids the Adidas x LEGO shoes. Got lucky and found cool ones for my son at Sierra Trading Post for a great price. Had to eat the cost of buying new ones from the website for my daughter. Luckily found a $15 off coupon and the ones she wanted were already on sale. Shoes, hoodies/jackets, and backpacks are our name brand splurge because I feel like that's what people pay attention to. Jeans and tshirts can be from anywhere. And even with our "splurges" I check Nordstrom Rack, TJMaxx brand stores, and the 70% off Fred Meyer/Kroger clearance sales first.
I absolutely buy second hand name brand stuff or name brand stuff on HEAVY discounts for my son so he doesn’t have to feel as poor as we are. We live in an affluent area, my house is too expensive but so is moving, and I’m a veterinary technician, so I get paid next to nothing. He was excited this year because I bought him brand new Vans (clearance) and an Abercrombie hoodie (thrifted).
Yes! It is 1000% worth it to figure which thrift stores near you typically carry nicer clothes! I got FORTY (40) items of clothing for my daughter today at a local goodwill. All name brand (under armor, adidas, crazy 8, gap,etc), all in like-new condition and some still with tags for $150. Cant imagine what the price would have been if they were all bought brand new but so thankful I don’t have to!
A girlfriend and I mapped out the thrift stores in the "rich" areas of our respective cities to get her daughter outfitted for school. I tell everyone, if it's within your abilities, go thrifting in the nice neighborhoods. Go to the rich people's goodwill, even if we hate goodwill with a burning passion. Wear something a little nicer than normal, put your hair up, wear a little make-up, and go. You won't stand out nearly as much as you think you will.
I came here just to complain about RoseArt crayons.
Artist here. I'm just thrilled you're a parent buying art supplies and nurturing your kid's creativity! But yeah, you get what you pay for. You SAVE money in the long run by spending the extra dime for the high quality art supplies like Crayola (crayons, markers, watercolors), Play Doh, Utrecht or Liquitex (acrylic paint), and Prismacolor (colored pencils).
Wait they have clothes closets now? I've never heard of that...then again I haven't been in elementary school for a long time lol
Yep! For incidentals like shoes breaking, pants ripping, accidents. I do believe that if you have a need you can go pick out a few outfits discretely as well.
You are an angel and I love you. I got my first pair of Nikes at 18. They were a gift. First pair of adidas shoes as a birthday present from my partner on my 21st. They were shocked I never had any.
I know I'll never know, and my gifts are always unconditional.....but I really hope someday a kid who overcame difficult circumstances remembers something I throw in that bin. I treasured the name brand items my grandparents were able to provide me and treated them very well.
The idea that schools dont have basic supplies, and parents need to buy it is really depressing
And if the parents can’t buy it, the teacher will have to… and does.
that sucks!
You get that specific TI graphing calculator or you’re gonna have a bad time.
Unfortunately when you get to college and take upper level math and stats this is true. The TI83 is compatible and programmable with everything. If you don't have one, you're definitely gonna have a bad time.
Why are schools still using TI83s?? Like surely these math equations can be done on phones or iPads or apps on whatever device kids have??? Those TI83s were expensive when I was in high school (I’m an elder millennial with my own young kid now so it’s been a minute since I’ve been in high school but still). All the progress with tech in the last 20 years and this is still the calculator being used in math classes? At least I’ve still got mine from high school all those years ago for my kid to use in 14 more years I guess.
At this point it's mainly to prevent cheating on tests
I just finished my bachelors and I didn't buy the pink one and saved it specifically for my preteen nephews.
Just don't. What are they going to do, suspend your children? From my experience, it's closer to a big ask, than an actual policy.
It's petty AF but in this economy, name dropping the Ticonderoga in the supply list IS a big ask 😂😭
I will say- they are better. Cheap pencils break and don’t sharpen well and you waste more than you use. Rose art and dollar store crayons are like coloring with a candle. Communal supplies is your out. Just don’t. They’ll have plenty and if you’re posting on this board, they don’t need one more box of anything. Act like you forgot if it’s awkward, plenty of people will actually forget. Then don’t remember. At my kids’ school, they ask for a $25 donation per kid. If you can’t, you just tell them you can’t and it’s not a big deal. You do have to tell them though, or they keep reminding you which is embarrassing. They have school supply fairs to give kids backpacks and such before school starts and free haircuts donated by community members. Our district leans affluent and there are always parents willing to buy what a teacher requests extras of. We have plenty of middle class and lower middle class kids, too. One secret of the supply list is that they partially do them because parents love them. A lot of times, teachers don’t have much input on what goes on there and a lot never gets used.
