I got this note from my children's school.

XX Elementary will be providing a labeled envelope for every student's final report card for the 2006-2007 school year. We are asking each student to provide a postage stamp to mail the report cards. Please send in a first-class postage stamp (41 cents) and your child's report card will be mailed to your home address!

Thank you in advance for your cooperation and we wish everyone a safe summer vacation.

Does this sound "cheap" to you??? I feel like I should send them a whole book of stamps, if they are hurting this bad for postage. The report cards are done by a computer, isn't this to make our life easier and things quicker?? What did teachers do in the day when they had to hand write the report cards and still got them done for the last day of school???

My school does that, but only if you do not want to send your kid in on the last day of school to pick it up.

Our school announces when report cards are ready (in the local newspaper), and they can be picked up at the school. If they aren't picked up by a certain date, they are mailed home. The postage is paid by the school. I think asking for a stamp is ridiculous.

Besides schools, I wonder about the use of computers in other places...like doctor's offices, magazine subscription companies, etc. It seems like things are actually slower, and we all blame the computer.

Youngest DD (elementary) brings hers home with her on last day of school (and every quarter). Oldest DD's is always mailed home. They don't ask for postage. In fact, they usually send a voicemail that it's gone out and if you haven't got it in a couple days let them know and they'll send another one.

Lisa

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I have never heard of a school providing the envelope! We always had to send a SASE.....

I don't know if computers are faster. I am a teacher. When we first set up our computers, we were able to do them at home. Now I have to do them at school to connect to the system. All the figuring is done outside of the computer with a calculator. All we are doing is inputting the grade. Ideally, to save time, grades would be inputted as papers are graded. The computer would average and flag grades for progress reports. Report cards would be produced when last grade was inputted. These kind of programs exist but my school does not have the money to buy it.

I've never had to provide either one. However, I can certainly understand the need for parents to do this. In a school district with only 3,000 students, the postage cost would be $1,230.00. I don't know about your school district, however, mine is short on money.

Funny how taxes continue to rise and services continue to dwindle.

Can't they just give them to the student like they did in the good old days when I went to school or email them or something?

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Our kids just get theirs on the last day of school. They are still in elementary school though.

That is sad that they need a stamp. Whatever happened to all that lottery money. Oh yeah, they used the lottery money as funding instead of extra money to go to the school.

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Vicki


TLJ Women united in Spirit!

ITA!!!! I would have to stand on principal on this one, and send a note asking "why do I pay taxes???" Better yet, go to your town's next town meeting and bring this up.

My kids school sends out a newsletter to each child, therefore,we get two. I can see them only sending one per family, that might help save a little money.

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

I helped prepare a 3-sheet mailing to 800 students in our school a couple of years ago. The envelopes were never stamped... thankfully! When the mailing actually got sent, they had enclosed 3 sheets but two had been changed out. Needless to say, I've not helped since. I thought it was such an incredible waste. I know that they threw away the unused pages. Still irks me.

Yup, we have to send me a stamp as well. I thought it was silly when I heard that!

Holly

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I think it's pretty standard, we had to do that waaaay back when, even when I was in school. We live in a small town now and they let the kids carry them home on the last day of school.

I have a daughter in 11th grade and a son in 8th grade. I have never had to send in a stamp for grades/report cards, and we have been in more than one school district. Also, I work in a middle school that has over 1400 students--we give report cards to students to bring home on last day of the trimester (we are on a modified year-round schedule where we grade on trimesters) and the district also has automatic dialers that notify parents to look for the cards. In my daughter's case. grades are also online (and are also updated daily to weekly depending on the teacher) yet we still get FREE (imagine that!!!) mailings of hard copy of report cards. OP, I had never heard of this before your post and I am just shaking my head......

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I've never heard of sending in a stamp....ours come home with the kids (elementary school).

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Proud to say I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart since Sept 2003

We get our report cards on the last day of school. The high school mails the report cards, and I was never asked to send in a stamp.

Our school also asks you to send a stamp. Just for the last report card of the year. I really don't think it's a big deal. I think it would be worse to actually have to drive to the school a couple days later to pick it up. It would cost more in gas than a stamp costs.

Jen

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Mom to Jake, Zach & Meghan
SJCC STREAKS FOOTBALL!!
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"ITA" I Totally Agree

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For the past 3 years, the last day of school has officially been on a Saturday!!! So, you can either come in and pick up the report card on that day, pick it up sometime during the summer or send in $1 and they'll mail it to you. I find it ridiculous, none of the choices make sense to me. Why they can't give the kids their report cards on the last day of school(which this year is Thurs. the 24th)is beyond me.

