Grr, this irritates me

I was looking over DS's student planner this morning, and signing it, as I am supposed to do every day, since that is how the teachers communicate with the parents. I'd forgotten to look at it for a couple of days, and saw a note that on Wednesday, he didn't have a pencil.

I asked him about it, since he should have at least 8 or 10 pencils at school, if not more. He told me that his mechanical pencil broke, and none of his wooden ones were sharpened. The teacher doesn't let them sharpen pencils during the day because it's annoying. Let me repeat that in case you missed it: THE TEACHER DOESN'T LET THEM SHARPEN PENCILS DURING THE DAY BECAUSE IT'S ANNOYING!

How dumb is that? It is a classroom, pencils will need to be sharpened sometimes. So DS got a note sent home not because he didn't have a pencil, but because he didn't have a sharpened pencil. And why am I even hearing about this? I admit DS is a problem student, and has done some really stupid things in school that needed my attention, but a broken pencil is not something I need to punish him for, or even talk to him about. Pencils break and need to be sharpened, deal with it. I'm not telling him he did wrong for needing to sharpen a pencil, for crying out loud.

When I was in school, if we didn't have a pencil, we borrowed one from another student or the teacher, and life went on. Nobody freaked out if we had to sharpen a pencil in the middle of the day, and none of the teachers felt the need to write notes to our parents about us not having pencils, or paper, or whatever.

I am starting to be frustrated with the school. Like I said, DS can be a problem student, but when he gets in trouble for small stuff like this, and for picking his nose on the bus (yeah, it's gross, but little boys do that), it sort of clouds the times when he does something that does really need to be addressed. I mean, they are giving needing to sharpen a pencil the same status as not having done his homework. Good Grief.

I have contemplated calling the school to complain about this, but I don't know that it would do any good. I have given DS a little pencil sharpener to keep with him, so hopefully that will solve the problem.