A friend's comment on my last post got me going again! :) Before I start ranting, I have to admit, that we live in an awesome neighborhood and an awesome school district. I know that it takes money to keep all that going... But here is a partial list of things I have been asked to pay for this year...
$ Seconds at school in the lunch room (I can get paying for second helpings, but my kids don't need them! )
$T-shirts - sheesh! It feels like they have a T-shirt for everything! Each grade puts on a musical program, which is very enjoyable, but they print up T-shirts and ask each kid to buy one. Or tell you the color shirt your child needs to wear. (I swear, Z has every color in the rainbow, but NOT green. Well, now he's got green, too!)
$More t-shirts - the all school field day is coming up. Let's have everyone buy a t-shirt to commemorate it! What??? How about if they just wear the "school spirit wear" I bought them with the school name on it?
$Fundraisers - Actually, they have an "opt out" option, which I really appreciate. But that was $30 per child to be guilt free about the endless fundraisers through out the year. Now that I think about it, that probably divides out to less than $5 per kid per fundraiser, so that's probably a pretty good deal, and it saved me from helping the kids sell... coupons, cookie dough, gift wrap, and other stuff I can remember, since I throw the packets away. It doesn't save me from hearing them whine about how much they want to win the prize they can get if only they can sell 1 million boxes of cookie dough!!! (ugh.)
$The extra fundraiser - This one is a clever fundraiser, but I think I'd have a lot more enthusiasm if it didn't come at the end of the year after all the other requests for money or stuff... Each classroom is given a theme and puts together a basket that will be auctioned off by silent auction. So I'm supposed to provide some sort of theme item. And I'm lucky enough that they do it at G's preschool, too!
$The YEARBOOK - This is the one that really gets me. Isn't the class picture I paid $10 for enough? No, they also offer a $30 yearbook. A yearbook. Really, for elementary schoolers! I didn't buy them this year. And now the guilt is setting in. Will my child be the only one without one in their class? Will H cry? Will Z's last day at school be horrible because their mom wouldn't shell out $30 each for a commemorative SOFT COVER yearbook? Ugh.
$A thanksgiving lunch. Really, this is much more about the torture aspect than the money, although I cringe to pay extra for an adult portioned school lunch! The bad part is that all the parents come on one day, and even though they split it up by grade to make more room (and to make sure I "eat" at 10am with my 1st grader and 2pm with my 2nd grader (oh, and please send in a snack with them, because they will be hungry with the disrupted lunch schedule!)) So, even though it is split up, it's still very, very croweded, and if you're at the end of the very slowly moving lunch line, you'll be lucky to sit down at the table before they ring the bell to end your lunch time (which is actually not a bad thing considering the food...)
OK, I'll stop there. Anyone care to share something (at school or otherwise) that they feel pressured to buy, even though they don't want to?
No comments:
Post a Comment