School Enrollment or School Scam....You Decide

First off let me say that I don't remember my parents having to pay fees for me to go to school. I watched the news the other day and the Shawnee Mission school district is getting their "panties in a bunch" because they will have to start paying fees at enrollment. Well, all I have to say is "Cry me a River". In Olathe we have paid a fee since my oldest started school. I will still have to pay that fee for another 6 years. The news said that the fee was a mandatory $75.00 in Olathe School District, well yeah we have that. But what the news forgot to mention are the fees for Room Mother $10.00, riding the bus $300.00, plus some other fees which add up to $25.00. So this year for my children to go to school the District's fee was $75.00, BUT we have yearbook and game passes also. So now, without clothes or school supplies the grand total to enroll my children was..............$495.00

If that doesn't shock you, well then we have the school supply list. I do have to say that my children love to go school supply shopping. I have no idea, but they do. Sarah-Kate says she loves the smell of new supplies...whatever floats your boat Sarah-Kate. Allie and Joe just like to spend money. They prefer the shopping for clothes rather than supplies. On the supply list they had the craziest stuff: stapler, stapler remover, post its, and other things. Luckily I had the girls with me because they knew what to get and what you can borrow from the school. Personally, I think with the school fees being that costly that we should not have to pay for supplies. But that is just me.

Do you remember the days that you could dress your children in anything YOU wanted them to wear. Now that they are older their fashion statements are a bit peculiar. I have no room to talk though, I used to wear long underwear under my skirts. But starting in about 6th grade I have noticed my kids get very "labelized". Name brand for this and name brand for that. I actually had Sarah-Kate go get a job at Hollister at the mall. We need all the discounts we can get. She is just happy to have a job, money, and now a car of her own. It's not the prettiest car, it is pink. But Mike calls it purple, he is wrong. The first car I drove was a 2-tone mustard color car. I wrecked it of course. My mom still talks about that car and how she loved it. I don't see me doing that with the PINK car.

But with this new school year we will have the same attitudes we had before. But one thing that won't be the same are my kids' teeth. They are either in braces or out of them, so they won't have the same teeth (which is nice). Another thing that won't change is that the girls will cry over boys, boys will try to beat each other in strength competitions, and you know that really doesn't change much when you grow up.