Mom Takes On High Cost Of School Supplies

could you please tell me where on the website you found the information about the calculators. thank you

Can't some of the money from the lottery (which is supposed to be used for schools) be used to supply expensive items such as calculators to students?

I do agree kinda,
I have gone to wal-mart and glue sticks 20cents, crayons 25cents, paper 4 for $1.00 and folders 10 for $1.00 add a few 10 for a dollar binders with paper all different colors and what more do you want?? I start early in the summer collecting what I think the kids need, I also got color pencils for 88 cents and some markers for less than a dollar, even go to the dollar tree.. come on folks, I think my mother spent more than that,,,!!!

Can't some of the lottery money(which is supposed to be used for schools) be used to help out students with expensive items such as calculators?

Wouldn't it make sense to have the school purchase all required notebooks, paper, supplies etc. And when a a student loses, misplaces, etc the parent would repurchase from the school. When I was in school we bought pens, etc from a little "store" in the school run by students. Do schools still do this?
Keep up the great communication and legwork!

i think the issue is that the requirements from teachers are so specific. i.e. blue/black eraseable pens (which are more expensive) a 2" BLUE binder, a 5 subject yellow notebook, etc. I have 4 kids - throw in the school bags and lunch kits and wow - it's expensive. I feel bad for other parent who have a hard time buying even just school clothes.
Great idea about the lottery.... where does that money go exactly???

Give.Me.A.Break

Yeah, but when you have a few kids, plus the teachers start requiring more than a few $0.25 packs of crayons is when the bill goes up and up..

Have you seen the price of a few hard-cover three ring binders? More than 10/$1

Plus add on back packs, calculators, fancy markers, Dry Erase (which I think s bogus, this shoud be a supply the school provides !!) I didnt have to buy my own chalk back when I was in school; Post-It notes, plus all of the misc extras and you have quite large bill.

I would tell a lot of parents out there to take a look through what the kids bring home in June and see what is salvagable and put it away and mark it off of all of those convienently long lists the teachers send home and you can be a few $$ and steps ahead of the game.

What ever happened to the simple pens, pencils, loose leaf or 1 subject notebooks, and a few folders? Now we need plastic ones with binders, or a special kind of trapper keeper, or a certain color.

My msg to teachers - take your specialized lists and blow them up your skirts !

I completely agree. My son will be a junior this year. He has 7 basic classes and they are requiring 9 - 3 ring binders. Two of the classes are requiring two binders each. And one inch isn't good enough, no they are requesting 1 1/2 or 2 inch binders. Here is the odd thing, two inch binders will not fit at all in their lockers. They are not deep enough nor wide enough to fit either way. Between my sister and I we have four kids. They need a total of 22 binders. Are you serious???

I am going to comment on behalf of the educators in our community. Students are required to have these supplies in order for learning to take place. If districts were to provide supplies to the students, it would be necessary to increase taxes and people would have something else to complain about. I am also a parent, and my children do need $100 calculators along with many other supplies. I purchase these supplies because I know they will benefit my child's education.

Ok... Most of these people that are complaining about a couple 100 bucks for a year's worth of school supplies are not paying for school tutition (other than in tax dollars). If you sent you kids to Catholic School you wouldn't have to buy the "cool" or "what's in" supplies you would buy the supplies at cheap places like Dollar General because it doesn't matter the brand names of the stuff. Or just wait for the stuff to be on sale! You don't go to Target just on any random day to purchase everything a week before school starts. You know that your kid will need tissues every year...hello Aldi's 89 cents for a big box! They will need crayons so when they are on sale 4 weeks ago - buy them then! No one said the kids need the $95 bookbag to throw around - the $20 one is just as good!

Stop trying to get everything for free, On top of just school supplies, you could have a bill of $7,000 (plus) for high school tuition per year, a uniform, and all the add ons. But most people just pay a $1,000 for all of your kids to go to school no matter the number (and if you live in the city of Buffalo its even less). So what if you spend $100 on supplies for a teacher that has to deal with your rotten kids on the daily basis...if they want Blue Binders - give them blue binders. Its the cost of having kids! If you don't want to spend money on your kids don't have any!

