cost of school supplies
 

Went to Wal-Mart with a list of school supplies for my grandchildren. I only got about half of what was on the list and spent $86. What in the world do parents with 4 or 5 kids do?

Gee wiz, and I thought school supplies were on sale!

Weeks before school the office supply stores have sales for 1 cent and up. My DD spent $18 one weekend and saved $93. That's what the wise and penny thrift do ��

I'm not seeing major affordability on school supplies either. I've hit the dollar stores in the area, too. The composition notebooks tend to be more affordable at the Walmart/Target type stores... sometimes even grocery stores carry them for $.50 each! I'm still waiting for the cheap Elmer's glue, lol. Maybe in another week? Schools have opened in my neck of the woods. Yesterday was first day for the public schools... private in another week and then they begin.

why is school starting so early?

And they need 48 pencils, already sharpened ; because the teachers don't want them going up to use the sharpener in the classroom. I think is should go back to just buying what your kid uses; and not for the whole class. And what happens to the supplies that don't get used at the end of the school year?

my niece got the list for her daughter. She showed me some of the items she had to get. Took them into our office to see if we had any extra they could use. Turns out we had a few items that saved her at least $25.00. Had a couple pens all she needed was refills. Plenty of pencils. Even an extra calculator. She's in middle school now so the list isn't as long as elementary but just as costly. My dad used to bring paper and pencils home to us. There was never a need for special paper like college ruled until high school.

I feel bad for the parents, too. I'm sure not all of the children are really able to bring all of the items requested. I feel bad for the schools, also. Many of them are having their funding cut to the bare bones trying to save tax dollars. Some school districts have had terrible cuts. Teachers often have to pay for supplies out of their own pockets. I'm sure they are grateful to those who can send extras. In our area there are drives to collect school supplies for those who can't afford them. I think they are distributed by Salvation Army here. It was always a fun time in our house when everyone got their new stuff and the kids loved sorting and organizing their new things. We were a lucky family.

Took my middle school grandson to his orientation, $25 for PE uniform, $90 for class fees! Then supplies $45. Add the cost of school uniforms. I get to take his brother, a senior, tomorrow. WOW.

I guess I am cheap, but when my kids were in school, they did not get everything new each year. Some years we could buy school supplies through the school, which was discounted, but how many erasers, rules, pairs of scissors etc does one child need?

I know it is nice to start off the year with everything shiny and new, but, I am sorry I could not afford it. Now that I am in uni my biggest expense are text books. I bought a package of black pens and shared them with my son. I did need a financial calculator for a couple of my courses, but otherwise I am using what I have.

Someone mentioned 48 pencils already sharpened....? There is no way my kids would go through 48 pencils in a year, between the three of them.

I can understand being asked to provide a box of tissue, otherwise the teacher is paying that out of her own pocket.

There is a simple answer.... schools stop the costly excess testing. If we were made aware of the cost of the exam development, exams themselves and grading/analysis - we would protest and rightly so. It is ridiculous to put the cost of supplies on the parents or the teachers - a basic necessity of teaching.

Ok, I'm getting off the soapbox. Ok, wait, one more thing. What would happen if parents refused to send in more than what their child would use? They can't kick the children out.

As a teacher who sent out those lists, I have seen kids go through a pencil a day because the sharpener was so fascinating, rulers, erasers, crayons, etc. have been broken the first day of use (some won't use a crayon that was broken...why I have no idea). You'd be amazed what kids do with their supplies, mind you not all kids but more than you think. I gathered all but the necessities from each kiddo in a ziplock (or two or three) with their name, at the end of the year it got sent home. Can't imagine storing things over the summer, I had no room. And yet I loved every kid I came across.

I am substituting and cannot begin to tell you how many elementary kids come to school with no pencil or unsharpened pencil. By the way a electric pencil sharpener is a great gift for a teacher.

