Classroom Supplies, Will You Help #ClearTheList ?

LeaningCy

Well-Known Member
Jan 18, 2008
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Wanted to share this link to help purchase supplies for Iowa classrooms (retweeted by our very own John Walters so you know it's legit)

You can filter the document by city or search for a teacher by name.

How many classrooms can we help out with school supplies this fall?

Disclaimer: I am not a teacher, nor do I know anyone on this list.

 
My wife has been a SpEd teacher for 25 years. She spends a couple hundred a month out of pocket This is a great program/idea.
 
Very cool thing to do but very sad we need to do it. Public Schools need to be properly funded. Not annually underfunded.
Or better managed. I'm all for increasing funding, but a lot of schools have a management (or over management, too many administrators) probably more than a funding problem. I ran some numbers on a couple districts in central Iowa a few months back. One spent around $15,000 per student in 2020. The other spent around $19,000 per student. The district spending $19,000 is considered to be FAR worse, and generally underfunded compared to the $15,000/student district, despite having more money per student.
 
Or better managed. I'm all for increasing funding, but a lot of schools have a management (or over management, too many administrators) probably more than a funding problem. I ran some numbers on a couple districts in central Iowa a few months back. One spent around $15,000 per student in 2020. The other spent around $19,000 per student. The district spending $19,000 is considered to be FAR worse, and generally underfunded compared to the $15,000/student district, despite having more money per student.

Is that $19,000 actually spent on students or what would be available per student?

Sadly districts, like any business, get caught up in the 'what's shiny and new' game and tend to spend money on some new curriculum that only lasts for two years before moving on to something else.
 
Is that $19,000 actually spent on students or what would be available per student?

Sadly districts, like any business, get caught up in the 'what's shiny and new' game and tend to spend money on some new curriculum that only lasts for two years before moving on to something else.

$19,000 available per student. That's part of the issue in my opinion. The money is there, but it's not being spent wisely or is being spent on districts having too many administrators and not enough teachers. It's not just a funding issue. There's clearly an issue of how that money is being used but everyone just claims we need to increase funding.

Unlike businesses, schools who spend their money poorly don't go out of business. Instead they just campaign for more funding.

Teachers are incredible, I don't want anyone to think I'm attacking them. Most do a great job. It's administrators and bad school boards that are the issue, in my opinion and they hide their mistakes/ bad management by claiming they are underfunded.

That's not to say it's possible some schools are, indeed underfunded. I'm just using those two districts as an example. One is considered one of the wealthiest in the state. The other is generally considered to be falling behind and massively underfunded, even though it's budget contains significantly more $$ per student than the "wealthy" district. Therefore, the difference in "quality" between the districts is likely not funding, but management.
 
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Guessing the $19k per student type of number you're getting includes infrastructure costs associated with the school district in new buildings, etc. Makes sense when you say Waukee is at the top. Those schools districts with huge growth have to keep pace with enrollment and build new building, fields and on and on for those new kids. The actual funding in the classrooms is nowhere near that. Classrooms are underfunded, not building them.
 
$19,000 available per student. That's part of the issue in my opinion. The money is there, but it's not being spent wisely or is being spent on districts having too many administrators and not enough teachers. It's not just a funding issue. There's clearly an issue of how that money is being used but everyone just claims we need to increase funding.

Unlike businesses, schools who spend their money poorly don't go out of business. Instead they just campaign for more funding.

Teachers are incredibly, I don't want anyone to think I'm attacking them. Most do a great job. It's administrators and bad school boards that are the issue, in my opinion and they hide their mistakes/ bad management by claiming they are underfunded.

That's not to say it's possible some schools are, indeed underfunded. I'm just using those two districts as an example. One is considered one of the wealthiest in the state. The other is generally considered to be falling behind and massively underfunded, even though it's budget contains significantly more $$ per student than the "wealthy" district. Therefore, the difference in "quality" between the districts is likely not funding, but management.
And that doesn't include the funds that cannot be spent on students, like PPEL, right?
 
Multi million new sports complex at the new high school but teachers begging for markers, sad really.

It's a big ******* problem. We seem to have a huge prioritization issue in the education system right now. It's absolutely insane to me that we spend public dollars on overbuilt athletic facilities while teachers stock their classroom.
 
Guessing the $19k per student type of number you're getting includes infrastructure costs associated with the school district in new buildings, etc. Makes sense when you say Waukee is at the top. Those schools districts with huge growth have to keep pace with enrollment and build new building, fields and on and on for those new kids. The actual funding in the classrooms is nowhere near that. Classrooms are underfunded, not building them.
Right, you can't just add up all the $ a school district gets from all sources, divide it by the number of students and get a usable number.
 
Several of the local ones would save money if they built new instead of repairing and cobbling up. They are scared too upset a few people though

The district I grew up in was spread throughout 3 towns and only a few years ago did they finally move to one central campus for all elementary, middle, and high school, which makes more sense on so many levels, and I'd imagine there's still people that are upset about it.
 
Kids now have to subsidize their “free” public education significantly, from towel fees to book fees and everything in between. I picked up a four pack of Clorox wipes even though I don’t immediately need them because I know there will be a run on them and Kleenex for back to school. Waiting for toilet paper to start hitting back to school lists.

All that ranting aside, I did just purchase all of the remaining items on the classroom list of a friend’s daughter who just moved her family back here to teach.
 
Guessing the $19k per student type of number you're getting includes infrastructure costs associated with the school district in new buildings, etc. Makes sense when you say Waukee is at the top. Those schools districts with huge growth have to keep pace with enrollment and build new building, fields and on and on for those new kids. The actual funding in the classrooms is nowhere near that. Classrooms are underfunded, not building them.
The $19K wasn't Waukee, it was Des Moines, who isn't really building new. The $15K was Johnston who has built a ton of new buildings the last decade. Where is the $19K per student in the Des Moines school district going, when Johnston only spends $15K per student?
 
Right, you can't just add up all the $ a school district gets from all sources, divide it by the number of students and get a usable number.
Agree it's not perfect. But how do you determine if a school is actually underfunded vs. poorly managed? All people talk about is "underfunding". I'm questioning if underfunding is actually an issue in most Iowa school districts, or if it's poor management. Or a combination of both.

If a school has a teacher shortage, or a supplies shortages, maybe they're underfunded, or maybe they have too many administrators that don't do anything, or maybe they spend $2million re-doing a baseball field that didn't need it.
 
Kids now have to subsidize their “free” public education significantly, from towel fees to book fees and everything in between. I picked up a four pack of Clorox wipes even though I don’t immediately need them because I know there will be a run on them and Kleenex for back to school. Waiting for toilet paper to start hitting back to school lists.

All that ranting aside, I did just purchase all of the remaining items on the classroom list of a friend’s daughter who just moved her family back here to teach.
My kids paid a book fee and had no books……
 

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