As the year progressed, I got to know the teachers pretty well and asked why they didn’t focus on recycling. The response was really sad, “At that age, they just aren’t ready to understand it.”

They finally started teaching my daughter about recycling this year. She was in the 5th grade!!

So if you have children in elementary school, it definitely pays to explain the recycling process to them because not every school is teaching it.

In high school, we had to have a scientific calculator, notebooks, pens, pencils and filler paper. Combination locks were supplied by the school, as were our text books. That’s another of my complaints this year. I had to purchase the books my son will be reading in English Class this first semester – I had To Kill A Mockingbird on hand, but I had to buy copies of Stranger in the House and All’s Quiet on the Western Front. I don’t know what the rest of the year’s reading list will be at this point.

Teacher’s gifts are now forbidden here. If a parent wants to buy the teacher a gift, it has to be something the entire classroom would use like an electric pencil sharpener, tissues, toilet paper, etc.

Oh, the dreaded fundraisers. I’ve always been curious if other school systems run them this way. Here, the PTA sends out the fundraiser information on the first day of school with the numerous forms I have to fill out for the next day. I’m not kidding either. My kids come home with the big catalogs (Kathryn Beichs I think is the company) with a letter stating that the child in each grade who sells the most will be rewarded with a limo ride and lunch at an area pizza restaurant with the principal of the school. The “winners” get to leave their classes at noon and then return at 1 p.m.

I’ve complained numerous times about this. My family is rather small. My husband’s parents are both deceased and his sister is like us and lives from paycheck to paycheck. I have my parents and two brothers. That’s it, so they never sell much. My husband is not allowed to bring fundraising material to his work like many parents do.

We stopped allowing them to sell years ago because my daughter especially was coming home in tears because her best friend’s parents went to their apartment complexes and allowed her to go door to door to sell to the residents there. First, I find that to be completely deplorable. Nothing like having your landlord’s kid hit you up for fundraising. Add in the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins that this family has and she easily sells over 300 items per year. No one’s beaten her sales record in the four years she’s lived in this town.

- 8 glue sticks. 8! 8 glue sticks times 22 kids= 176 glue sticks. These all go into a communal bin. I ask you, do we really need 122 glues sticks? And what happens to the ones that aren’t used? I know we didn’t get half our supplies back last year and my son said the teacher still had bins full of stuff when the year ended.

- 2 boxes of tissues. Guys, though we’re not rich we live in an affluent area with “blue ribbon” schools. Our property taxes go to schools – while they’re astronomical, I also agree that you can’t put a price on a good education so I don’t complain. Much. With some members of the community paying $20,000 in property taxes alone (not me thank goodness) do you really mean to tell me the school board can’t spring for tissues? I told my son we’ll keep some in his backpack if he needs them.

- Large box of crayons. Again. I’ve been to the school. All the teachers have huge boxes of crayons. Can we not use them? Why do we need to keep adding to them year after year after year?

- 8 dry erase markers again times 22 kids.

When I was six we were expected to bring in notebooks and pencils. The schools had a supply closet. Low budget New York City schools even spring for crayons. What is up with these massive supply lists?

Plus, each week I’m being hit with a fundraiser. I hate opening the backpack because someone else will want money. The class moms wanted to know why I don’t contribute. I told them I do but I have to pick and choose, I can’t buy every tshirt or box of candy. They also wanted $30 per kid for the teachers gift. $30!!!! I declined and baked a loaf of bread. I mean it’s ridiculous.

My daughter’s entering 6th grade and her list was relatively simple: 6 two-pocket folders, 6 one-subject notebooks, 24 pack crayons, 24 pack colored markers, 24 pack colored pencils (not sure why all of those must be 24 packs, but at least they weren’t too expensive), blue or black pens, pencils, a plastic/hard shell pencil case, sneakers without black soles, 2 combination locks, 2 three-ring binders with filler paper, extra erasers, highlighters.

But my son is a whole other issue. I had an area high school student tell me what he’d needed in high school, so I started with the basics.