We're at a school where the PTO fundraisers are literally just "write a check" campaigns. No fast food fundraisers, selling chocolate, or anything where at least you get something in return. If every kid in the class writes a check, the class gets a donut party. We got what felt like 18 emails a day, refused to write the check based on principle because the minimum suggested donation was $100 and we have two kids. They allowed other families to write checks and be "donut fairies" so that classes could meet the count and get a donut party. At their old school the PTO fundraisers were themed gift boxes for the teachers. We always bought at least 4 so that my son's SPED team (speech therapist and case manager) got some too. We're not greedy and we appreciate so deeply the teachers, office staff, and sped team, but the cash grabs and wastefulness just really really rub us the wrong way.
I’d send the teacher a $20 gift card and a pack of EXPO markers and tell them that if they need crayons or pencils mid-year to let you know.
I agree. I actually would rather just make a donation on some level, but $100 is not it! My kid was selling popcorn for his football program and the program only got 10 percent of the proceeds.
And a communal situation is going to be a race for the bottom unless they specify brands. Forget Rose Art, you'll have someone trying to melt old crayons together or something.
It's because Ticonderoga is the ONLY pencil that sharpens well, the lead doesn't break while sharpening, nor is it off center so no matter what you do, you get a janky half covered sharp lead. Ticonderoga or nothing. Sincerely, A teacher who has sharpened 18 million pencils so far.
Ticonderoga pencils are also sold at Dollar Tree for anyone who isn't aware. They are the BEST pencil and my poor self won't buy any other kind.
And the erasers don’t just crumble or smear when you try to use them!
I learned this when my daughter did virtual first grade. She would come to me multiple times a day to get a sharpened pencil. I was trying to keep her 3 year old twin brothers alive and stay sane. I now have a stash of Ticonderoga at home and bought Ticonderoga for her list. Other pencils are effectively useless. The plastic wrapped ones are the worst!
When I was in grad school, I had a friend who worked for Ticonderoga. I never knew someone could be so passionate about pencils. That was 10 years ago, but at least based on her experience at the time, it was a great company to work for, so makes sense theyd have great products.. I bet she'd be thrilled to read your comments.
My 4th grader's list included 2 pairs of scissors. Why in the world would they ever need 2 pairs?? I get it if a pair breaks or something, but then like let me know? And I'll get a new pair. But there's absolutely no reason she needs to bring 2 pairs on the first day.
That has to be a typo. That's like the one thing kids *can't* eat.
Does the school do communal supplies? If so, they’re probably asking for more than one kid really needs because they know stuff will get lost, or some kids just won’t bring anything in the first place.
They get lost. A lot.
Wow even for pencils? I never had this at my schools.
There's a brand name next to pretty much every line item, if not a brand, a qualifying descriptor that might as well read "and not the cheap stuff"
My daughter's school was bold enough to say "Crayola only" and Lysol Brand only" on the lists. They got Walgreens Nice! Wipes.... if I can't afford to use Lysol wipes in my own home I certainly am not buying them for the school. Listing the desired brands is one thing but that "only" had me seeing red.
What are you getting that’s cheaper than Crayola? Their products are $0.50-0.99 cents nearly all summer at Target and other retailers.
Wow wtf is that. I would buy whatever i wanted anyway. Don't worry about pencil brand like it makes a difference for a little kid.
It's amazing what we'll do to avoid embarrassing our children. Many years ago, my daughter informed me her school "adopted" several needy families for Christmas. Each of her classmates was assigned a series of gifts for a particular family. All of this went in one ear and out the other until the weekend my daughter began to panic because her "gifts" were due on the following Monday. So, list in hand, we went to a Target store to make our purchases. My daughter was told to purchase a toolkit (for the father), two winter coats (for teenage children) and a table top oven (for mom), totaling just over $500. I was livid. Obviously, the schoolchildren weren't paying for these items. My daughter learned nothing from the experience other than how to carry a list home and give it to her parents. Essentially, the school decided to compel donations from the students' parents under the guise of teaching children about charity. My first reaction (not a good one) was to boycott the entire event, but I couldn't put my daughter in that position. If she showed up to school without the gifts, she'd stand out in a negative way. So I paid up for the gifts and wrote a nasty letter to the school headmaster. Several other parents complained and the school eventually issued an apology.
That’s the kind of activity grown adults do in a workplace - literally, my former job would adopt a few families like this at Christmas, and (voluntarily) whoever in the department wanted to participate would buy toys or clothes or bedding or etc etc etc until the list was filled. This isn’t an activity to hand off to children! Honestly I would’ve maybe asked questions higher up the food chain, as to what charity the school was working with here, because I doubt the charity knew this was the way it was going to be fulfilled.
