teacher wins supplies for school (you have to win supplies??)

[The Straight Story]

Thomas Jefferson teacher wins supplies for school
Educator at fire-damaged school awarded $2,500 in online contest

PEORIA —

After losing most of her teaching materials accumulated over the past 16 years in a fire last year at Thomas Jefferson Primary School, Christine Rivan is helping the school rebuild its inventory of school supplies.

Rivan, a third-grade teacher, was one of about 1,000 teachers from across the country who entered a contest to an online catalog company, answering why her class deserved to win a gift certificate and how she planned to put the school supplies to good use. She won the grand prize.

"The community and district have been very kind attempting to donate or purchase whatever possible, which is difficult in these economic times," Rivan wrote in her letter to Nasco and Catalogs.com, both online catalog companies, which sponsored the "Tools For Teaching" contest. "Honestly, if I won this money, I would simply turn it over to the principal so that all of our teachers could share in the winnings because this fire happened to our school, and we all lost a lot."

The grand prize earned Rivan and District 150's Thomas Jefferson School $2,500 from the catalog companies.

http://www.pjstar.com/news/x1659501843/Thomas-Jefferson-teacher-wins-supplies-for-school

Just pretend our teachers are in the military so we can make sure they have what they need to teach.....

[DrDan]

1. you are right - ANY amount of money to wage a war is seen as being "patriotic" -

but money for education or infrastructure is cut to the bone.

Does anyone understand this? How did this happen? I don't think we can lay this entirely at the feet of the repubs. They had to have support from the friends on the other side of the aisle.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. It's politically correct to bash public schools and teachers

So why give them the supplies they need??

[DrDan]

7. not only is it politically correct - the repubs have discovered profit in education

Lord help us when anything stands between a repub and some money.

[Hannah Bell]

2. & people have to hold bake sales to pay for their chemo.

"land of the free"

[Echo In Light]

3. We had our daughter's conference last night, and at its conclusion, her teacher...

... engaged us in the familiar discussion we've had w/our daughter's past few teachers re passion for her profession that's unfortunately dampened extensively by what she referred to as "govt meddling" as it pertains to bureaucratic expectations, and the ridiculous, counter-productiveness (to actual 'learning') of placing such high degree of importance on certain test scores. At least our daughter's well ahead of the curve for her grade's expectations for reading comprehension, writing, science and math ... shit, man, they're covering mathematics yrs before junior high that I wasn't even getting in high school ...which I'm told is basically to get children familiarized with the structures/process so that it won't seem so alien to them several yrs down the line.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. This is the 2nd year in a row I have received ZERO for classroom supplies

I am sick to death of buying pencils. They are on my weekly grocery list. So is paper and notebooks.

Budget cuts - school districts always cut classroom supplies first. But those quarter of a million dollar administrators still get paid :mad:

[LWolf]

6. Glad somebody got some.

It's really hard to keep asking parents to fill that gap when they are struggling to stay afloat in this economy, too.

Cut school days, cut staff, cut supply budgets...schools were already overcrowded and understaffed before the most recent budget cuts.

The more you cut, the worse things get, the easier it is to move an agenda dependent on scapegoating teachers and schools.

I can enter contests to win supplies, just like we can win the lottery to pay our mortgages.

[Cairycat]

8. My sister was moaning about loss of income when she retired from teaching

(she had to retire due to becoming disabled) and I reminded her of an earlier conversation she and I had a few months before that, when she was moaning about spending close to $2000/year on school supplies out-of-pocket.

And this was almost ten years ago.

[izzybeans]

9. My wife buys nearly all her classroom supplies and then begs parents for the rest.

All the way down to Kleenex for the kids.