Public school complaint

[momofafew]

It seems like teachers do less and less at the schools. The children are also doing so very little. My children can do an hour a day of homeschooling and still cover more in a year than the kids cover at the public schools. My oldest went through 8th grade so I saw much of what was done each grade level. Plus, I worked in this district 12 yrs ago, have friends whose kids go there, and my sister is a teacher there. People who homeschool often stress over thinking they are not doing enough, but they really are not knowing how little is being done in the public schools.

My younger children were in private school last year. For Valentines day, they not only learned about it, but for the party, they made their own bags at the school. The older one decorated a lunch sack sized bag with hearts and such. In the younger class, they folded a very large oversized peice of construction paper in half, stapled on the sides, and decorated it. I am certain it all took less than an hour out of the day for each child.

Unfortunately, at the end of the school year, the school made a huge issue of where everyone in my 1st graders class over where they would go the next year. As a result, my first grader begged and pleaded to go to school this year. We ended up having to send him to public school (we did not have the money for private anymore).

So we get a note home last week saying that we needed to make something at home for today to collect Valentines in for todays party. I don't know why, when learning about holidays is supposed to be part of the curriculum, we are making these at home, but ok. So, we made one out of a bag. Then, we got told by my public school teacher sister that no one uses bags, everyone else uses shoe boxes. We don't have a shoe box. I had no clue this was coming and I never saved shoe boxes during the year. I asked my son's teacher on Tuesday, as a result, what we were supposed to use. He said shoe box also. I called my sister back about it and she said she had a shoe box I could use. She knew this was coming so she saved some. On Wednesday, she forgot to bring it (she commutes from a different town). On Thursday, she was expecting me after school. But when I got there, she had no box. I went home and decided to use a shoe box that was missing its lid that I did have that was holding some toys so it was not in the best shape. I figured we would construct a lid out of construction paper.

Needless to say..constructing a lid out of construction paper did not work. By now, it is late at night and I am digging through everything, anything, to find something that can be used. I contemplated cutting a hole in the top of a small tupperwear container. Guess what? Glue does not stick to those things!! I contemplated buying some pair of shoes just to get the box! But now it is this morning and it is too late.

Why is a bag not good enough? And why do the teachers say that they do not want to make room to do this out of one hour of their schedule? I am so tired of the schools doing the bare bare minimum. I wonder what it must be like for kids whose parents don't care at all about them, as we know there are plenty.

You may think that this is just about the Valentines, but it is not. This sort of thing happens all year long. They have fundraisers that happen during the school day, but parents have to pay for their child to participate. Why do they take sooo much time from the school day for the fundraisers, but then no time to make a valentines bag? (oh yeah, bags are not acceptable, stupid).

Last fall, they took time out of class for 3 pep rallies (there may have been more, I just knew about the 3) for a fundraiser. Then they also took time at the begining of each day and end of each day to talk about it over the speakers and distribute prizes to the kids who turned in the most donations that day. Then they took 2 hrs out of a day for the actual fundraiser activity. That one cost me $100. Other family members and such donated. He still came in as one of the lessor donors and had to watch other kids be given prizes during class time.

Did I mention that our local schools do not do spelling, grammar, or handwriting in the elementary ages? Grammat starts in 6th grade at the middle school. They do a little handwriting in kinder, but not after, and not much. 1st graders type everything.

[my2kids]

I'm not happy at well with the PS system either. my poor 10 year old dd came home at 3:30 worked on homework till 5:00 played outside for an hour since it was so nice and than went back to work on homework till 8:00..i was so mad that she had so much and does usually every night.... my hubby said "do they not do anything in class?" i said no...they have to do it here i guess...:twisted: Cannot wait till this year is over.

[momofafew]

They have those children 7 hrs a day. They do almost nothing in class it seems. My son spent hours over the course of a week tracing pattern blocks. Why tracing? It kept them busy! But they used the excuse that they were learning about patterns.

He brings home homework too. But we didn't do it a couple times and I noticed his grade did not go down so I figured the teacher was not grading them. I never saw the work come home grades. So we stopped doing the homework. That was before Christmas. He is still on A honor roll. I figure next year, we would get a teacher who gives points for it. I did notice with my oldest, when he was in school, the teacher would give 100 points for completing it, but she never graded it. He got in to the habit of not actually doing his work but just writing down random answers. He still got full credit. Great habit he got in to there.

[WIMom]

Yikes! I'm sorry to hear of your child's tough at home Valentine's Day project and the crap you went through to get it done.