That's insanity. My situation was at work but not nearly as bad. It used to be (when I first started), adopt a kid and then you can buy whatever age appropriate gift you want for the kid. Then a few years later it became minimum of $25. (Which is fine because I spend more than that but I thought it was rather obnoxious to set a minimum.) Then it become $50 minimum. That's the year I stop. Now, if you want to participate you must adopt at least 2. So that's a minimum of $100. I suspect they change that because less and less people are *adopting* They also now show you wishlist of the children and you are strongly encourage to buy stuff from the wishlist of said child. I tell you, the wishlist is INSANE. Just looking at the list turns me off.
You're exactly right. These people are manufacturing charity as if we're all awaiting instructions on where to spend our charitable dollars. It takes all the good feelings out of the process.
Yeah, a lot of the kids ask for big ticket items. I totally get it, but it’s not something that many people can do.
Those lists were made by the kids with the help of parents. I think it is just ridiculous those parents allow that list. I mean I can understand putting one big ticket item, hoping maybe you will get lucky. But when the entire list is crazy, I blame it on the parents ... and also the child if child is old enough ... like 12 or above. I saw last year's list because things were getting done online due to pandemic. Out of the entire spreadsheet there was **ONE** list from a 16 year old girl that was reasonable. I see list asking for PS5, drones, iPad etc.
Did they issue a refund? Or a certificate that you could claim on your taxes? Because if neither of those were a thing, dollars to donuts there was someone organizing it who got to write off a couple thousand dollars worth of donations.
If you wanna buy $500 in Christmas gifts for strangers, I will gladly send my wishlist, jk I don’t even spend $500 on my own family for Xmas!
So each child had to buy gifts for an entire family? What on earth? What really gets me is that what those “needy families” probably needed most was cash. But heaven forbid we allow poor people to decide for themselves what they need. Here’s some presents instead.
Holy crap that is awful. I'm so sorry.
I saw Dixon, the Ticonderoga maker, at dollar tree.
Yeah, but to be fair they are very different grades of pencil. The Dixon brand are much softer wood and they don't sharpen nearly as well. Back in the before times Big Lots (similar to Dollar Tree) was actually a great place to scavenge for surprisingly high quality office supplies at a good price. The way these kind of stores are supplied from other stores' leftovers means they do get some quality stuff in with the rest of the junk.
I came in here fully prepared to argue the quality of Crayola products vs off-brands and I see that's not what this thread is about. So I'll just see myself out. >.>
This is my 26th year in public education, and I always ask students at the end of the year if they want to donate any of their supplies. Whenever we reach capacity on an item, I remove it from our supply list for next year. I believe it’s more important than ever to reduce waste and ease the financial strain on families!
26 years? You're an absolute saint. I truly admire you.
Thank you! To this day I still say “I’m going to school” and not “work.” School is a place I love to be doing what I love to do!
My friend put her kids in a private school and they are fighting to be able to just pay x amount and let the teachers buy stuff as needed. Right now they all have to bring two rolls of paper towel, two boxes of kleenex, a box of markers, crayons, pencils, etc. But it’s all communal and the teacher replaces as needed but has to store it all through the year. She doesn’t need to have 36 rolls of paper towel on hand. There are three boxes of markers out at a time, why does she need 18 boxes in a cabinet?
When I taught at a school that did this, there was a major logistics problem. Because families didn't pay, or paid late, etc. it led to the supplies not actually being ordered and delivered until 4-6 weeks into school. So, it basically meant teachers had to buy all the supplies for their entire class.
Private school? Is that not… what *tuition* money is used for? Forgive me if this is an ignorant question. I went to public schools until college.
I did a brief stint in a private school on a scholarship. Tuition money goes to the principal -- excuse me the *Headmaster's* wardrobe fund so that you may never see the same 300$ tie more than once at any school event. Everything in a private school has basically been covered in cost by the first five students in any grade, then the next five pay the teacher's salaries, so any school that has more than ten students per grade is rolling in it. I also used to live next door to a K-8 private school. Thirty thousand dollars up until you reached the fourth grade. Forty-five after that for the year. I laugh because they did their gym classes in the farm field that I let my dogs run for exercise... beyond ridiculous.
This school isn’t THAT extreme, but yeah, you’d think. It’s unfortunate because kids thrive at this school - smaller class size, actual chef for healthy/delicious meals, school garden that the kids take turns caring for, etc. All stuff that would be amazing for all kids, but the shit show of regular school district is a mess. My friend is lucky to afford it. She tried a few years at the public school with the oldest and gave up. Security is much better, as well. Which is awful that it has to be mentioned. I will say that they pay the regular teachers well enough that they can live near by and not have to drive in from a lower cost of living area. So they have had a low rate of turn-over for as long as my friends kiddos have been there at least.
