The yearbook post got me thinking and I wanted to put my response in a new thread and see if anyone else agrees with me and how people handle this situation. I agree that yearbooks for elementary school is crazy. However, since I volunteer at my kids school all the time I will tell you how sad and disappointed the kids are who don't have them when the school does the "signing" party and all the other kids are signing etc. It is a big deal to them because they don't see things in the future as they won't even remember these kids, they see that THIS is their world in the now ya know. I am personally sick of the school using our kids against us to get in our checkbooks. My four year old is having a WALK A THON for goodness sakes. That is crazy, so crazy that they need one parent for each two kids to make them stay on the track. CRAZY! I'm sick of spirit bears, yearbooks, auctions, fundraisers, new items at the "bookstore" etc. trying to get more money out of us and using the "disappointed children" against our reasoning. I got suckered into purchasing ornaments for $10 this year that the photo studio that did our school pictures made out of our kids pictures without even asking. They just sent the ornaments home with the kids with a note telling us who to make the check out to. Ofcourse they made a big deal about how great the ornaments were and how mommy and daddy will love them and when I balked dd was like "don't you like my pictures mommy" I was so mad. I personally would like to make a one time PTA donation each year and stop with all this money little "BUY" little milking each week. I can't be the only one who is tired of being held hostage by not wanting to hurt my kids and the schools KNOW how easy it is to USE them. Not to mention all the useless crap that ends up in my house from all their "great ideas" I started attending all my kids events like field day, parties, scouting etc. with a camera in hand and make scrapbook pages and poster collages for them of pictures with them & their friends so I don't feel so quilty about not buying any more junk. I also volunteer my time instead of money when the teachers need workroom things done or someone to work in a classroom etc. because I feel like that makes a difference. I see the junk they sell to my kids and have a hard time trusting exactly what they would spend my money on anyway. What does everyone else do?

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Standard of Living and Quality of life are NOT the same thing.

i guess we are lucky our shcool does not have our kids sell anything. we can send pop cans on thursdays and they use the money to fund field trips. the pto does sell t-shirts and apparell but a form is sent home in case you want something but there is no pressure. they do scholastic books but we order sometimes and sometimes we don't. i will not order if a teacher uses her sales points for things for themselves(they can get coolers all kinds of stuff) only if it goes to books for the school wich our district does require. the only 2 fundraisers they do are gift baskets at the christmas concert(silent auction style) and a spring carnival wich last year i spent under 10 bucks and my kids did all the games some even a couple times. and that is it.. we don't pay for our kids to go on field trips and the school even took all the kids to a movie at the theatre the first day back after christmas break for their christmas gift...maybe our district just appropriates their money well in order to keep costs low for families... i can totally see how i would not want to be shelling out for every little thing if our district did those things.

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Measure wealth not by the things you have, but by the things you have for which you would not take money.

My kids are homeschooled now, so my reply is from when they did go to a school.

We did three years at a Christian school and the parents we all big supporters. Parents helped at the school, visited the class and everything. It was awesome to see all of the parental support going on. We did have to shell out money it really wasn't too bad. Because the school was not public and not funded by the state (and tution was as low as they could make it) the parents understood when money was asked for. They did fundraisers to take care of school items needed. So basically all we had to do was tee-shirts for the field trips, the field trips, snacks for party days, I think there was something else, but I can't think of it. So, like I said this school, it wasn't too bad. A struggle at times, but not awful.

