wat
I graduated from a large high school just a couple of years ago and I’ve never heard of this. A box of tissue? Huh?
Yeah I’m a public school teacher of 9 years, five of those high school and the other 4 middle school; three different districts, three cities. I’ve never heard of giving out points for bringing in school supplies or buying school related gear. I find it bizarre that this is happening in any public school. There would be a serious shit storm in my area if this went on. Where are you guys teaching? I’m dumbfounded.
Well, he said a Christian school…but he didn’t specify Catholic or Protestant…:rolleyes:
Back when I was in school, waaaaay back in the Dark Ages, the teachers would hand out lists at the start of each school year. We’d have to bring in a box (or several boxes) of tissues, plus we had to have notebooks in various colors, and we had to have paper and pencils and pens and crayons and…you get the picture. Nowadays, at the start of every school year, I see lists posted at Target and office supply stores, which have the name of the local schools, the grade, and the supplies required, so apparently the school system is still requiring the students to bring in supplies. This used to horrify my father, a staunch Republican from Massachusetts, who said that it would make more sense for the schools to buy the notebook paper and folders and whatever in bulk, and hand them out to the kids as needed. My jaw dropped when I first heard him say this. He’s always been in favor of less government.
Back in my school going days, we also had to pay various fees, which enraged both my father and my maternal grandfather (my father’s father was still in Massachusetts). For instance, in junior high and high school, we had to bring two combination locks, one for our regular locker and one for our gym lockers, AND we had to pay a locker fee. I’m not sure what a locker fee was supposed to be for, other than enraging the adult males of school age kids.
That’s pretty much how it is now, and almost every kid brings in the supplies at the beginning of school. Only the most destitute and hopeless cases won’t bother with this. There is a local charity that will supply for those kids, and a fund in the district budget to cover what the charity can’t. There are still extra fees for certain x-curric activities, and again the school will quietly pick up the tab for any student who clearly can’t afford to pay. We also have a “clothing store” at our district office that only carries clothes that are in dress code. The clothes are donated by local stores and individuals and sold at extremely low prices for the families that have trouble coming up with funds for clothes. Often they just give the clothes to student.
This system works out fine. Parents need to pick up the tab for a certain part of their child’s education if they can. The really poor families can be provided for. I just can’t believe that there are districts that give out points for bringing supplies or paying fees. This is so clearly unfair to the economically disadvantaged that I find it unbelievable. Life is unfair for the poor, that is just the way that it is. And I don’t believe that it is the school’s job to try and even the playing field in every aspect of life. But grades and academic performance are one area where we can easily play fair, and selling good grades is just unethical.