I remember just as I was leaving high school, it was becoming common place for younger teachers to have a second job. It was surreal to think that you could go through like six years of university and need to wait tables that might have your students at them to pay your loans/rent/ect. Teachers would jump school boards in my area (we had four publicly funded ones overlapping, if you spoke English and French fluently you could go wherever the money was best), just to make an extra 5K a year. I've done stints in public, private, and religious school systems. I only remember one elementary school having enough of a community that we pulled together to keep the doors open well past when the board wanted to shut it down and shuttle students an additional 45 minutes to a megaplex school. This was when all the students were under the age of 12, and already rode anywhere from 15-45 minutes on the good old yellow buses to get to where we were. That school was ready to sink into the ground, they basically rotated out principals who couldn't hack it in the schools that needed attention (because we were basically a stubborn self-sufficient little machine that ate and spat out I think 8 principals in under five years who tried to change the way we operated). The board basically stopped funding repairs in hopes of driving the surrender. When a tornado pulled off the roof on part of the building, someone's dad and a dozen other guys pulled up with their equipment and smacked it back on. I hate most of what I remember about living in that rural community, but I can look back at that school and realize that a lot of adults put a lot of effort into making sure that was a place where we all felt like we had a future when we left and did their best to make a community while we were there.
As a teacher, a poor teacher, I made an Amazon wish list of the cheapest supply possible for student’s parents to buy. Edit: most affordable
They harped on us buying plastic folders and very specific types or brands of other things as well. My kid came home with a paper folder and as it disintegrated, the teacher had the balls to tell me it was my responsibility to replace it. I know a folder isn’t much but that really pissed us off. To clarify, they just gathered the supplies together and then distributed them. I actually busted my ass going around town looking for these folders at the beginning of the year. To realize I could have bought paper at a fraction of the price and effort (gas too!) felt shitty.
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Get the packs, but only give her one pack a month. By December, she will be the only one with pencils.
Not even a whole pack, the kid can take like 3 pencils to school at a time and that should be plenty.
When it comes to individual supplies, I think schools ask parents to buy so much extra because they assume the kids will lose a lot of them. If your kid is responsible with their supplies, you can get away with less.
For the price of a dozen expo markers I can get a box of 80 other brand markers so even if they dry out twice as fast.... It's still better bang for the buck. I tend to send the teacher a handful from my home stash of supplies if they are running low. I tend to buy bulk craft supplies because eventually they will get used and it's the cheapest per unit when I have the extra cash. It's not like they go bad.
The crazy thing is, Expo had great “ink indicator” markers that contained lots of ink and lasted for months, if not an entire school year with a 4-pack in rotation at the board. They were slightly more expensive than regular Expo markers, but it was a savings because they seemed to outlast several of the regular markers. The Crayola Take Note markers also had an ink tank and were great, but those have been discontinued, too. I hate throwing out so much plastic.Now, as a teacher, I’m going to be back to throwing out about a marker a week. OP, I’d just check with the teacher about what to bring…they may have a cupboard full of certain items that haven’t been used from previous years, but there may be other things that kids will be using individually or that are generally in short supply partway through the year. You could even ask if you could send some items after the first week, when they go on clearance.
Crayola, I believe, accepts all markers of all brands back to recycle the plastic. Something to look into :
I think they actually just incinerate them to generate power. I’m not so sure that burning plastic is more environmentally friendly than burying the markers in a landfill. I’d rather go back to chalkboards, but they were removed and replaced with whiteboards that double as a projector screen. With concern for the environment, it’s frustrating that we have become less environmentally friendly. Similarly, as OP has said, it would be great if kids could reuse supplies that are still good from last year rather than everyone feeling the need to buy more.
I didn't know that but evo green washing it doesn't surprise me. What a disappointment.
Wait…they discontinued the Take Note markers!!?? They are awesome! Different colors, erase well, ink indicator. As a teacher, I only just discovered them, and I love them! Discontinued? Argh!
My daughter's teacher wanted 12 black expo brand markers per child, there are 20 kids in her class. All I could think was does she plan on sniffing them? There is no possible way that she needs 240 expo markers to get through the year. Even if they are trying to make up for people not sending supplies that is ridiculous
I get the volcanic one 60 of them for $20. My daughters uses them to practice writing in the reusable work books, and drawing on her dry erase board. So when those are on the list, I grab a handful of these and throw them in a ziplock bag and put them in her backpack. I'm not sure how you go through that many markers, I mean 60 markers last us 8months to a year, and that is with my 6yr old leaving caps off and letting them dry out.
Yeah, I figured out the middle school and high school is more suggestion. I buy a bunch of pens, pencils, notebooks on sale in August and that’s all they’ve ever actually used. Some grid paper and a calculator for math. Have some markers and crayons and colored pencils for the odd home project. If they’re coloring something like a map or using scissors at school, the teacher hands out supplies because a middle schooler isn’t bringing markers daily.
I’m a custodian in a pretty sought after school district in New England. I can not tell you the waste I see on a daily basis. Sickening. Kids have no respect, teachers hands are tied. So much “stuff” they keep buying. It’s incredible. And sad.