I remember my elementary school days, in the 60's. We weren't asked to bring a doggone thing. The school dept. bought everything in bulk with our taxes and distributed it to each school. Everything was supplied by the school and once it was passed out, you kept your own things in your desk. Your mom might have provided you with a pencil case... that's it. The sharpener was the bolted down kind, attached to a bookcase by the window. Getting up to walk across the room and sharpen a pencil was always allowed during working time, and provided a good little break from sitting for so long.

ADD was unknown. You brought $.03 a day if you wanted a little bottle of milk at snack time. Your lunch was provided in your lunch box by your mom. If she didn't put it in there, you didn't eat it. Period. Nap (rest) time was laying your head down on your desk and closing your eyes for a few minutes. The teacher provided "mimeographs" of the worksheets she wanted you to do. We loved smelling the purple ink... Scissors, crayons, glue and paint all belonged to the classroom, communally. They were kept in boxes or baskets and set out for communal use when needed. The paste smelled awesome too... and there was always a kid or two who would eat it!

Quarterly, report cards were passed out. You carried it home to show your parents, get their signature on it, and then you carried it back the next day and gave it back to the teacher. By the end of the year, all four quarters were filled in, on that same card that you got to take home and keep at the end of the year. Lo Tech.

All that parents had to buy to prepare for school were a few new clothes and food for lunches and snacks. I loved my elementary school days.

When my kids were in school in the 80's- 90's I homeschooled them. Never had to do the "school supply" shopping thing, but I did have to fret over where the $300 or so for the bare bones curriculum I needed to buy was going to come from every year. We passed down school books and wrote answers in notebooks instead of in the workbooks, so those could be passed down too. We had curriculum fairs with other homeschoolers where we could sell or swap our books with other families. We were poor, so that I could stay home and educate my kids myself. It was a JOB-- not easy, but I wouldn't trade it for the world!

sewbizgirl....We went to different schools together! Reading your post I was thinking "YES!". I still have all my grade school report cards!!

It would be nice if all kids had your parents or mine. I would agree they do spend too much time testing the kids. They want to base the teachers' salaries to the test scores - but how do you do that when there is no base line? And not all the kids are on equal ground? My daughter teaches 4th grade this year and 2 of her students speak little to no English and one doesn't even read at first grade level, one girl only speaks baby talk and is in speech therapy (that comes out of her class time). Fortunately there are only 22 kids in the class, there are 15 boys and 7 girls 12 are ESL students and 5 have diagnosed learning disorders. You cannot always blame teachers when the parents don't do anything to help. One little boy has trouble writing, his parents believe he doesn't need to write because he will be using a computer soon.

My sisters and parents taught me the alphabet, how to read, and how to add, subtract, multiple and divide before I was in the first grade. But that was before the afternoon TV was even on, my sisters taught me as they did their homework with me and my dad was an engineer at Boeing and he loved to play math games, then my mom put up with me following her around reading out loud to her while I was learning to read.

Okay - I am stepping off the soap box, I could go on for hours and no one needs that.

There are a lot of kids that have nothing!!! It is really hard to image it if you had parents that always made sure you had what you needed, but some of these kids don't eat unless they are at school and there is no money for school supplies. So the schools are just trying to even the playing field and give every child a chance. My daughter buys the basics for all of her students - pencils, pens, crayons, markers, colored pencils, spiral note books, lined paper and the composition books. They are not allowed this year to ask for donations but she lets the parents know if these "disappear" she does not replace them, it will be up to the student to replace. She also provides glue (white Elmer's school glue and the stick glue), scissors, white boards and rulers.

If you look closely at the list they are asking for donations of these items, so there is some idea of what they need. They are not asking for every student to bring 15 rolls of paper towels, or every student to bring 5 boxes of tissue. One student brought in 8 boxes of tissue and another brought a box of 30 glue sticks. My daughter felt like Christmas. And the tissue had extra "Box Tops" so double yippee.

Our church collects clothing and school supplies for months, and then has a couple of big distribution days to needy families in the area.

