School Supplies

[Crankin]

When I was teaching, we developed our team lists for supplies carefully, but basically, it included notebooks, folders, writing implements, colored pencils. The school had lined paper, pencils, some pens, paper for the printer in my room. Many kids had their own mini staplers, sticky notes, other art type stuff for projects. I had lots of this kind of stuff, too, that was supplied by the school. Most of the issues I had were when I was doing a "hands on" part of a writing unit, where kids often did presentations. Some would need to buy a heavy 3 sided poster board or other tool such as that (we had the regular thin type posters at school) and parents would just not take their kids to buy that. If I saw their was a financial issue (easy when you work with the same group for 2 years), I bought it for them, but often times they repaid me by doing some work for me (cleaning, arranging stuff in the room).
I had a huge classroom library for independent reading, which was a requirement. Sometimes, though, kids had their own books, which were bought or from the library. This was right before Kindles, etc. I also had a few claculators, a jar of scissors, rulers, erasers, crayons, and markers in my room.

[Veronica]

No one expects me to spend money on my classroom. However, many of my students do not have the things they need to function in the class. We use a lot of Post Its and the students do a lot of answering on small white boards, so they need EXPO markers, plus pencils, erasers, colorized pencils, scissors and rulers.

I have a token economy in my room and I allow students to "buy" some of those supplies from me. I either purchase them myself or the district supplies some things.

I think CA has moved to a policy of we can only ask for donations. We can't require parents to outfit their kids with basic supplies even. Most of my kids started off the year with what they needed, supplied by their parents but I did end up getting supplies for 3 or 4. We're a third of the way into the school year and the kids are running low on things.

Veronica

[Aromig]

Our school list (and we don't balk at it) includes things like expo markers, binders, postits, etc. It bothers me when the list says "Crayola Bold markers 8 count" (rather than the generic) or "3 ounce glue stick" (which are hard to find but I'd be happy to buy 10 little ones) but I trust the list is that way for a reason. We try to buy extras of everything and send them in because I presume the teacher will find use for it and an extra $10 in school supplies isn't hard for us while we're already buying them.

We're also expected to buy 3 or 4 boxes of tissues and 3 rolls of paper towels as well as hand sanitizer. We're told these are for general classroom use. I don't mind that either since I know its for the benefit of my kid and the alternative would probably be the teacher spending their own money.

This year was the first year that the markers, pencils, etc. were marked as "for general use" and the folders and bookbags were the only thing child specific. I presume that's because not all kids could afford supplies so the school is apportioning things amongst the kids.

[Veronica]

General supplies for the class was another thing. The tissues I can get from the district are HORRIBLE. They are like sand paper on the nose and they won't supply hand sanitizer.

I bet the teacher specifies because they have found the generics aren't as good. I know if someone asks me what kind of pencils to get, I'll say "Ticonderoga, preferably the pre-sharpened ones."

Veronica