We also did a year and a half at a public school. And we had to shell out money all of the time! It was insane. My daughter's k5 year she went to a good public school (alot of parental support) but we were constantly haven't to pay for this and that and it was high. Then we became pastors and went to the church's school for three years. Then moved and the three older kids went to a public school for a couple of months (it was horribly sad). At this school, they wanted money every week for something different it seemed. We need a new _____, please send $___, then the next week it came again, and again and so on. And not everyone can do it so there we so many kids left out. This has nothing to do with your question really, but at this school, NO parents helped. In the two months we were there we had two field trips, my mom and I were the ONLY parents that showed up for all grades k5-5th. On party days, same thing. Open house, maybe 20 parents came. My daughter's third grarde teacher said we were the only parents for all of the third grade classes and she didn't think fourth or fifth grade had any parents at all. Kids came to school wearing the same clothes as the day before. Parents who drove their kids to school dropped them off at the sidewalk. I parked and walked them in and waited with them tills school started. Teachers were shocked, and some not happy because they were not used to it. Kids loved me and hugged me all the time because they saw how a mom cared about her kids. I had a boy come up to me and beg me to go and get him some breakfast because his mom wouldn't feed him. Broke my heart. The three teachers we had, one was AWESOME and the other two were okay. We couldn't take it anymore. We had to pull them and that is when we decided to homeschool.

I got WAY off track here. Yes I think schools milk you for all they can. They always need money for something else. And because so many parents can not afford it, so many kids get left out. It is really sad.

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Jenifer
Proud wife to one amazing man
Proud mom to four awesome kids

April showers bring May flowers
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

What I really don't like is the fundraisers. Having to try to sell overpriced stuff to family and friends and then your kid might earn a cheap toy that you could have bought at the dollar store.I pretty much refuse to do them The book stores aren't too bad in price. I can give my child $5 and he can get a couple of nice books. But, I agree that they have them way too often and I don't always have $5. I get the pictures but they are exspensive I usually go halvies with my oldest's dad. The Santa secret shop is a whole nother story. Talk about overpriced, they had it this year after school so I wasn't going to plan on doing it. My son was really dissappointed, so we went when they still had 1 hour to go. Almost everything was gone, only the ten dollar candles and exspensive blankets along with really cheap stuff was left. So, I talked him into going to GoodWill to get some presents for Grandma. That made us both happy.

I feel milked and my kids are small. My preschooler goes to a Christian Academy. It is really great, but they do ask for a lot of money. On top of tution, I have to supply two large boxes of snacks per month to feed 17 kids for a morning and afternoon snack. They have so far done two fundraisers. One was I paid a donation to come and eat homemade chili and cinnamon rolls with my son. Totally fine, I think I gave $5 which for the amount and quality of food, it was more than worth it. Than for Christmas, we were suppose to go out and sell Christmas wreaths, garland, table piece, etc. The prices of the items were outrageous. I dont know anyone here in town that I was gonna hit up and I didnt feel right calling up family from out of state and asking. You had to sell 10 items or you could "opt out" and pay $100!!! I talked to them and told them I didnt know anyone and that if they wanted me to pay $100 fee, than they could deduct that from my bill. Luckily they said that I didnt have to pay anything. I just thought that was rediculous!
I have to do the same thing for my kindergartener as far as snacks-17 kids, two snacks per day. So I pick up some big boxes/packages of crackers, cookies at the beginning of the month and than do not have to worry about it until the next. It does get a little pricey because I will not get crap that I wouldnt give my kids at home in order to save a buck. Both for the kindergartener and preschooler the snacks have to be a little on the health side. I take in things like pretzels, granola bars-stuff that they can use up as they need. For my preschooler, I take them in when it is his day, so I have been able to take in a few bunches of bananas (on sale of course) and other crackers.
I know that after this year, it will only get more expensive.

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Nothing is as important as passion. No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate.
Jon Bon Jovi

sorry double post....

Well I am in a different camp. I don't mind being bombarded by different school expenses. We contribute time and money to our younger son's private preschool and to our older son's public elementary school. We are in a district where the parents CAN afford it, so kids don't get left out. We are a group of parents that have decided NOT to spend close to $20,000 a year per child for private school tuition, which is the going rate around here and which is very, very common with all of our friends, neighbors, and family members. My city doesn't have a good reputation with our public schools and there are a few really wonderful ones despite our public school system, not because of it. We are just thankful to buy the wrapping paper and the framed art projects instead of having to write an $18,000 check for our first grader's tuition.