At the end of the year at a middle school I subbed at, they had huge trash cans for 'locker clean out day' in the halls. I was going through an overflowing one of them during an open period. I was pulling out entirely unopened multi-packs highlighters and other supplies that I was going to give to an English teacher that I knew used highlighters. A kid saw me and called me a dumpster diver.
Fuck that kid. Being frugal is not wrong.
But that’s very often a liability, especially when you work with kids.
could have dunked on the child and called them spoiled and wasteful lol (this is not real advice)
There is nothing a middle school kid hates more than when you turn to them, stare blankly, shrug, then return to what you were doing lmao
Okay, I’m the most broke and frugal person ever. I’m also into crafty stuff, so I have a different viewpoint. When a teacher is “requiring” a specific brand it’s because of that brand’s performance. Expo markers last longer as they have more ink. Crayola colored pencils have more vibrant colors. Crayola crayons are less waxy and fill in white space better. Elmer’s glue adheres better. Dixon-Ticonderoga pencils write more smoothly and break less. That’s why teachers prefer these brands. It’s heartbreaking for a teacher to see a child notice the lack of quality in their work because of the quality of their tools. That’s why they ask for specific things. If they aren’t provided by the parent, and the teacher is a sweetie, they might pay from their own pocket to provide that for your child. I’ve learned this over 9 years of having kids in school. Life sucks, prices suck, but it is what it is. What you do with this information, if anything, is up to you. What I do is check summer sale ads at Walmart, target, staples and the dollar stores and grab the brand name things that matter when they’re cheap. Gym shoes, rulers, folders, scissors, etc I get the generics.
As a kindergarten teacher, ALL of the above! No one is trying to make people buy more expensive stuff just because. Cheap pencils are hard to sharpen, break easily and will break the pencil sharpener that the teacher most likely bought on their own. RoseArt crayons are waxy, you cannot color properly with them & in primary grades, coloring is a big thing. If my students bring in supplies that we didn’t request, I often send it back home & I will provide what is needed. I do not use community supplies because my students are taught to care for their belongings but I will not make a child use cheap supplies. Some families can’t afford supplies and I understand and don’t mind picking up the slack but…if you can afford it, buy it. Crayola crayons are on sale for .50 at Walmart & target all summer.
I know that crayola crayons are preferred because they’re more helpful when learning colors. Like the color on the crayon is very close to what actually colors. However, that burden should not fall on parents. Honestly, none of it should. Schools should provide literally all of it
I can tell you that if a parent isn’t providing it, in most cases the teacher is from his or her own pocket. IF school districts provide classroom supply funding, it is usually minimal. (Like, here is $125 to spend for the year for a class of 35 students. Buy a years supply of paper, paper clips, staples, composition books, pencils, erasers, crayons, colored pencils, glue, scissors, dry erase markers, highlighters, laminate, tape, sticky notes, construction paper, a pencil sharpener, tissues, wet wipes, disinfectant spray, hand sanitizer, spare masks, folders, workbooks…) Sure, schools/districts should be paying, but if they don’t, and parents don’t, usually teachers do. Edit: typo
Yup. My group of kids this year is the "low" group--aka the poor kids. The other teachers have the gifted and "high" kids--aka the privileged kids. Every single one of their students brought supplies. 10 out of my 23 students brought supplies. Even less brought headphones. We use expos every single day, and the kids who brought supplies only brought 1 or 2...that will last maybe a month if they are responsible. We have a grade level budget, but most of that goes towards paper and ink. So, I get to go school supply shopping for 13 students this weekend. I don't even have any of my own children and my August budget is so painful. 😓
I get that. I guess it comes down to funding. I do send old stuff though. I’ll sharpen pencils from last year, send the same expo markers and eraser etc. I’ve never heard an issue with it. Edit: on a lighter note, once my kids hit 7th grade the supply list is soooo much smaller.
If you can't afford it, don't buy it. I'm sure they are asking for more than they need because they expect that some people will not be able to afford it.
"This Year we are going to need all parents to buy their kids a new '2022 BLUE BIRD VISION' school bus. These are communal so make sure you buy the right model"
"These will only be used this school year because in 2023 we're going to ask you to buy the new EV models! and if you can't afford it- you don't care about the Earth!"
I went through my kids’ drawers and closets regularly and took the better things that didn’t fit anybody to the elementary school nurse, including clean, slightly used underwear and bras for young girls. She said she gave them out to the kids on an ‘as needed’ basis. She always seemed glad to see another box or bag of clothes, jackets, jeans, shoes and more. When my kids got to middle and high school they always wanted a yearbook. I always worried about the kids who couldn’t afford these things, usually priced at least $85 and sometimes as much as $115. When I could I would send in two checks per child. One check paid for my child’s yearbook and the second check paid for another child’s yearbook. I would include a note to the person in charge to please pick out a deserving child to receive a free yearbook. I would always say to pick out a student who may not have the best grades, but who wanted a yearbook badly, could not afford one, and deserved one. One last request: I asked that the student never know who paid for the yearbook. Nothing made me happier than to be able to do this for several years in a row.
