[Magdalen] pencils

[Grace Cangialosi]

At the end of the summer our school district puts out long lists of the supplies student are expected to provide. These vary by grade level, of course--young children are supposed to provide five boxes of facial tissues, for example--but they definitely work a hardship on low-income families. So many of the churches here hold back-to-school drives for supplies and also for backpacks to put them in.
Even with that, most teachers spend a lot of their own money for things the schools don't provide. One figure I saw was an average of $1000/teacher/year. And teachers aren't exactly bringing in the big bucks themselves...

> On Sep 8, 2015, at 4:35 PM, Roger Stokes <roger.stokes65 at btinternet.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 08/09/2015 16:23, Lynn Ronkainen wrote:
>> Jo, I too was always amazed at the amount of school supplies I had to provide for my kids after moving to TX. I think in Syracuse we supplied paper and pencils in the early primary grades.
> 
> If the local council funds the school then I reckon they should supply these basic things out of the school budget.  Not to do so discriminates against those kids whose parents can't afford what can add up to a significant sum out of the weekly budget.
> 
> Roger