1 three-inch hard binder per subject taken by the student with dividers and reinforcement tab stickers
3 two-pocket folders for each class
4 one-subject notebooks for each class
English/Spanish dictionary (or whatever language is being taken)
Blue pens
Black pens
pencils and extra erasers
Highlighters
White-out
Filler paper
Colored pencils
Sneakers without black soles
Drafting tools
Backpack that can be carried around all day (apparently they share lockers now and the school does not want valuables like the calculators drafting tools and cell phones to be stolen.)

Then I asked the math and engineering teachers and was told the drafting tools of good quality, graphing paper and the Graphing Calculator that has to be the Texas Instrument 84, no other model is acceptable.

There may still be other things that I’ll learn next Tuesday at Orientation.

On top of this, they’ve dropped bus service to the high school starting this year, so all parents are required to drop their students off between 7:45 and 8:00 a.m and pick them up no later than 3:22 p.m. The whole “school ends at exactly 3:02 p.m. cracks me up. They couldn’t choose an even time – had to have that extra two minutes. That’s about a 15 mile drive one way for me and I’ve got one person in my car pool but the majority have said they’re waiting until the last minute to see what they’ll do. I’m just glad I’m home and can arrange my schedule around picking my son up. Parents who work in Burlington or Williston where most of the jobs are have a 30 to 40 mile drive one way to reach the high school.

And the middle school bus is no longer picking up at the end of the driveway like they did. Students have to walk to the end of their road, which for us is half a mile. In winter, I really don’t want my daughter walking to the end of the road, so we don’t know what to do. The middle school doesn’t open until 8:45 a.m., so it doesn’t even tie in with the drop off for the high schoolers. I’d have to come home, get her and then drive another 7 miles to bring her to the middle school. It’s a waste of gas, so I’m seeing what’s going to happen there too.

Pallavi — Jodee may have already posted this, but for what it’s worth I’ve heard that about.com is looking for health writers. Might be worth checking out.

But I was in Staples today doing the dreaded back to school shopping. I hit up Freecycle to no avail. Two kids and so far the clothing, required non-black soled sneakers and school supplies have cost me $300 – I’m getting depressed! My daughter’s list was pretty lengthy for 6th grade.

What bothers me most is that the high school is VERY disorganized. I bumped into another area parent today and she finally called the school asking when they were going to let parents know what their students need for high school. I’m a week away now, so it would be nice to know. They told her lists are handed out at orientation. So that gives you ONE day to buy the necessary supplies. I’ve been guessing at the staples and finally emailed my son’s math teacher to find out what brand of graphing calculator is required, so I was able to get that and the nice cost of $120. Then I hear all engineering students have to have quality drafting sets (tools) so I also had to invest $30 in the set that the school requested. (Not that I think it matters really…drafting tools are drafting tools). But it’s frustrating that the school is so disorganized and sending out lists after most stores have already held their sales.

Dani — I do think a lot of people have messy desks. I mostly work in bed, with my laptop. My bed is never made, so I guess that counts?

Jodee — [spoken in soothing monotones] I am here to distract you from your work. You will be hypnotized into never working again. You will spend all day responding to FWJ comments. You will love it. You will spend $499.99 on my special report entitled “How to self-hypnotize your way to wealth without ever working again.” Om. Om. Om.

*raises hand*

They even had ARTIST WAY CLASSES, but I never, y’know, got around to going…

Couldn’t recall the dates…rofl

Too bad you weren’t pocketing the $175 an hour, eh?

Jodee — We’ll have to secure AddictedToJodee.com for your fan club. Oh and do I know what you mean about organizing! I’m the most disorganized person on earth. No whip would help me. LOL But there were many lawyers way worse off than I was. One had his entire office floor piled up with papers three feet high, partially because we had a major lack of filing space, and every time I needed a pleading I would have to go crawl around through his office. Then I convinced them that spending 10 cents to pull it off of PACER was cheaper than my spending an hour looking through an office floor, since they billed me out at $175/hr. But it took a lot to convince them.

@ Kimi: Nice to hear from you. I hope you post more often.