Now What??

It's Memorial Day. No school. No requests for money. I did just spend $10 on a gift card for the teacher as an end-of-year thank you. It has been a good year. My son has learned so much. And I have learned so much, too. And I've kept a blog. This was completely foreign territory to me in August. And now, not only do I know how to "do" a blog, I also know how much money I've spent on incidentals for my son's Free Public Education! Perhaps at the end of next week I'll retire this mundane record and keep a new more interesting blog of the goings-on in our lives. For posterity. We'll see...

But this one's not over yet. AD just mentioned that he would like us to order a yearbook for him. On March 3, I listed the yearbook as $12 rejected. That was the price for a personalized yearbook. I said then that I might regret that decision. If we can still get one, I'll have to move $10 of that to the accepted column of the spreadsheet now. We'll leave the $2 personalization fee under "rejected books."

And I miscalculated how many school lunches he would buy for the rest of the year, so I've got to add another $2 to the lunch column for Domino's Pizza day this week!

I'll be out all week, but look for one more post to close out our school year.

Into the Home Stretch...

We are just about ready to find out our grand total for an entire school year. I have done my best to keep track of every request for $, as well as every penny I have actually donated or spent. Here are the latest:


$20 more for lunch money to get us through the rest of the year. AD is taking his lunch about 3/5 of the time, and I never did account for the cost of a home-packed lunch. I guess I would have to make him lunch even if he were not at school, so the lunch money column is only for school lunches.

$30 for basket raffle tickets. We did not win any of the baskets. Bummer. We were hoping for the Wii basket. Or the Birthday Party basket. Or, of course, the Need for Speed basket that I had helped put together.

$5 for Spring Carnival tickets. This event is where the baskets were actually raffled. The carnival tickets covered games, food and inflatable rides.

"Good" News: since we had several snow days this past winter, our school year was lengthened to May 30. This allows us to add one more Market Day pick up to our schedule! Aren't you excited?! I'll add another $75 to the 'Free Public Education Expenses' spreadsheet for that - in the 'rejected' column. (At the $75 order level, customers will be entered into an incentive prize drawing.)

Also, parents are being strongly encouraged to order the "Ready, Set, Summer!" family curriculum package for $19. Note home from the principal even kind of implies that your student will fall behind, plus miss out on a recognition ceremony next fall if they do not participate. Manipulative! Hmmm. Not sure what we'll do. I'm not even sure which grade level to order if we do it. Our student consistently performs above grade level, so I don't think the suggested materials would be right for him anyway.

Hangin' in there for one more week...

A Couple of LOUSY Weeks

Been busy...lots to report. I'm just going to include a list today. But hey - I've successfully kept track of (nearly) an entire year of public school expenses and requests for money. Just a couple more weeks and we'll have a total! If I remember last year accurately, these will be a busy couple of weeks. So here goes:

We spent $13.69-ish on our basket raffle donation/decorations, not counting gasoline to run all over town for "stuff." But check out our completed "Need for Speed" basket.

Green Tree Spring Carnival: 6 Raffle Tickets for $5 (We'll probably buy two sets of tickets.)

Teacher appreciation week: Have your child write a thank you card to all teachers, principals and counselors. We will spend about $5 on this.

Summer Dance Camp: $40 - NO

Wentzville Parks and Rec Programs: $1093 - NO to most though we might do BBall or Science.

(Wentzville Idol $5; Tennis Clinic/Lessons $92; Theatre Camp $93; Circus Skills Camp $99; Dance Camp $60; Abra-Kid-Abra Magic Camp $99; Youth Lacrosse Camp $85; Football Camp $65; Baseball Camp $75; Basketball Camp $70; Soccer Camp $35 for goalkeeper, $85 for soccer; Golf Clinic $20; Hapkido $55; Young Rembrandts $50; Flip Flop Class $15; Sticky Fingers $15; Little Wizards Science Experiments $15; Little Chefs Cooking Class $15; Ballet Dancing $45)

Camp Gators 2008: $585 - NO
(This is a weekly summer camp at $65 per week for 9 weeks. We might consider one of the weeks, but for the most part the kids are participating in a free public school program and/or staying with grandparents this summer!)

Summer Reading Programs: $299 - NO

Wentzville Rotary & Schools Foundation 5K Run & Walk: $15 Adults, $10 Kids - NO

Holt High DECA Spring Fling: 5 tickets for $1 - NO

See spreadsheet for updated totals.