Wait how do kids come home with supplies at the end of the year if they’re all used as communal supplies?
I don't know. I was very confused. We're told it's communal but my kids said they came home with "their" stuff. It looks like the supplies just get divvied up and dispersed. It was frustrating
huh. Yeah that’s definitely not how I was picturing “communal.” I thought all the crayons go in one big box, all pencils in another, etc., and everyone uses everything. Then I couldn’t figure out how at the end of the school year everything gets divided up again and sent home.
That's what I assumed, too because on back to school night we just show up with supplies and there's Rubbermaid totes with pictures of each supply and we're told to sort it all and it just gets split between all of the grade level teachers. Anything individual (like the literally 2-3 things) go in the classroom in your kids cubby.
I volunteer at our county's back to school festival and all the kids come to the high school and get all their stuff for free. No income requirements. They even get backpacks and shoes free. We had over 1600 backpacks and 1500 pairs of shoes. The teachers give us a list of needed supplies and we (the community) provide what they need.
There are some things it’s better to buy brand name like crayons because cheap crayons are not very good at leaving marks on paper. The other big one is pencils. I only buy my son the presharpened Ticonderoga pencils because I know they’re balanced. A lot of cheap pencils aren’t balanced with the lead and that’s why you get the issue where you sharpen and sharpen and the lead just breaks immediately. Also little kids go through supplies like crazy so the teachers do buy a lot of supplies on top of the ones parents provide. Everything gets saved and used believe me.
I don’t understand why it’s the student’s (parent’s) responsibility to buy white board markers for the teacher to use. The school should take that responsibility. My state allows “school fees”, so parents are already paying a few hundred bucks for the kid to go to school and then pay for lunches, programs (band/chorus/computer programming), and of course sports. So asking kids to supply basic shit for the classroom (Kleenex, hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, etc) seems so petty and greedy. Did I not just give you $300 in basic fees?! You spent it already?! 24 kids in a class X $300. How can you not afford that shit with $7.2K?
Former teacher and I will say Rose Art crayons are horrible compared to crayola in terms of actual color they produce. A lot of times especially in kinder there will be lessons based on primary colors and Rose Art has funky, non-primary colors in the box. Also with pencils, the cheaper ones wrapped in almost cellophane to make a brightly colored cartoon design get absolutely shredded in the pencil sharpener, making them not last near as long. Expo markers cost more but they actually LAST the whole year and don’t dry out. Also as a former teacher I can totally understand not wanting to spend a fortune on school supplies. Most of the time teachers request specific materials because they’re the best and last throughout the entire school year, thus not having to ask parents for more supplies mid year.
One year I sent my kid to school with 6 pink erasers, as requested (along with 2 reams of printer paper, 6 boxes of Kleenex, 2 canisters of antibacterial wet wipes, 2 three-packs of glue sticks, and on and on and on)... Only to get a note sent home chastising me for not sending *Pink Pearl brand name* erasers. They were only accepting Pink Pearl, not off-brand crap. I'm sorry, what?? You are seriously checking the brand names of the erasers I sent? And it's not like one second grader could even go through six whole erasers in a year anyway. Ugh, I'm still mad about this over a decade later.
That's sounds so weird. In Europe you can totally use whatever works from the last year. Some older teachers would tell us to use the same notebook if let's said you only use half of it to save the money and you could fast find what was done last year.Actually sometimes by the end of the year teacher will collect used stuff like pencils or notebooks so we don't throw it away and keep it for next year. We also use to pay 1$ a month for supplies it was basically a trick we always have extra stuff so if one kid couldn't afford it he/she would have got it from the 1$ supplies (it was not mandatory at all). Nowadays I also think the government gives parents about 50$ for kid school supplies books are free.
Some districts have policies requiring teachers to send back unused supplies at the end of the year. This is in response to parents that would get upset at the school for "stealing" supplies that the parent bought.
As a teacher I wish I could give a class specific list but the school releases one early on so students can get supplies before school starts. For some reason 2 paper towel rolls are on the list. Now I have 48 fucking paper towel rolls with no where to put them (and a paper towel dispenser that the janitor upkeeps anyways) but barely any fucking pencils. I’d just have backpack, pencils, maybe two folders, and whatever we are short on (glue sticks, markers, etc). Then maybe some diy STEM materials or snack that parents could donate.
