To whom it may concern at our school district:

I would like to introduce you to a wonderful technological advance of the century – err, make that last century. Introducing: the computer. You see, on every first day of school, children come home with the same paperwork that needs to be filled out by their parents. Usually parents are writing down the same information on the forms as they did last year. If there is more than one child attending school, the work involved in filling out paperwork is multiplied. Now, writing down the information is not itself hard at all, but it is a time consuming and tedious process. This is especially true when multiple forms want the same information.

I’ve been to your offices at the schools. I see computers in there. I can only assume that every year, the forms are returned with each child and hand entered into your “system.” Is the information not saved at the end of the school year? It seems that everything is purged when school is out of session only to be re-populated come next August? Though it seems that some information is kept as class lists are created and they know which grades they go to. With the onset of the twenty-first century, I would like to suggest that the district embrace technology and streamline its processes in the realm of student records.

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Almost time for the kids to go back to school. And along with that comes shopping for school supplies. I would really like to know the logic behind the school’s supply list that each child is supposed to bring in for the year.

• Crayons, 16-count, regular size: Not a big demand at first, but the stores have this gem costing a little over $2.00 while the 24-count box was only 22¢. Why in the world am I going to pay more for less colors? Not going to happen. If they really want to have a problem with it, I’m just going to remove 8 colors and change the number on the box with a Sharpie™.
• 200-count packs of loose leaf paper: I could not for the life of me find packs of 200-count filler paper. The store only had 150-count which I figured should just be as dandy. If they need more paper, I’ll go get some more. Actually, I just searched Office Depot’s site and found that they have 200-count packs… for twice the price of 150-count. Ha! No, thank you.
• P.O.U.C.’s: “You mean the pencils of unusual colors? I don’t think they exist,” was my reply to the search of the elusive red pencils. Not red colored pencils, but red leaded pencils. I think they have the kids self-grade their work sometimes. Or it could be for editing a paper. Or not… he’s only in the third grade. Are they making 8 year olds write essays yet? Anyway, the P.O.U.C.’s were eventually found at Walmart.
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