I know what you mean about the fundraisers, donations and all the little projects. I had issues like that when my son was in public school kindergarten. Every time I turned around we had supplies to bring in (general supplies and specific project supplies), things and time to donate, fundraisers to go to and books to buy from the book sales. My son's former school also had school pictures twice a year to pay for!

I remember my son's at home Valentine's project. I had to go buy a certain number of cards, have my son help me decorate a bag (a red gift bag that I had) and have my son print his name on every card. At the time I didn't realize that my son was about to get ill, so I wondered why making him print his name 22 times was getting to him. Unfortunately, my son was sick for the Valentine's party, but he got to hand out his cards the next day. What made me sad in a way was that I didn't realize all the other parents put little gifts with the Valentine cards. My son just handed out cards where as everyone else handed out cards with candy, pencils and little toys attached!

About the lack of handwriting thing in your kid's school....that would have been great for my kid! My son is a bit behind in fine motor skills. My son's school (or just his particular teacher) expected perfect penmanship in kindergarten. The kids were already expected to have had experience writing letters (D'Nealian) and numbers before they came to K, so that they could do their worksheets independently. Also, my son's former teacher was worried about how he would handle 1st grade due to all the writing they are expected to do in 1st. That's one reason I am homeschooling him.

Well, I hope the rest of the year goes well for your child and your family! Good luck!

[sloan127]

Fundraisers were one of the biggest headaches to me while my kids were in public school. It made me so angry when the "prize" was a special show that only the kids who sold stuff got to go see. I always bought something from each of them so they could go see some guys on bicycles do tricks or some such. The school did not let the kids go unless they sold stuff and some kids just couldn't. I felt terrible for those kids. One year the school said if everyone made a donation at the first of the year there would be no fundraisers for the whole year. You had a set amount to donate depending on how many kids you had in the school. I sent the money and later was told that only a few families sent the donation so we would still have fundraisers. AND! They did not give the money back to the ones who donated.

[momofafew]

How horrible!!

Does it bother you, like it does me, that our tax dollars go to this stuff?

[sloan127]

All the waste bothers me. I really get upset when I see that the chosen few students get to do things that the others miss out on. The school makes such a big deal out of the students being a close knit group when in fact they are divided by so many things. Money, race, sports, IQ, just to name a few. Last weekend there was a dance at the school that was a fundraiser for a ball team. The dance was $10.00 a student and you had to buy your food once you got inside. This was for kids 8th grade and under. Now there is a basketball fundraiser that costs $6.00 in advance or $8.00 each at the door. I just feel so bad for the kids who hear about this stuff each day but can't afford to take part. Hanging right inside the school are blankets and tee shirts for sale with the school logo and they are not cheap. That stuff drives me nuts. I wouldn't want my kids in uniforms but I do see the advantages.

[MonkeyMamma]

I NEVER let my dd participate in fundraisers when she was in ps. It is absurd that we pay school taxes but still have to raise money by selling useless crap to people who don't really want it anyway. And then the school makes kids who don't participate feel bad about it.

I also hated that I could not by my child the kind of school supplies she wanted. I had to by stuff that just went into a big box and then got redistributed to the whole class.

Also if they are going to have children in their care during lunch time I think lunch should be free to all students. We pay taxes right?

Sam's last year of ps was in 4th grade. We had soooo many issues. One thing in particular was when they were getting ready to take the standardized testing. They were practicing (read:teaching to the test) a few weeks before on writing. Sam came home with a very well written paper that had a grade of a 1. The grading scale was 1 - 5 with 5 being the best. I confronted the teacher about it and was told that she got a 1 because it wasn't two full pages of writting. She had written a page and 3/4. I found out that it didn't matter one bit what the students actually wrote - content didn't matter - what mattered is that it was two full pages. Basically my dd would have gotten a 5 if she would have written two full pages of crappy nonsense.

Good ridance to public school. I hope I never have to deal with them again.

[goodnsimple]

oooohhh.
don't get me started.
My ds (in 3rd in ps) has had one fundraiser. it is for a field trip. to try to even stuff out they sent home some coupon cards to sonic we could sell. for 5$ (total 40$) OR we can just send in 40$... it helps for the kids whose parents do not want them selling things and for the ones whose parents cannot afford the 40$.
I thought it a good compromise.
I am never very good at sending in my "classroom" stuff. it really depends how much I like the teacher. (that is bad huh.)
I put ds name on EVERYTHING...even if I know they are going to do a "class" supply thing. petty, I know.
NEXT year I will have them both home. (God willing)
so we won't worry about it.:D

[momofafew]

Exactly!! My oldest was always getting credit for making marks, even though nothing was right because he knew they were not going to really correct it.

