The middle school my child attends has a cooking class with no money for groceries, so the teacher puts out a regular plea for donations. She'll need $1,000 to do all the lessons she'd like to teach on making healthy meals. My third grader's teacher has a classroom with no pencil sharpener. Hers broke and when she asked the school's maintenance department to replace it she was told there are none in the supply closet and none are coming in this cash-strapped budget year.

I know a lot of parents who give generously to their school's supply funds. They know they are getting a bargain with a "free" public school when it's a good one. But many resent the idea of being hit up to supply paper, toner and pencils for a class that has none.

How do you feel about being asked to donate basics instead of the extras needed in your child's classroom? And rather than just griping about it, what's the solution?

--Sharon Kennedy Wynne ... Read more

Firefighters, dog trainers, cake decorators,  wrestlers, basketball coaches and more will fill classrooms this week for the annual Great American Teach-In. I'll be there, will you?

Parents and community members will be the classrooms on Wednesday in Pasco County and Thursday in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties to share their work, hobbies and life experiences with students. They'll talk about what they do and also how school got them there and the components of their success. It's a good way to show kids where education can take you, but it's also a good way for parents to appreciate what teachers do.

The first time I did it eight years ago, I came home with even greater respect for teachers, if that's possible. First of all, it's hard to talk about anything for more than five minutes, so you need to be prepared. An easy out is to give them your story and then take questions. But be prepared for questions that have NOTHING to do with what you talked about. ... Read more

Our friends at the Gradebook blog have an interesting story on the issue of teachers forced to take unpaid furloughs to make up for budget shortfalls. The teachers union in Pasco County has thrown up the idea that at least one of the district's mandatory unpaid leave days should take place on a school day. That way budget cuts affect kids and parents too, and not just employees. If it falls on a Wednesday, parents will have to take a day off work or get a sitter and then maybe they'll feel the same pain as the teachers and speak up when it comes to school funding. But if they make the furlough day Dec. 22, it will simply be one more day in the winter break and will go by unnoticed.

I gotta say, I kind of like this. Even though, as a working mom, this would cost me a huge amount of hassle, maybe that's a good thing. If a teacher is taking an unpaid day of work, maybe I should feel a little more discomfort when the school is closed so that these school budget talks hit closer to home. ... Read more

Now that we are all up to our ears in school stuff and still making last-minute runs to fill up on supplies (No pronged notebooks available in a 50-mile radius? Really?) it got me nostalgic for my old Trapper Keeper and wondering what school supplies have landed on your must list, or your must-destroy list.

So let's break it down to Stuff We Love and Stuff We Hate. Let me get the debate started:

Stuff I Love

Crayola sent me a box of their new school innovations to test out and the one my son's third-grade teacher loves is their Dry Erase Crayons. This is a great innovation because it seems like every teacher these days is begging for extra dry erase markers. They lose their caps, the ink dries out and the teacher sometimes digs into her own pocket to replenish the supply thanks to school budget cuts. These babies work on dry erase boards, they don't smell and they don't run out of ink! It's $3.99 for a pack of 8. ... Read more