"Back to school, out of supplies; Systems turn to cash-strapped families for help" by James Vaznis, Globe Staff | September 6, 2008
Along with stocking their children's backpacks, parents are increasingly helping teachers fill their cash-strapped classrooms with glue sticks, markers, hand sanitizers, toilet paper, and other basic materials once covered by school budgets.
Many teachers sent out the pleas last month before the first day of school as part of welcoming letters. Others handed out the lists last week on opening day. And a growing number, such as those at Chelmsford's Harrington Elementary this year, posted requests on school websites, saving money on postage and paper.
The lists are another telltale sign of how budget-cutting in recent years has affected the pocketbooks of parents, coming on top of the hundreds of dollars they spend annually on ever-increasing fees for school lunches, sports, after-school programs, and buses.
With household budgets this year stretched thin by rising grocery and fuel prices, parents are questioning how much longer they can keep giving.
The war machine doesn't seem to be much of a problem for you, Americans.
"Parents are starting to feel like a piggy bank," said Holly Ewart-O'Neall, the mother of a second-grader and cochairman of the Worcester Arts Magnet School's parent-teacher group, which experienced a decline last year in fund-raising revenue that sometimes goes toward supplies.
School districts, wanting to avoid cuts to staff and programs, have been spending less on classroom supplies and materials during this economically turbulent decade.
Until recently, we were being told everything is great!
Statewide, school district expenditures on instructional supplies and materials, including textbooks, dropped 4.3 percent between fiscal years 2002 and 2007 to $334.7 million, despite a dramatic increase in the cost of many items.
"It's a sad state of affairs," said Thomas Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. "I'm surprised cleaning fluids and things like that are on the lists. That is going to another level and is more suggestive of how bad things are getting."
In many cases, teachers refer to the supply requests as "wish lists," but the items are hardly extravagant.
Teachers at schools in Chelmsford, Newburyport, and Salem, like many others statewide, have solicited donations of sharpened No. 2 pencils, zipper-lock sandwich bags, baby wipes, paper cups, tissues, low-odor markers, or ink cartridges for printers.
"I kind of like the lists," said Laurie Naughton, a Newburyport mother with three children in the city's school system. "At least I know what they need instead of me guessing what they need and stocking up on that item. I don't mind pitching in."
Whatever, America!
If you want to have your pants pulled down and get poked in the ass, be my guest!
I'll tell you, I get tired of blogging to defend you cock-sucking pricks, that's for sure.
FUCK YOU!!!!!!
The lists started proliferating earlier this decade after the nation's economy went into a tailspin after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, educators say.
Notice how EVERYTHING comes back to that FALSE-FLAG BLACK-OP INSIDE JOB, folks?
Teachers compiled the lists in response to parents who wanted to contribute items to the classroom rather than leave it to teachers to spend hundreds of dollars of their own money each year on classroom materials.
Americans are DISGUSTING!!! Yup, SPREAD THOSE CHEEKS, 'murka!!!
"We feel bad about doing it," said Anne Wass, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the state's largest teachers union. "Those are things that should be provided for the classroom by the school districts."
Yeah, that is why I am PAYING TAXES!!!!!!!!
Parents in recent years have brought in toilet paper at two elementary schools, noticing volume was running low in lower-grade classrooms equipped with bathrooms, some parents said. Parents also have supplied bottled water at one school during hot weather because the water bubblers were broken.
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So when does that asshole of yours finally split open, America?
HOW MUCH LONGER are you going to take the ASS-FUCKING and LOOTING of this GOD-DAMN GOVERNMENT?