I have never heard of such a thing. I went to public school, my baby brother did too and I remember the years well. I have children in school now. I have NEVER heard of such a thing. We live in one of the poorest communities and never heard of such thing.

I personally find it ridiculous and to be honest with you, I would NOT send it! As others have said, what do you pay taxes for? What about the lottery money?? What about the allotments that schools receive from the government? What about the discounted rate from the USPS that schools receive from the school systems?

No way would I do it, even if it's only a few stamps......nope!

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email is moserlara@yahoo.com

With all of the financial difficulties facing school districts these days, it is a small price to pay. School employess are still underpaid, some districts had to lay off employees in the middle of the school year to have a balanced budget and the cost of supplies is rising. In an ideal world, schools wouldn't have to ask for something so small as stamps. I agree, the schools should try to send the report cards home with the students on the last day, but we all know that there are a few students who can't get home with all of their belongings. Believe it or not, the schools in the poorest communities are usually in pretty good shape because they can get a lot of grant money.

Count me in as never experienced this. I've also never heard of this before today. Wow.
Ours send report cards home with child on the last day of school.

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I have never heard of this. My kid gets the report card the last week of school. It's not on the last day so that you can talk to the teacher about it if needed and we have to sign an envelope to say we received and give it back the old fashioned way by handing it in.

same here - only we are asked to send it when school starts. Don't know what they are going to do now that they have all those SASEs and postage rate has changed

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Mom to 3 - one with 2 legs and 2with 4!

Thank you all for the responses, it seems that they have been doing this for years. I am new to public school. I asked about our PTA paying for the mailing, I was told it would cost $$$. But let me think about that, if there are 1000 students at .41 each that is $410, but there are not that many students. What does the PTA do with the money they raise?? What about the money the state gives the school for being an "A" school?? I don't even know where the lottery money goes maybe to pay for the head of school, Rudy Crew, he makes a 6 figure salary. Hey they say the lottery money goes to education they don't tell you the details.

They are going to want your 2 cents!!!

I think that is a reasonable request for the PTA. Get a hold of the budget sheets to see where the funds are going. You should be able to see if there is any "extra" to pay for the stamps. If the funds are so tight that they are not able to do this then maybe a fundraiser for next year needs to be scheduled.

Maybe, but wouldn't you rather that fundraising $ go to buy something fun/educational for the kids? I would much rather have every parent send in an SASE than for the school to cover the cost of the mailing. .41 cents is not a hardship for anyone but multiply that by all the students and it gets expensive quickly.

I wonder what happens to all of the report cards of kids that don't send stamps in!!!

Kathie

At our school if you don't send a stamp you must go pick it up at school. They will not mail it. So technically it could sit there all summer til school is back in session.

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Mom to Jake, Zach & Meghan
SJCC STREAKS FOOTBALL!!
CLEVELAND BROWNS FOOTBALL!

I would think that sending in the SASE would be easier and cheaper then the gas and time involved to pick it up.

Think of it as a donation.

At our school the money that the PTA raises goes to pay for field trips for the students. Each teacher is given so much money per student to take his or her kids on a field trip. The money is also used for rewards for the accelerated reading program and things for the teacher's classrooms. Last year we updated all of the teachers chalkboards with the newer dry erase boards that most of them wanted. We also put a new lighted marque in front of the school. We also put on a carnival each spring for the kids. They do buy tickets to play the games, etc. but overall the carnival looses money.

I agree about the lottery money, etc. In Illinois, our schools have not received the money promised by the state for the last couple of years the way that I understand it. That is why all of our districts are having such problems all of a sudden. We've started cutting classes for the kids and this year, they shortened the school day to save money.

Sounds normal to me, here they get out of school ,this year on the 24th> and we run up to the school a couple days later <29th this year> and get their report cards. Unless you send them a SASE for them to mail the report card home. I'll be visiting an Elem. and a middle school on the 29th before they close <only have a few hours to pick them up like from 8-11 or something like that>

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Exactly. Be sure to join your school's PTA, or more than likely, they won't even consider what you have to say.

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

It's less than 50 cents if you send a SASE. What's the big deal. It saves you wondering if the kid got home with the report card and saves you from driving to the school. It sounds like a good arrangement to me.

