School Supplies...

I just need to vent for a minute, so please humor me...

The list of school supplies continues to amaze me. I can understand a child needing paper, crayons, notebooks and pencils, you know, items that they, themselves use. But when the lists grow to 40 + items, including items that my child never touches the entire school year I begin to wonder where my tax dollars are going. Today I purchased my children's school supplies for the upcoming school year and after returning home, I went over my receipts and there was more than $80 of items that my children will never touch.

How many pencils can a child use in a school year? Each year the list includes 4 boxes of 24 pencils, that's 96 pencils... are they eating them? The items I'm complaining about this year for just 1 (yes ONE) child includes: 3 containers of Clorox wipes, 1 box of 8 highlighters, 4 "jumbo" packs of post it notes, 1 box of 50 cap erasers, 8 glue sticks, 2 pairs of scissors (are they cutting with both hands? in which case wouldn't you need one set of lefty scissors?), 4 bottles of waterless hand sanitizer & 4 bottles of antibacterial soap, and 1 package of 8 dry erase markers. Multiply this by 22 children and you've got the amount each classroom has of each item. Multiply this by 500 and this is the amount the entire Elementary School has received this year alone from parents of children attending their school.

So what exactly is going on at schools now that one class of children needs each child to bring so many of each item? After having a meeting on a separate issue last year I have found out. There is a storage room (where above mentioned meeting took place) in my children's school where all these items are collected and stored. A WHOLE ROOM of Clorox wipes and highlighters and post it notes and hand sanitizer and dry erase markers, the list goes on and on. They are stored in large Rubbermaid containers that are labeled. Not only is the room fully stocked from floor to ceiling, but through the year it doesn't dwindle.

And isn't this exactly what my tax dollars are for? Our taxes out here in VA are absolutely outrageous mind you. With all the tourists pouring billions into the VA BCH economy, does it really make sense that they need to collect 4000 dry erase markers and 4000 more highlighters each year for a school of only 22 class rooms? Mind you that the teachers use these items and not the students... so why so many? Why do I need to purchase them? How about the 1500 containers of Clorox wipes? Isn't there a much more economical way to clean classrooms? What did the schools do when I was a child? Did they just not clean before Clorox wipes were invented?

The way things are going, before you know it, toilet tissue will be listed on the school supplies lists.