Public School and our money  

My son's school I do not have to pay to enroll him, his school supply list cost me less than $10, he does not need a separate pair of shoes for gym class, and most field trips are free or less than $5. I guess it all depends on where you live.

I have always wandered where our tax money is going to also. It sure is not going to a good cause, that is for sure.

It has been so long since I have been in a public school that I had no idea it was like this. It was not like this when I was in school. When it came to basic things like pencils, you just knew to bring one and that was it. We did not have to buy a bunch and give them to the teacher. If anyone forgot a pencil he or she could get one from the teacher or someone else and then give it back. No teacher would keep you from doing school work if you did not have one. That is ridiculous. The schools have really changed. In high school, we had three things that cost money...our gym uniform that we used for 4-6 year...I say 6 years because you could use the one from junior high if it was the same kind...school pictures, and school ring.

My daughter started kindergarten last fall. Her school supplies cost us less than 20 dollars, and she's had one field trip (to see Charlotte's Web live) which cost 8 dollars. There are fundraisers, but I am not obligated to buy anything, and there are the fun Scholastic Book Club order forms, but again, I'm not obligated. So I have to say that so far, school is costing me very little.

Except for the uniforms. Good Lord, I've spent nearly one hundred dollars on the cheapest ones I can find, and they barely fit my daughter, who is very tiny. I say if my kid can't wear her normal clothes to school, the school should help me out with some of the cost of the uniform. It's ridiculous, and SO not a money saver for us. A uniform costs me nearly 5 dollars more than a typical non-uniform outfit for my daughter. Drives me crazy. Not to mention that once back to school season is over, they're hard to find!

But it's true - public school costs money. Not in tuition, of course, but there's book fees and field trips and fundraisers and God only knows what else. Education certainly isn't free, or cheap.

It does seem to cost alot for everything. The teachers, I feel for. They are not getting paid enough. We have had bussing taken away. They want 200 dollars if you want to play sports and you have to buy uniforms and such still. It is crazy. My son cannot do sports, we do not have the money. It is sad. They don't even use school books in most of the classrooms. It does make you wonder where the money is.

I thought it was bad when we had to buy binders, calculators, and the text books for our sons, and when I went to high school, we had to get a zipper binder, and pay for the text books, but we could not just keep the old binder, we had to buy a new one each year. And the text books were not old, they were new. Now I have friends whose children go to a Christian school and they have to pay tuition on top of that. Yet every now and then, almost every month there are kids knocking on the doors asking for money to buy supplies, selling candies.
You wonder where the money is going. A kindergarten kid does not need a computer. I mean this is not in Beverly Hills is it?

i was a single mom & i know exactly what u are talking about. it always irritated me that they had to have certain supplies because that's what the teacher wanted no matter how expensive they were. i thought i was doing well to even get the enrollment paid for. then they wanted u to bring paper towels, toliet paper, liquid soap & the list went on & on. i thought that was ridiculous to. doesn't sound like it has improved any since my kids got out of school. i think the teachers make pretty good here & they should but teachers aren't like they were when i was in school. they were more buisness back then & i think that was good.

I sutided at public school also. Because my mom has little money to send us four. So all of my siblings and I went public school for education. Most families are doing the same. But I think, the most important is, we get educated. It doesn't matter whether it is public or private school. As long as we learn the right things.

The amount of money they are expecting you to pay now for sending a child to public school is down right outrageous. I help take care of my niece and it cost well over a hundred dollars for me to only get a portion of what she had to have for school. Than they were taking them on field trips twice a month and they wanting a crazy amount for them to be able to go. They think it is better to learn by seeing than reading which I understand but it gets out of control when it is costing the parents so much money. When I was in school we may have went on two field trips a year and neither of them usually cost more than five dollars and most of the time they were free. School lunches are also getting close to three dollars a day so now it is a lot cheaper to pack their lunch and send it than to pay that much for a lunch that is never all that great. It is bad when we start to pay more to send our kids to public school than if we sent them to a private school and paid the tuition!!

I know just what you mean here. It is ridiculous what they expect parents to fork out and on very little notice. I am a single mom and so had to work and therefore, homeschooling was not an option. Sports are outrageous! My daughter is into basketball and has been so I saved up for it but it wasn't easy. $80.00 just for the sneakers!! They had to have certain ones bought at a certain store! Twice she has gotten a detention for holes in her jeans. Initially, I thought that perhaps she'd gone to school with a hole in the butt although she is pretty modest as a rule. It was a little hole in the knee!! There was another hole near her but but I had patched that for her. They were (are) her favorite jeans and they were not disgusting. I called the school and told them that I strongly oppose this. She will wear those jeans as long as she wants to. Now I go to the school regularly and see girls with low cut tops and make up plastered etc. My girl is not one of them. She dresses neatly and with taste. Even with the hole in the knee, she looked clean and pretty. She wears them and has only gotten one other detention. Yes, I'd love to know just where our tax dollars go too. And also ...the lottery...supposedly that supports our education...does it? grrrr.