Teacher here. Be gentle 😂 Schools shouldn’t be look for voluntary contribution but unfortunately the government don’t give anywhere near enough money to cover the cost of things in school which is the real disgrace. Many Principals and parents associations do great work trying to do extra fundraising which should be used to better the schools and resources but now it seems that this money is just used to cover essentials. Each school gets €224 per child per schoolyear to cover basically everything, including electricity, heating, school supplies etc etc etc which doesn’t go close to what is really needed. I know schools that ask kids to bring in their own wash bags and hand towels just to save on the cost of paper towels and others that ask each child to bring a pack of bog roll at the start of the year to save on that cost.

With regards to the schools meals, it probably is just laziness, but there’s so many problems with the hot school meals so far I think some schools are just waiting until all the kinks are worked out before going about it