I went out yesterday to do the annual shopping for school supplies. Interestingly, this year's list seemed lest daunting than previous years. What didn't change was the chaos of the school supply aisles at the local megamart. It was complete madness. Parents scrambling everywhere, employees restocking the quickly emptying shelves as quickly as they could. As usual, they couldn't keep up with certain key items -- most notably on my list, dry erase markers. I went to multiple stores and none of them had them in stock.
Then it struck me. Why the !@#$% am I buying dry erase markers? "Feck that!", I said to myself (or perhaps out loud, judging by the startled reactions of other parents in the school supply aisle). And hand sanitizer and kleenex and ziploc bags? And copy paper?!? Feck those, too!
This year, I'm sending my kids to school with the actual school supplies. After paying textbook fees, tech fees, bus fees, and even $50 for a bloody parking pass at the high school, I'm pretty well fed up. I believe we need to fund our schools appropriately and they need to operate within a reasonable budget. Foisting the cost of office supplies off on parents simply sweeps that problem under the rug instead of dealing with it.
So I'm making my stand. It's stupid and petty, but this is my stand. I appreciate that the schools have a budget crisis, but they need to get their hands out of my wallet and deal with it!!
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