My school owns enough recorders for every 3rd, 4th, and 5th grader. It took me about 3 years to accomplish this, but it was well worth the effort and the money. The school recorders do not go home. I don't want to risk having a student without a recorder. My time with the students is so little that I need everyone on a recorder on the days we are working on recorders. All the recorders are numbered and once I assign a student a number they are assigned that recorder until they leave my school. We still use the disinfection cleaner Sterisol. I buy it in the concentrated bottles. I replace the cleaner every 2 days. I also put the recorders in a bucket that has alcohol in it, then they stay on the dry rack over night. I made my own dry rack and it will hold 3 classes worth of recorders. In the morning I put all the recorders back in their cases and back in the cubby. I use shoe organizers to organize the recorders. Once a month I will run the
recorders through the school dishwasher. I have used this method for the last 9 years and so far we haven't had any problems.
At the beginning of each school year I do offer students the chance to buy their own recorder. Majority of my students do buy their own, but they don't always remember to bring them to class. I also allow students to use other brands of recorders, but I try to encourage them to buy the ones from me because we use the Peripole recorders (which I love). I do have a student from time to time use one from the dollar store. I tell students that the ones from the dollar store or any recorder they buy from a toy department are toys and they are not real instruments like the Peripole recorders. These toys are made by people who do not know what a recorder should sound like, but the people who make the Peripole do know what a recorder should sound like. I also tell them that there are other brands out there that will work and they can use them in class. Usually they will bring in the recorder and play it for me to see if it will be good enough to use. I
will not allow students to test on a dollar store recorder because many of them don't even sound on any pitch it's just noise and I cannot tell if the sound problem is the recorder problem or the student's problem.

Tami Mangusso in CO