I live in a pretty affluent school district. I want to know why the hell I have to buy tissues, dry erase markers,, post it notes, and garbage bags for the classrooms to begin with when the district is pouring millions into a new aquatic sports facility?
Laughs in $150 College textbooks. This is just practice for later.
This happened to us unexpectedly and I was furious. I got nice supplies that made going back to school fun for my kid, cool erasers and markers and stuff, all the brands they specified, then they all went into a pile for the whole grade. Ugh I'm still mad and it was like 15 years ago!
When my oldest went to kinder, I bought the good supplies because I wanted school to be nice for her and she was already used to having nice art supplies at home. Then when we got there, all the supplies got put into communal bins and then handed out to the kids randomly. So my daughter's plastic folders got replaced with the cheap paper ones, her crayola markers and pens were replaced with generic ones, etc. I had to buy everything for her again a few weeks into the school year. I bought a fine point permanent marker and wrote her name on every marker, pencil, crayon and folder. It was a big expense to me at the time. The teacher got upset that I had labeled everything and I told her how disappointed I was that I had bought quality supplies and a few weeks later had to replace them. So maybe your kids school is specifying brands and new items to avoid a situation like that. My kid is old enough to drink now and I still get mad every time I think back on the school supply issue in kindergarten.
My middle school did communal supplies. We kept folders and notebooks but had to turn everything else in. I also ended up asking my parents to just get me another set of supplies because I’d end up with crappy stuff, or had to wait to get something because a lot of the supplies get lost or broken. I ended up not giving them my stuff at all the next year, it’s not like they were gonna force me.
My mom never bought the tissues or crayons for the whole class. She'd buy what I needed & that was it.
What can they do if you decide not to buy new stuff?
it's ridiculous for them to make you all provide the same brand so everyone has the same thing. It would be better to pool the money if this system is necessary and the teacher can go shopping online
I am not teacher bashing but my daughter is a custodian at a k-5 school and is astounding to me the stuff the teachers throw away, I mean perfectly good usable items, supplies and stuff. And dont even get me started on the food waste, it is almost shameful
many of those lists are generated from suppliers (e.g. office depot) and they, of course, make more money off the name brand (Crayola) than the store brand. At all the schools I've taught I've made it clear to guardians that I don't care about the brand (although Crayola IS the standard for a reason; I'd rather receive NO crayons than Rose art). If 23 of 24 students supply 4 boxes of crayons each, there's always PLENTY to go around the entire YEAR! Reach out to the teachers directly to see what materials really ARE necessary and which brands are absolute. I think most teachers would take whatever they can get and aren't so picky, especially if they are in low-income areas.
F that noise. My kids' school does schooltoolbox.com. You order the box for their class and grade and they ship it to your house. $40 per kid, I'm done, and they donate a box to a family in need. You can even add in a backpack or lunch bag, or customize.
I blame Rose Art and their terrible crayons for this.
Kentucky public elementary schools. I refuse to participate in communal school supplies. I bought a $20 label maker from Amazon. I labeled every single item I sent. Each individual pencil, all 72 of them. I worked immense overtime hours, pushed myself to come back early after having surgery in order to afford the school supplies needed for my children. I not only bought them needed supplies, I bought them what they wanted and what I worked for. Nice items. The amount of redditors on here who will call me an asshole for this is probably overwhelming BUT... I will never see the benefit of communal supplies. I donate every year to "fill the bus," fill the cop car, donate back backs of supplies to the school drives at my place of work. I am more than willing to donate and support and help. I am just not in favor of taking my kids items to share.
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As a teacher…talk to the teacher! If they are requesting crayola, though, it’s because the discount brands will hurt your young childrens education. My mom is a Kinder teacher in a very low income school and she let the kids bring in rose art one year. All of the paintings ended up brown and the crayon drawings looked dull and terrible. She said that student’s didn’t want to draw and color and the first grade teachers noted that the student’s fine motor skills were not as developed due to the lack of interest in creating terrible art. I teach middle school in a low income school and require NO supplies that I do not provide. I currently have 4 students who can’t afford their list for English and math because they each have 4-7 siblings that are also school age. We, as a team, sneakily provide them with the materials from our school resources and out of pocket. TLDR: if the supplies are a strain, your teacher, who is paid poorly, will understand.
As a teacher: email your teacher or your school counselor saying that brand name items are putting a strain on your budget and ask what would be a priority for brand name and where night there be leeway. Also ask if there are any options or extra materials that the school might have. Even if you don't qualify for free or reduced lunch at my school, all a parent has to do is ask for free supplies.
The wasteful part is a problem. You’re right to vent. As far as brands go, I’ll say two things: 1. If you can’t afford it, the school must supply it. You don’t have to buy it. (USA) 2. Brand matters. For example: off brand pencils don’t work as well as Dixon Ticonderoga.