For the most part, we have refused fundraisers. We did the first one of the year and then none after that. We will never do another. It was just so sad when my son would come home and report who got what that day. I was up there one day and saw how they did it and it was awful. But in hindsight, I feel I was emotionally manipulated and decided to never do it again.

I am in Texas too. Those 2 page papers in 4th grade are so developmentally inappropriate. I feel they ruin the childrens writing skills because they spend so much time working on volume that they never learn even how to form a good sentence.

[JenniferErix]

My twins were in their first week of school, when they came home with THREE Count with me 1 - 2 -3, THREE fundraisers, EACH!

That makes SIX, in homeschool math....

Six fundraisers between them.
ALL "Mandatory". Meaning if you did NOT sell at least $40 on EACH, that the student had to bring in $40 for each fundraiser where he/she did not get the sales!

(Close your mouth, tiff, I know it just flew open..)

Also, you could "By Out" the fundraisers by sending in the $40 PER fundraiser in cash or check.

Here is the BEST part...

The school district had EVERY student, from Kindergarten to Highschool selling the EXACT same STUFF! So EVERYONE on your block was trying to sell the SAME stuff to you that YOUR kids were selling and Etc....

I confronted the school about this.
I suggested the district divide one fundriser to elementary, one fundraiser to middle school and the third to highschool, to spread it out a bit......
And I was told:
We don't expect them to sell door to door, in this day and age. We just expect them to call Grandma and Aunt Nelly in another state to help out, or Dad can take them to work, right?

Right.
Because everyone has money, and a wonderfully well off grandma ho can handle $240 worth of new taxes for hr grandchildren, for THIS one fundraiser for THIS month....

And everyone is still living in the 50's where everyone has a daddy or one that works and everyone... oh I give up!

ARRGGHHHHH!!!!!!!


By the way, when my twins came home with THREE $40 minimum Fundraisers each...
It was their FIRST week in KINDERGARTEN!
Yea, KINDERGARTEN...

Kiss my fanny.

[KrisRV]

don't even want to get started on this subject I know if I started talking the ingore button would come and the tomatoes would be thrown..

[becky]

They have those children 7 hrs a day. They do almost nothing in class it seems. My son spent hours over the course of a week tracing pattern blocks. Why tracing? It kept them busy! But they used the excuse that they were learning about patterns.

He brings home homework too. But we didn't do it a couple times and I noticed his grade did not go down so I figured the teacher was not grading them. I never saw the work come home grades. So we stopped doing the homework. That was before Christmas. He is still on A honor roll. I figure next year, we would get a teacher who gives points for it. I did notice with my oldest, when he was in school, the teacher would give 100 points for completing it, but she never graded it. He got in to the habit of not actually doing his work but just writing down random answers. He still got full credit. Great habit he got in to there.

You should have taken this up with the teacher! You stopped having your child do the homework, which wasn't a wise thing, IMO. I'd have gone in and asked the teacher to show you how the honor roll was getting earned. You want to be sure learning is happening, even if you are disgusted with the system.

[becky]

In Kevin's middle school, they pushed a fundraiser where the top sellers got things like limo rides to lunch, time in a money booth to catch whirling money. There was also that party that you had to sell so much to get into. We participated one year and that was it.

Girl Scout cookies is my current gripe. 3.50 a box, and the troop gets .50 from each. The prizes are cheap and you have to sell- this year-60 to even get a dinky patch. At 110 boxes, Jeannie gets a patch, a pen, and a bandana. GS prostitues these girls to raise money for what? This year there's a Walkabout patch- meaning now they're okay with door to door selling and an I Called Back patch,meaning they want the girls to badger people to order more boxes. Even if you do call someone a second time, you don't get the patch unless they buy.

[WIMom]

Wow! I can't believe some of the fundraising that the schools made you guys do...not to mention some of the prizes!

I must admit that my son's former school did not have that much in comparison to some of your stories! The school that my son attended prided themselves on being a school that did not allow the children to sell door to door. Instead the parent group used the school gym for a Scholastic book sale fundraiser once a year and set up a family fun night fundraiser. They also had collection bins available for the Swiss Valley milk cap money thing, Campbell's soup can labels, and the Box Tops points. The other big fundraiser was a gift card program called Scrip.

[kbabe1968]

I'll telll you what bothers ME! My children have never even set foot in a school YET I still have to pay a school tax????

CRAZY!

Sorry about your frustrations.

[ochumgache]

Six fundraisers between them.
ALL "Mandatory". Meaning if you did NOT sell at least $40 on EACH, that the student had to bring in $40 for each fundraiser where he/she did not get the sales!