The PTA makes our school what it is. We all know how important these expenses are if we want to keep our kids at high performing schools. Our PTA is run like a business and it is an amazing thing to witness. These parents are awesome. I also used to be a teacher before I had children, so I have seen that side of things too and I know that it takes more money to get what you need for your classroom than what the schools are going to get.

Our PTO (parent teacher organization) is hopelessly unaware of the needs of the lower income kids in our districts. They are constantly having school spirit sales, market day, poinsetta sales at the holidays, book sales, a gift shop at Christmas time, overpriced giftwrap sales at the beginning of the school year, etc. etc. I feel badly for the kids who cannot participate in these and the pressure put on parents to participate. I think the Christmas gift shop is the worst because the merchandise is terrible and overpriced. One single working mom forgot to give her son money and she was called to the school that day! Of course, we have a year book for the elementary kids. Why?

The joke is that the PTO moms are using the money for their manicures and Hummers.

Growing up, some of my friends were lunch card kids and were embarassed about it. At least the electronic lunch pay system keeps that information confidential now.

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"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang the best." ~Henry Van Dyke

Our kids schools are really good as far as parent participation. At the Christmas party the lady in the office said they made 200 guest nametags and had to make another hundred because they ran out. I thought that was great because we only have 350 kids so that meant most kids had a parent in their class and some probably had 2! We do the book fair because that is a reasonable thing to sell in my opinion. We also had a silent auction last year where each class made a basket. Ours was a "cooking with kids" basket with utensils, bowls, pans, cookbooks etc. which the parents of the class each donated something to or sent in cash so the room mom could buy somethings to add. The entire auction made over $10,000. I thought this too was a good reasonable thing because the kids helped to pick things and build a project together and the baskets all promoted a family activity like cooking together, movie night, game night etc. so it seemed like a win for everyone involved. However, they also auctioned off a special ice cream party for 5 kids and each could bring a friend. These sold for $400 each which is nuts because I can't imagine how it made other kids feel when their parents can't afford that. I'm the first to volunteer for cooking/working teachers lunches etc. I am just bothered by $1.00 pencils, ornaments made with my kids pictures where I didn't even give permisssion for them to use the pictures and last year they had all the kids write a story and put together a literacy book for the school year and if you wanted to see your childs work you had to pay $16 for a book. Yearbooks etc. just drive my nuts. I'm lucky to live in a very nice neighborhood with great parents/teachers and our kids at school have everything they need. I'm just feeling milked when it seems like it is something every few days--especially after I just paid my property tax bill to fund the schools.

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Standard of Living and Quality of life are NOT the same thing.

When my youngest son was in daycare at 6 months old they had a fundraiser selling Home Interior candles!!!! I couldn't believe it.
In his preschool last year at the age of 4 he had a bike-a-thon!
When my oldest was still in school they took pictures twice in one year! The first set of school pictures you paid for in advance just like when we were kids. Then in the spring they take pictures again and send the big package home in my opinion to guilt you and then you were to pick out what you want, pay for the package you chose and send the rest back. And of course they would have a sheet of those sticky pictures and by the time my son would get home with the pictures his sticky pictures were all over everything so I had no choice but to buy them and you couldn't just buy them you had to buy the package they were in!!!!
One year we were very bad off financially because my dh was sick with cancer and I almost had a nervous breakdown because after purchasing everything on the school list sent home and then paying for the book rental and pictures, then having to purchase special PE clothes (who knew in sixth grade you had to have special clothes for PE) and their name was required to be ironed on!!, he would come home every day with a new item that a teacher was requiring outside of the required list. Some teachers didn't like spiral notebooks b/c they didn't want those little pieces of paper all over their room!!! The thing that broke me was the teacher that went out and purchased her own school supplies for the kids in her class and sent a bill home to the parents b/c she wanted her students using the same supplies!!!!! Can you believe it!
Sorry to rant, but this is a huge pet peeve of mine. We pay and pay until I just can't pay anymore. It wears me out.

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My gourds made the front page of the paper!!