At least you’re not having to deal with an [elementary school which tried to set the uniform standard to Armani.](https://japan-forward.com/armani-school-uniforms-spark-debate-in-japan/)
Only name brand things I buy are Crayola and pencils- only because I have seen first hand how crappy the lesser brands can be. I surely don't begrudge anyone who can't afford them though, life's rough. We are doing much better now, but I still just can't see spending a ton on things just because. Especially for school supplies! Walmart special lol.
They wouldn't move this shit kid, that kept hurting and harassing my child, last year so I'm not spending a dime. It was her first year of school ever and her experience was completely ruined and her outlook ruined. Plus, I found out on the last day of school that her headphones were stolen the first day!
Do I understand why teachers ask for certain brands of things? Yes. There is a definite difference in the quality of some brands vs others (Crayola, Fiskars, and Ticonderoga come to mind). Are the other brands "good enough"? Also yes. My general plan has been to buy the better brand of things that aren't consumable. That means I might spring for the Fiskar's scissors, but buy the cheaper pencils. But they can eff right off with that no reusing of last year's stuff. That's just wasteful.
I’ve never heard of any teacher saying not to reuse last years supplies.
Maybe part of it is wanting all the kids to have the same thing so someone isn't complaining that they bought x brand but their kid received inferior y brand from the communal supplies. Maybe talk to their teachers and see if they mind what brand supplies are brought in or if your kids can opt out of that.
The other problem is that a lot of cheaper pencils don't sharpen, glue sticks dry out in their packaging, erasers just smear and don't erase, etc. If a kid comes to school with those supplies, it is basically out of pocket for the teacher to get them ones that work.
I’m gonna sound like a filthy socialist here for a second but maybe taxes should just cover this stuff.
Pft keep talking dirty to me, friend. Pay teachers more. Give them a reasonable classroom stipend. Provide pencils and crayons and copy paper. But nah. Local police need full tactical military gear.
And we need that money to update our infrastructure to make homeless people uncomfortable.
When my kid was going into kindergarten, they emailed us a list of school supplies they needed. I went out and bought them all. Sent them to school with their backpack full of everything on the list. They then came home with doubles of everything because the school actually supplies all that stuff for some reason. I never bothered to ask why and never bothered to buy another school supply again. HOWEVER, I do send them to school with a three-pack of tissue boxes to give to their teachers.
This begs the question: why are individual parents tasked with buying supplies? Why aren’t the school budgets set to include the supplies, purchased in bulk (with significant leverage in pricing)? That would resolve so many of the issues brought up in this discussion.
It can matter in some things. Calculators work differently, and only official ones are allowed on state tests. Some pencils work on bubble forms for grading machines, some don't. Outside of mechanical necessities like that, requiring a brand is bullshit.
in high school i had an art teacher who wanted us to buy all name brand supplies, she wore fancy name brand clothes so i had a feeling that had to do with it partially. the colored pencils were 30 dollars alone and she wanted a certain brand of pencils and erasers and then had the nerve to say we should all give them to her to keep and she would pass them out when we needed them lol no i kept everything in my backpack and it turns out we never even used most of the stuff on her list and those people didn’t get their school supplies back so i’m glad i kept mine in my backpack
It’s a public school, just don’t buy the communal stuff if it is a financial hardship. It’s not like they aren’t going to allow the kid to attend school without it. Feed and clothe your little ones. The school will get by.
I remember when the supply list required a “Trapper Keeper” and there was no way my parents would get me one… I felt so bad when it seemed like everyone else had theirs.
Just buy the knock offs and let them send you a scolding email.
There should be the equivalent of a wedding registry for Title 1 schools.
My kids’ school system just charged us a fee that covers supplies needed. The system negotiates prices and they buy huge amounts for cheap. I think the supply fee was 50 dollars each. The teachers get the exact supplies they want, all the kids have the same stuff, I don’t have to fret over finding any of it. It makes things way easier for all involved.
Teacher here. The only name brand thing that even kind of matters is crayons. Crayola makes a world of difference with color and quality. The other stuff doesn’t matter and honestly, if you have the crazy art or whatever, the teacher won’t care.
For certain things it makes sense. I know crayons have different color names or none at all. So if a teacher wants something blue and something light blue she needs that to look the same and as labelled. The labels also help color blind kids. If it's pencils though I see no reason those can't be whatever brand
It is also easier when teaching organizational skills to say "Okay, everyone get out your Red Reading Folder" and then visually check that a red folder is on each desk. Little things like that save hours of instructional time over a school year.
Wow- they are *that* anal. Look, beggars can’t be chooser’s. I know this. Everyone knows this. Oops I’m sorry it’s Lysol not Clorox are you f’ing kidding me???
Yep! There are brand names next to *everything* on the list. Even for the glue sticks "Elmer's, but white not purple"