I have to agree with atey. What's the big deal? I would venture to guess that the school isn't trying to scam you out of 42 cents!

PTA paying for stamps for report cards would probably be against their policy. They have a set of rules they are "supposed" to go by. Most money is supposed to be spent on the something that the entire student body can benefit from. Stamps are not educational therefore would probably not fit into the rules. Field trips, educational programs, computers for computer lab, books for the library, playground equipment, etc. We ended our PTA at our school, at the national level according to their rules, we were discouraged from buying office equipment, that type thing, because it wasn't directly benefitting the studentsand the schools should be responsible for that. Of course some PTA's will do what they want anyway, but I know the big push last year was to sponser programs for the kids.

The PTA put plants in to make the school pretty! I wish it did run some programs for the kids, ours sadly does not.

You got a good deal -- I had to provide TWO self addressed stamped envelopes for my DS. One is for his final report card and the other is for his state standardized testing results. The funny thing is that they requested the SASE in April and made no mention of the postal increase. I guess they will be providing the $.02 stamps <lol>.

I was kind of annoyed too, but mostly because it has been nothing but non-stop asking for money all year. This is a public school and I lost count of how many times something was sent home asking for money. I would rather they just charge me a set fee at the beginning of the year and that will cover it -- the endless nickle & diming got old real quick!

Sarah

For me the big deal would be that I participate in fund raisers all year long with my kids' schools. I'm not just talking about the books of cheap stuff that is WAY overpriced, I'm talking about fundraisers to fund the Science Dept., Band, etc., etc. AND I pay taxes for school. It's getting ridiculous. Sure, it's just forty one cents,but, heap that on top of everything else, and it's just nuts. Again, as I stated before, it's the principal of it. To me, it's like having to send City Hall a stamp to send you your tax bill.

JMHO

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

I know what you mean about the fundraisers, particularly ones that have you buy overpriced junk. I get around that by just making a straight-forward donation. I want all my money to go to the school, I don't need the junk and I don't want any of my money going to the companies that make the junk. (I'm talking about the candy, nuts, popcorn, wrapping paper, and so on...) I do the same thing with the Girl Scouts. I buy one package of the mint cookies ('cause I can't resist), then I make a straight donation to the scouts. I get a tax deduction and don't gain a bunch of weight!

I think this is a great idea and not that hard at all to do. We used to do it in the school that I worked at in GA. At the beginning of the year we would find out who was the oldest student in each household who we had in our class and the newsletter would go home with them. The office kept a list with the number of oldest kids in each class and just sent that many newsletters down to us.


Darlene

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Sell crazy some place else, we are all stocked up here.

I agree I would love to pay a set fee at the start of the school year. We all know the teachers aren't getting paid enough and they have to beg for items in the classroom. Let's not even go into the school having only one copier that is broken half the time. But, the fundraising is non-stop...I really don't need any more wrapping paper or cheap chocolates!!! I buy them to support the school and my children but I just feel like saying, can I write you a check??

I just wanted know if other schools asked for a stamp. I am glad to hear that this happens other places. It just seemed odd to me, and now I know it's not.

The school system is trying to put all the grades online, so maybe next year all I have to do is turn on my computer! I also heard from others that this is scary because you can watch you child's grades go up and down like the stockmarket!

This sums up my feelings perfectly.

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Dont go through life,
GROW through life

Real eyes...realize...real lies.

I am not surprised at all. My daughter is in Elementary so they bring theirs home. But last year her old principal from another school used school postage to notify everyone that she was being moved to another school. By the way our district just approve a huge bond but always complains of not having enough money. I had to laugh when I saw MRKII has her location as looneyville do you live in San Antonio by chance?

We have to send a SASE for our report cards or go in and pick them up. We are also asked to provide an email address at the beginning of the year so they can email newsletters and communication from the teachers and save $$ on paper.

Well, actually this can be scary, BUT the advantage is that when/if a problem pops up, you can catch it right away and not have to wait till the end of the quarter or semester or year when it is too late. You act immediately and it is so much easier than having to play catch up.....

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"Well-Behaved Women SELDOM make history."Laurel Thatcher Ulrich


"Yesterday is but a vision, and tomorrow is only a dream. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a dream of hope." Anonymous

"Your candle does not lose it's light by lighting another candle" Generosity

Have the courage to be yourself.