:shock:And there wasn't a parental riot?!

[JenniferErix]

:shock:And there wasn't a parental riot?!


No. And I honestly believe it is because of the "Line in the sand" scenario thing that is going on, in our country to many mnay htings that we blindly "Put up with".

This is just another one.

Think about it.
Back when my mother was a gradeschooler, she only had to "Show Up". Everything was provided.

When I was a gradeschooler, we brought our "Personal Supplies" and "Fundraisers" were ONLY for "Special", specific trips or shows, etc... Like the Math Teams trip to some conference, etc...

AND those fundraisers were things like CAR WASHES and YARD SALES...

Now we have companies whose ONLY business is to sell these packages to school districts. Their ONLY business is to send PEP TALK MOTIVATORS to CHANT crap to YOUR kids, inthe auditorium about HOW COOL it will be to SELL SELL SELL and get the BIG prize! (Usually only ONE kid out of the whole school and sometimes the whole district actually attains THAT prize.) Everyone else gets a PEN or a big book of stickers...

I am not against a company making money.
What I have a problem with is the school districts become a willing partner in allowing a wolf into the room who has NO VESTED INTEREST in raising money for your child, but only for the company. Some of these companies only pay out 30% of sales!

When My niece was a gradeschooler, Fundraisers were for raising money for regular school needs like playground upgrades, BUT the children were given ONE fundraiser (So the whole community is not inundated with things to buy, but there was never a "Mandatory Buy Out". (Which I assure you was invented by some snobby B**ch who didn't want her busy primadonna to have to worry about selling anything... "We'll just send the money".

So, there is my rant about it.

But yes, I see it as simply a symptom of a bigger moral issue that we, as parents, in general have allowed so many things to get passed up due to that little line in the sand that we go ahead a cross, because it is not far from what we have already been doing.

But, when we look back at how far we have come, after crossing so many little lines... we shold feel ashamed.

I give that speech to my friend who thought it would be a great idea to let the school raise her kids. (Her line in the sand was being blnd about how the school is her child's' parent) It never occured to her to question it, because she had crossedd so many lines growing up and as a parent.

Ok, steping down...:roll:


One last thing (Rolls eyes)
The school swould do better to simply raie the freaking taxes in the community. At least 70% of the money raised didn't go to keep some corporate hack in his job! 100% could actually go back to the school, and less "Motivational Pep Talk Pep Rallies" would need to be held about selling things......

I'm just sayin

[momofafew]

I think it manipulates the children and uses and exploits our children. I think it is horrible how the children get treated in these fundraisers. Children should not be used like that. And they have the emotional hurt of being the odd one out if their parents do not cough up the money.

[mamamuse]

My sons went to private school a few years before we started homeschooling, and for their last year there, I taught art. Being there all day and seeing how little I was actually getting for my money FLOORED me.

They were always having fundraisers, which was annoying considering the inflated registration, matriculation and tuition fees we paid each year. I never understood why my son came home so hyped about fundraisers until I sat in on one of those business-ran "pep rally" things to get kids enthused about selling that crap. It was awful the way those men manipulated those kids...and they lost a whole hour of my art class to attend the dumb thing.

The homework was outrageous, too. I mean, kindergarteners coming home with a list of 5 things to do each night. This school prides itself on being so far "ahead" of the public schools, but all they're creating is a bunch of burnt-out little kids. I could still kick myself for falling for that lie when mine were ready to start school. It was too much for little kids to handle, and my oldest still struggles with some of the consequences from being under so much pressure so young.

Things are just getting worse for ps kids during this recession. A friend who teaches at one of the ps's said they had big layoffs in December. No teachers were cut, but all of the parapros, classroom aides, and coaches were let go. So that's even more stress on the teachers who are already struggling to accomplish what they need to.

It's a wonder that anyone goes into the profession these days. My hat is off to them...I could never deal with it. And I'm glad that I don't have to put my kids in the middle of that, either.

[JenniferErix]

I agree.
And I have never hated teachers.
I hate the system they are in.
I love teachers.
I hate current schools.

[JenPooh]

The 1st graders TYPE???

Wow.

If Tanner's schools was this bad, I wouldn't be sending him.

Just WOW!

I agree with the fundraisers though. Last year (and I'm sure this year again) we got a kringle fundraiser to aid the 6th graders for a field trip. My son was in 1ST GRADE. WHY would I have him do this if he's not even in 6th grade??? They get so many fundraisers and 99% of them we don't do. It's not fair to all of our friends and family to get hit up with a fundraiser 10 times a year.