Ethical question

[Hyperion]

Okay, so I'm really getting tired of buying my own supplies for my chemistry class. I'm fine with purchasing pens, pencils, tissues, folders, paper, ink, and other objects that make my room functional, but affording the labs is getting expensive, and our stipends have been reduced to $70 a year. That's right, I'm supposed to devote 40% of my class time to lab experiments by using $70. What a freakin' joke. If I purchase some acetone replenishment half of that is gone. I spent $50 this semester on those little organic models because kids love playing around with them and they really do help people visualize abstract ideas.

At least with other subjects like earth science and physics I could reuse my equipment every year, but in chemistry the reagents are usually gone in 1-2 years and there's ALWAYS students breaking the delicate equipment. We've pretty much resorted to telling students that if they break anything, they buy it, even if the equipment costs over $100 (some of our balances and burners). We had 4 large Erlenmeyer flasks, and a kid just let go of the clamp during a lesson over ideal gasses (later we discovered he was drunk). $150 shattered in a moment. Who is expected to resupply? Us.

I'm wondering if it's ethical in your mind to charge students $10 as a lab fee. As far as I know, our district strongly frowns upon it, but it's not explicitly against the law nor policy. We've been trying to avoid it for years, but our budgets have shrunk considerably and science teachers now get a smaller stipend than art teacher. Like I said, chemistry is expensive. We've decided to go forward next semester with this policy. We each have about 90-100 kids and there's 4 of us; $4,000 is more preferable to $70.

I know the anti-teacher rage crowd will moan but I'm more interested in the opinion of other teachers like cc.

[Hyperion]

I want to also point out that we originally came up with the idea of a fundraiser but the funds are controlled by our principal and he turned over half of it to the football team because the fundraiser occurred right before a huge football game.

I've actually been the most vocal opponent of this plan. It will be at the teacher's discretion, but we plan together pretty rigorously. About 70% of our material is shared. I was thinking of having the classes do a class fundraiser after school hours (that way our principal doesn't have control over the funds) and making it extra credit. I actually wanted to make it a 'class account' (I'd still be the administrator of funds) so that the kids can vote on where the funds go.

[Hyperion]

Our science department does get $10,000 but we have about 60 teachers/staff that technically covers the woodshop teacher, and like I said, the principal diverts funds at will. We do get about $100 for safety equipment as there's not much use for aprons and gloves that are worn down, but that's a different issue. They have a legal obligation to cope with there.

None of our admins have science backgrounds. Our labs are overflowing with students and yet they think it's safe. We have four chemistry teachers sharing two lab rooms, four physics teachers sharing one lab room, and seven biology teachers sharing two lab rooms. I'm not including preAP and AP exclusive teachers.

I pretty much said f**k it and turned my non-lab room into a lab. I pushed the desks together into groups of 3 one day, tossed out about four desks that were about to collapse, and purchased replacements from my university's overstock business. Because my room has both a fire alarm and fire extinguisher right outside in the hallway, I then brought in the hot plates and purchased my own supplies of beakers, test tubes, and tongs. I also have some chemicals stored in my cabinets, but they're all basic: hydrogen peroxide, methanol, diluted alcohol, heavily diluted acetone, color indicators, metal shillings, helium gas, etc. I'm not willing to store more dangerous stuff outside of the chemical rooms.

I'm going to try to do a class-wide fundraiser. Texas doesn't have tenure technically so I can't just fight back. The rich kids will just get their parents to help and the poor kids have done the same thing before for band, athletics, and middle school 'spirit' wear.

[Showboat]

Have the kids make cocaine and sell it to fund lab supplies.

[Winchester]

[Stratego]

Maybe you should issue a $0.01 challenge as a joke. $70 a year divided by approx 180 school days per year divided by 30 students = $0.013. Challenge the students and parents to think of creative ways to teach the kids once your budget gets cut to $0.01.

Encourage the kids to stop buying luxury items such as Top Ramen because each pack is worth two weeks of education. Stop buying school milk because each drink (assuming $0.50) is worth 10 weeks, almost a quarters worth of education.

[The Dharma Bum]

def should have a fundraiser

thats ridiculous.

[Homer]

How much does the school spend on sport compared to science?

[J.K. Gregg]

[Precocity]

Well I would rewrite that text. Starting out with:

"Okay, so I'm really getting tired of buying my own supplies for my chemistry class."

Might not go over big.