I agree. My daughter, for 4th grade, needs a zipper binder, $10 at walmart, and 10 plastic folders. Almost another $10. This is too ridiculous.

teacher wrote:

I am going to comment on behalf of the educators in our community. Students are required to have these supplies in order for learning to take place. If districts were to provide supplies to the students, it would be necessary to increase taxes and people would have something else to complain about. I am also a parent, and my children do need $100 calculators along with many other supplies. I purchase these supplies because I know they will benefit my child's education.

ok come on... raise taxes, please i live on the cheek/depew border and pay $9000.00 in taxes. You can take 100 dollars of that and allow the district to buy some supplies,,, and what difference does it make if u have a 2" binder or 1.5", it helps ya learn, ok i dont buy it... any notebook or binder will work just fine. I understand the complaining issue, however every teacher "prefers" a different binder, why does it matter, all i ever used was a 5 subject notebook and folders. Is school different now for some reason???

fred wrote:

I do agree kinda,
I have gone to wal-mart and glue sticks 20cents, crayons 25cents, paper 4 for $1.00 and folders 10 for $1.00 add a few 10 for a dollar binders with paper all different colors and what more do you want?? I start early in the summer collecting what I think the kids need, I also got color pencils for 88 cents and some markers for less than a dollar, even go to the dollar tree.. come on folks, I think my mother spent more than that,,,!!!

You are right the supplies can be gotten dirt cheap but, as has been mentioned after you, we have teachers with obsessive compulsive disorder and have to have certain items that can be 2 to 3 times more expensive. I use to say to my kids if that is what the teacher wants you to have then tell her/him to buy it for you and if she/he has a problem with that tell her/him to give me a call. I never got a call. these teachers are paid by the taxpayers, that makes the taxpayer their boss so who are they to tell the parent they have to buy the child a more expensive item when a lesser expensive one will do just fine.

I start buying school supplies when i get the list at the end of the year. If you buy 1 or 2 things at a time it doesn't seem so bad.We have had all of our stuff for a couple of weeks.

Marie wrote:

Ok... Most of these people that are complaining about a couple 100 bucks for a year's worth of school supplies are not paying for school tutition (other than in tax dollars). If you sent you kids to Catholic School you wouldn't have to buy the "cool" or "what's in" supplies you would buy the supplies at cheap places like Dollar General because it doesn't matter the brand names of the stuff. Or just wait for the stuff to be on sale! You don't go to Target just on any random day to purchase everything a week before school starts. You know that your kid will need tissues every year...hello Aldi's 89 cents for a big box! They will need crayons so when they are on sale 4 weeks ago - buy them then! No one said the kids need the $95 bookbag to throw around - the $20 one is just as good!
Stop trying to get everything for free, On top of just school supplies, you could have a bill of $7,000 (plus) for high school tuition per year, a uniform, and all the add ons. But most people just pay a $1,000 for all of your kids to go to school no matter the number (and if you live in the city of Buffalo its even less). So what if you spend $100 on supplies for a teacher that has to deal with your rotten kids on the daily basis...if they want Blue Binders - give them blue binders. Its the cost of having kids! If you don't want to spend money on your kids don't have any!

I abosolutely agree with you. School supplies can be purchased at the dollar store and are just as good as supplies purchased at target. You can also make purchases on sale with a little bit of preparation. Peoples stop complaining. It is all part of being a parent and being responsible for your kids education. Stop whining and start being more prepared and frugal.

teacher wrote:

I am going to comment on behalf of the educators in our community. Students are required to have these supplies in order for learning to take place. If districts were to provide supplies to the students, it would be necessary to increase taxes and people would have something else to complain about. I am also a parent, and my children do need $100 calculators along with many other supplies. I purchase these supplies because I know they will benefit my child's education.

Here is one of the OCD teachers. A $100 calculator is way out of line. I managed to get through school learning to figure math in my head and went on to be a college graduate. Since using ones intelligence is no longer required to learn math and a calculator is a must have they can be bought for $10 and under. Of course it won't be a Texas Instrument.

teacher wrote:

I am going to comment on behalf of the educators in our community. Students are required to have these supplies in order for learning to take place. If districts were to provide supplies to the students, it would be necessary to increase taxes and people would have something else to complain about. I am also a parent, and my children do need $100 calculators along with many other supplies. I purchase these supplies because I know they will benefit my child's education.

pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ease!!!!!!!!!! a $100 calculator?????? you are kidding right?????????? Im glad it isnt a hardship for you to have to purchase that.

Well I dont have a problem buying my kids there school supplies..such as crayons, pens, pencils,erasers,paper and so on. I do have a problem buying the things on the list this year such as.. paper towels,hand soap, tissues and flushable wipes. I do not feel that is OUR responsibilty to purchase those items. I use to work at a public school as a cleaner and it was the school's responsibility to supply those things.
What are these schools thinking us parents are made of??

Heaven forbid you gotta spend a couple bucks on your kids education. Here's an idea, get rid of the 6 cellphones in your house along with the Highspeed internet and 1200 cable tv stations you have and reprioritize your responsibilities! If you think it takes a village to raise your kids MOVE TO ANOTHER VILLAGE!!!!