Yes, it's come to this, in America...

[archanglrobriel]

So, I have a friend and she is made of awesomeness. She works for a Major American Name Brand Company and that company recently received some mail from a high school student in East L.A. In the letter it was mentioned that at her high school, which is WILDLY underfunded (as most California schools are now, but especially in the less wealthy areas

Comments

[trouvera]

At a guess, given my familiarity with urban schools...

It's not so much that the school is "in charge of" as a a combination of economics and circumstances.

Can the kids afford to buy their own pencils? Probably, at least to a degree. An initial purchase of a dozen or so at the beginning of the school year on a special 'school supplies' trip can be done. But pencils are 'consumables', the disappear quickly, through use, loss, breakage, etc. The dozen purchased at the beginning of the year are gone by the end of Sept., mid Oct. at the latest.

And then we get into situational issues...
Where is the nearest Staples / office supply store? How do I get there? What is the cost of getting there? Is the $5 round trip bus trip worth it for a $2/dozen supply of pencils? No, they don't have to go to Staples, they can get them at the drug store, but then they're $4/dozen, or the bodega, where they're .25 each, and that purchase depends on the kid remember to actually stop in on the way to or from school or where-ever.

And if the kid has calc last period, there's no guarantee the pencil he bought on the way to school is still with him by the end of the day.

From a teacher's perspective it's a bit of "picking your battles". If I supply the pencils then there is one less excuse the kids have available to them in the classroom. Yes, you can argue its the first step on a "big gvmnt / nanny state" slippery slope, kids need to learn responsibility etc. thing, but I come back to the choose your battles perspective.

If an at-risk kid in an urban setting is actually coming to school and taking advanced classes I'm not going to press the point of "bring your own pencils" by letting them swing in the breeze when they don't.

[elusis]

Fair enough. I'm plenty accustomed to seeing urban schools struggle for things like enough textbooks, even enough chairs, let alone gym equipment, computers, science lab equipment, a/v equipment, etc. I'm aware of how subsistence-level struggles for basic needs work, but it seemed odd to me that pencils would be a school's priority. However, people are experts on their own situations, etc. so pencils it is.

[trouvera]

The things you mention are "capital" expenses. In theory at least, they are things that last over time and that students can not realistically be expected to provide for themselves. Since the expectation is that the school will provide them, it's not a stretch to publicize a need for them.

Consumables, like pencils and paper, reeds in band class, paint or glue in art class, folders, notebooks, etc. are usually thought of as student supplies - as in students are expected to supply them for themselves. Appeals for these types of things all too often push responsibility buttons with the "general public".

Again, speaking only from my own experience, when I began my teaching career I might have kept a few dozen pencils in/around my desk - loaning them to students occasionally and lightheartedly requesting a shoe as insurance for a returned pencil at the end of class. By the time I left the classroom 10 years later I had shifted to mostly giving them to students as needed, based on the number that would quietly ask at the end of class if they could keep them and maybe return it at the end of the day so they didn't 'get in trouble' in other classes.

Enabling? Perhaps. But it seemed so utterly counterproductive to me to rail about attendance and commitment and all sorts of other things and then get bent out of shape about a pencil.

[luckykid13]

The Williams Case out of Los Angeles changed all of this.