How much do you pay for your child to be in public school?

[Mama Bear]

We just registered Goldilocks for his second year of public high school. It cost $65 for general classes! It cost waaayyy more if your kid is in a sport, or special interest classes. I thought I already paid for his public education with my tax dollars. This covers no supplies at all----opps, no I was wrong he has one cooking class, but really!

[bean]

Sorry about that!
We have fees too. We try to be very careful and the things that are passed on as fees are things that for the most part just have to be that way. Class dues are 5 bucks a year-they help pay for prom. Some art classes require specific supplies that the teacher gets and the students must buy. I think ours is no more than 10 or so bucks a year for academic classes. None of the classes I teach has a fee.

It's hard to see, but please understand that many schools have their backs against it. The state cuts their funding..budgets are cut, supplies aren't approved, and the only way to make it work is to pass those costs along. It stinks, I know. If our states did a better job of funding education we wouldn't be having this conversation.

We try hard to make sure that students fees are little if anything. We are a high poverty district and it's hard for parents to scrape together the costs. Most things outside of sports are very little if anything. Basic sports are 30 dollars per sport, capped at 150 per year...with the exception of hockey. my kid played hockey last winter and the fee for THAT was 650 bucks...but that was our choice, and it was very worth it...

[myotch]

Fees are voluntary, here, but most parents I know pay more than the requested amount.

Our fees were $100, with another $100 coming for Robotics club. When all is said and done, this will probably be around a $600-$700 fee school year (senior dues, a mandatory educational trip, interning transportation, SAT, ACT).

The thing that really ticks me off is the supply list donation to the teachers. You think you are "giving" for your kid. You are not. You are "giving" for someone else's kid, because you know your kid's gonna have his stuff, because YOU BUY THAT, TOO!

[notdrinkingthekoolaid]

My kids are preK, 3rd and 5th. All in the same school.

There are the usual supply lists with some items like pencils or glue sticks that need replenished through the year. Our school also has a uniform dress code--any solid color collared shirt and blue, black, brown or khaki bottoms. Any brand is acceptable so cost depends on what and where you buy. We're the only elementary school in our town to have uniforms. I love uniforms, though they are an extra expense.

Actual fees...$7 per PTA membership (optional) and $5 technology fee for the older kids. Oldest is probably going to do chess club at $70 for 10 sessions. It's pretty cheap, but we are only on the elementary level.

[bean]

I understand what you're saying, Myotch. My wife (elementary teacher) has never asked for anything for these expenses. It does add up though.
One area I don't get is kleenex. Our school refuses to buy it. We are to buy our own as teachers. "Have the kids each bring a box" is what we are told. Well, that works for about half of them. I buy a box and it's gone in cold season in about 3 days. (think about 50-60 kids using one box all day). I gave up. I would be into kleenex to the tune of 10 bucks a week in the winter. So I get the key to the supply closet and get big giant rolls of toilet paper. What the heck, if I didn't have it they would just walk to the can to blow their nose anyways! Nobody says boo either hahaha.

Robotics is free for the kids. The advisers are paid a token figure, it isn't much considering all they do. They fund raise if they get to go to a competition at the end of the year.

(08-17-2012 09:24 PM)myotch Wrote:  Fees are voluntary, here, but most parents I know pay more than the requested amount.

Our fees were $100, with another $100 coming for Robotics club. When all is said and done, this will probably be around a $600-$700 fee school year (senior dues, a mandatory educational trip, interning transportation, SAT, ACT).

The thing that really ticks me off is the supply list donation to the teachers. You think you are "giving" for your kid. You are not. You are "giving" for someone else's kid, because you know your kid's gonna have his stuff, because YOU BUY THAT, TOO!

[dramaturge]

We go through so much Kleenex and paper in my class. Even pencils can disappear. I have Kleenex and 5 packs of paper and two packs of pencils on the supply list to try and get most of the year covered. Even so, I spend quite a bit of out of pocket money to keep up with classroom needs over the year, and usually end up asking for Kleenex and paper again around March. So it is a donation to the teachers--it helps them not have to pay out of their own pocket for classroom supplies or to help the child or two whose parent just cannot afford to get all their supplies (like my one student this year whose mother is going through bankruptcy and lost their house and whose father refuses to contribute anything to help with raising the boys). And it's also for your kid: trust me--kids use a whole lot more than what's initially purchased at the beginning of the year. And rather than have to send notes home on a regular basis telling all the parents to get more paper or whatever because their kid is running out, better to get more than necessary at the beginning and distribute according to need throughout the year. Of course, that's probably not libertarian enough for you, but classrooms don't function well with that philosophy, I've found.

[bean]

Well said, dramaturge. Well said...

I scrounge for pens and pencils. There is a big mug on my desk, it's free city. Three fourths of them would either be going to the locker every period or simply not have. I've given extra credit for bringing in ten or so pens/pencils sometimes. The supply might last a few weeks.

I have kids who are really struggling too. But it energizes me to want to help them. Get an education and the possibilities are endless. Unemployment with a Bachelor's Degree is only 4%...and it's usually stable work with some benefits and not being treated like a disposable cog....back to topic though...school supplies...yep, they gotta have em and somehow we will get it figured out!

[laurat99]

Since I have kids in two different districts, I had 2 varying supply lists. My son (2nd grade) with autism had a small list of crayons, markers, glue sticks, etc, but the bulk of the list was for Clorox wipes, paper towels, hand sanitizer, ziploc baggies, and baby wipes. The 5th grader had a fee of $40 and the list was pretty evenly split between academic and cleaning supplies. Teachers shouldn't have to provide tissues, sanitizer, etc for an entire class.

[techmedic]

2 Kids... about $400

[WifeofBill]

I don't mind buying the supplies, what I hate is buying specific supplies for my kid, then having it go into the classroom general supplies. One year my daughter wanted a binder with a puppy on it. They tried to put that into the general supplies and a random kid would have received it instead of my daughter. Hell no. She picked it out, we aplenty our money on it, it's hers!