My Thirteenth Year

A record of misadventures in the thirteenth year of teaching
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NOVEMBER 3, 2009 9:43PM

How much can we do with $100?

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Today, we talked about tape in class.  We use tape (yes, the sticky kind) quite a bit.  We have notebooks that we write in and add information by taping it in.  If the tape is left on the desks, it is soon gone.  Ten year olds find quite a bit of things to do with tape.  Most frequently, it becomes a goatee of sorts, or tapes fingertips together.  For this reason, the tape stays off the desks.  Even then, it still gets used for all sorts of non-academic pursuits (can you say tape goatee?) and this class in particular has used quite a bit of tape.  This is a problem.  

 

10 rolls of tape cost $20 to order with our preferred customer account at the supply store. I showed my class the 10 rolls of tape I received today and explained to them how this will impact them.  My classroom has a $100 supplies budget for the school year.  Not just for tape, but for all the supplies we will need.  This is for pencils, whiteboard pens, notebook paper, graph paper, construction paper, glue sticks, crayons, markers, the journals we use, anything else that the classroom might need.   All consumable and non-consumable supplies come out of this $100 budget.  

 

If I am buying tape in November, my $100 is not going to last very long.  My students wanted to know why our budget was such a small amount.  I tried to explain that the tax payers decided they didn't want to pay any more to schools, but I am not sure they understand.  Quite frankly, in the land of ballot initiatives and minimal funding requirements, I am not sure I understand any more.  

 

This evening, as I was leaving,  I had a chat with my principal.  We did not talk about tape, but we did talk about Program Improvement Status.  Apparently, my school is on the verge of being in the dreaded PI status.   Our API is not below 800, but our test scores did not show adequate growth in two of our subgroups (Hispanics and economically disadvantaged).   The pressure is on.  We are having a school wide meeting tomorrow about how we need to reevaluate our whole school and ensure that all students are making adequate progress.   If we do not show growth in these areas, we will go into PI status, as the standards are going up.  

 

It is a good thing I have still have $80 in my supplies budget.

 

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suburb, california, bay area, teacher, elementary school, taxes, money, schools, budget, students, tape

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A lot of those things you list as essential supplies, IMHO, should be provided by the student--pencils, journals, notebook and graph paper, crayons and markers, for example. The problem is the nanny state is requiring the schools to provide basic school supplies. Schools should just be concerned with copy paper, dry erase markers, staples, tape, etc., not with personal supplies.
perdidochas
November 04, 2009 12:44 PM
@perdidochas - yes, they are personal supplies. My students come to school without them. Over half of my class is on free or reduced lunch. They do not have the resources to purchase them and bring them to school. We have students who can donate paper and pencils, but nearly enough for the school year. It is fine to say students should supply their own pencils, but what if they don't?
MsThirteen
November 04, 2009 01:36 PM
In my town, teachers are buying their own tape... and their own paper. It's a sin!
MiddleAgedWomanBlogging
November 04, 2009 01:49 PM
Tape is not so bad. I know teachers in public schools who are buying books with their own money.
amyrose
November 04, 2009 01:52 PM
This is the way of things with teaching, and has been for all 15 years I have been doing it. Four school districts now...3 in Colorado and 1 in Illinois. I think elementary teachers have it harder with the "supply" issue in some ways because so much of your class depends upon these things. I end up spending more money at the high school level on books and supplementary materials, but have also had to spend on such supplies, as well as printer ink, since I bought a printer for my classroom to use, rather than having to run down a long hallway and wait for the office printer to finish its queue of jobs whenever I needed an extra copy of a worksheet.

I don't think people like perdidochas have much understanding that simply "requiring" the purchases means that parents can afford these things. It's like "laws" and "directives" in general...you have to fund it to make it work!

What do you do if 20 kids bring the stuff and 10 can't afford it? Do you then require the kids that have parents with money to provide for those who don't?

I don't even count how much I spend on student supplies any more, or how many times I have slipped a kid bus fare or lunch money. I have kids that are living in homeless shelters and foster care group homes...many are working themselves. What must we do?

I feel your pain...I live it with you daily!
yekdeli
November 04, 2009 02:57 PM
midwest muse...your community sounds lovely!
yekdeli
November 04, 2009 05:17 PM
In my kids' school, the teachers ask the parents at the beginning of the year to send in extra supplies whenever they get the chance to pick up some glue, scissors, and yes, tape at Staples or wherever. Those of us that can are happy to help, as there are many families that can't contribute. But I do remember when I was teaching at a middle school in Bushwick, Brooklyn, how much of my own money I had to use--it really gets out of control!
And by the way, my own kids LOVE tape--there's just something about it.
Karin Greenberg
November 04, 2009 06:54 PM
MsThirteen, you're also in the land of wide disparities. My wife teaches in Oakland, where the schools are as thoroughly segregated (on an economic basis) as anything Jim Crow ever dreamed up. One way it's reflected: schools in more affluent parts of the city have thriving PTAs that take care of the supply issues you talk about. One elementary school in the Oakland hills has a PTA budget of about $250,000 a year, and that also goes to pay for PE programs, teachers' aides, library resources and other luxuries that the "nanny state" no longer deems necessary.

For a variety of reasons--transient families, transient teachers, parents with little time for volunteer activities, lack of outreach-- PTAs are rare at schools in the city's poorer neighborhoods.

But here's some hope: For the first time in the 12 years my wife has been in the OUSD, she and a group of parents have managed to get a PTA up and running. They're in their second year and raising money with regular school events. The funds involved are a relative pittance--this is a school where 100 percent of the students qualify for free and reduced-price lunches, so the families are not throwing money around. But you've got to start somewhere. And the larger is benefit, my wife says, is that the fund-raising has given parents a feeling that they can influence the quality of the school experience.
Dan Brekke
November 05, 2009 01:39 AM
Such issues aren't limited to your half of the continent: we have such issues north of the border as well. And like every region, we have our disparities (economic and linguistic here in Quebec), uneven and ineffectual funding, and parent frustration. But what is particularly frustrating in that regard is that I also live in the most highly taxes area of North America. Those taxes are intended to cover quality education, health care and the rest. Somehow our bureaucrats still can't figure out how to allocate those dollars effectively and so, on top of being taxed astronomically I still get to shell out over $100 in school supply fees directly to the school each year as well as providing a long and *very* specific list of supplies that go into a class pool. There do not seem to be any adequate answers.
Wordsmith
November 05, 2009 07:47 AM
I used to work for a company that would have drives for local schools. We would bring in desired school supplies and drop them off in boxes. I believe the schools in your community should reach out to local corporations. It is a win/win for everyone. :-)
Miss Adams
November 05, 2009 11:15 AM
MsThirteen,

In the early 1990s, I taught in a rough school. I'm thinking our free lunch percentage was over 60%, with another 10-15% reduced lunch. I once told another teacher (who had taught their for ages) that I didn't want to require a science fair, basically since the kids were too poor to get supplies for it. She jumped on me, saying I was being racist, and that if it was important enough, they'd get the money. After that point, I realized she was right. I was just being condescending. IMHO, you are doing the same.
perdidochas
November 05, 2009 03:26 PM