If you are working two step equations and you are in the 8th grade, it is just too slow to do so with digital tools. I wish we could get there, but still, in 2015, cumbersome.
Nah, I learned long ago that I simply cannot manage signing out of items like pencils. I buy shit tons of cheap ones at Office Depot in August and hope for the best using the honor system. Over the past few years, our students have actually been much better about having all of their materials (we went to a school-wide binder/pencil bag system.) The honors kids hate that, but they always have their crap anyway, so it doesn't matter. There are some teachers, however, who ask kids to leave a shoe in return for a pencil. Wtf? With all of the myriad odors which already permeate the middle school classroom, you want to add stinky feet to the mix? Hell to the no. In short, I have a cabinet filled with pencils, notebook paper, and spirals, and give them out as needed.
My school is 95% free/reduced lunch so based on Title I we are required to give out supplies when asked... though I treat it as a discipline problem and issue a "minor infraction" (that can build up to an office referral). When I was at a more middle class school I charged a nickel for a pencil and five sheets of loose leaf.
Our school has been trending towards Title I for years, and we will officially be that this year. I let go of ideas of lack of supplies being a discipline problem many years ago. I buy the supplies so cheaply that it is nothing to provide it, and it causes no disruption to class for students just to grab what they need quickly. On the other hand, I hide my extra supplies--only keeping out one open stack of loose leaf at a time and 10 or so pencils. They don't disappear as quickly. A large amount of our English work takes place in a spiral. We find if we ask for them in the first few days of school and collect them to be kept in crates in the classroom that most students will have one. Midway through the first week, if a student has not brought one in, I provide it. I tell the child to bring one in when he/she has a chance to, and I'll just add his/hers to my supply for future students. Many times, they do. In short, the kids, especially the low socio-economic ones, cannot help whether or not their parents will purchase supplies for them. So, I err on the side of compassion with them.