They're just getting you ready for college costs, I'd gladly pay $85.00!

There is a list of 32 items on my grandson's 6 th grade list. First on the list in bold print: for the home room teacher: 2 boxes Kleenex,Expo Markers ,one roll paper towels,1 pack of notebook paper,24 -regular pencils,3 pack of 3" sticky notes. Then it goes to mandatory student supplies-of which there's only 17 items this school term.The teachers here receive a check for $800.00 to buy their school supplies, most of them use it to buy clothes,from what I'm told.

each child to bring 24 pencils? Something screwy there.
How can some children not have meals at home? Aren't the parent(s) eating either? I know someone who works at a minimart type food store and kids come in with LINK cards(gov sup food card) and buy junk food....adults also.

I do donate to local food pantry, but I have seen some come in for food with fancy manicures, hair professionally done, dressed to the nines and attitudes. Makes it very hard to have compassion and charity.

i grew up poor, didn't know it at the time, but there was food on the table, albeit very simple and sometimes space, but cooked from scratch, clean house, and enough clothes to look presentable.....and not gym shoes costing +$.

Every year we have a special ballot for increased taxes for schools. Every year I voted yes. UNTIL I found out exactly what they were doing with that money, almost none of the extra money went to the classroom. One "exec" got new furniture for their office, a couple of "mandatory" meeting in HAWAII. Every 10 miles we have a different school district. Way too many chief and not enough Indians. I now vote NO.

I went school shopping with a friend -her last baby starts high school. The first thing on the list was a laptop-they even specified that it had to be larger than 11 inch and not to exceed 18-how many mega some things it had to have plus they have to have 3 memory sticks to start out with. The color choices are black or grey-NO flashy colors to distract the students.And the icing on this cake of Specifications -the laptop MUST be new-no refurbs or used ones will be allowed.The only exceptions to this is if they had one last year that is already registered with the school. $380 spent before she even got to the second item on the list. I am so thankful I no longer have a kid in school.

It's not just in elementary school that students forget (or can't afford) supplies. I teach high school English Composition and students need to have ink pens (blue or black ink). Most don't. I used to go to the dollar stores and buy 10 packs of pens, which quickly disappeared. Now, I still buy the pens, but any student who wants to borrow one for class has to leave collateral--usually their cell phone, ID card, car keys, etc. When they return the pen, they pick up their collateral. By week two of school, I don't even have to remind them. And I always get my pens back.

IF there is anything left unused at the end of the year, it goes into the closet for next year. I used to go through the trash cans when students cleaned out their lockers and salvage an unbelievable amount of notebook paper and graph paper. As far as sharpening pencils, it is extremely disruptive to have students continually going up to sharpen pencils when you are trying to teach and answer questions.

If you want to specifically help teachers and students, go to your local school and ask what they need and then make a donation of those items.

I used to be a substitute and at the end of the year I would see teachers taking home rolls of paper towels and tissue boxes that were leftover. I was not very happy about that and would only send school supplies the next year. I told the teacher that was not very nice of her to take that all home. Of course she didn't call me the next year. Oh well.

I don't know about WalMart, but the office supply and big box stores (Target, KMart) carried the lists from each school and each grade level and had them available near the door. As teachers, we sat down before school was out and decided what was absolutely needed. We finally added one ream of copy paper, wet wipes to clean desks, and tissues so we could tell a nose-picker to 'please go get a tissue". Families would buy what they could and some families who were blessed would step up and buy more. We never required anyone to come with extras and I personally always bought the things needed for those who couldn't afford them out of my own pocket. Nothing was said, no one was embarrassed...but it helps the classroom to have these things. And 24 pencils? That's nothing! Some kids chew on them, break off the eraser...you can't imagine what a pencil in a 2nd grade goes through in one day! That's about one new pencil a week.

Jane Quilter :Schools are required to teach 180 days in most states. With more vacations, it stretches the year out. Pluses and minuses to that one.

Purple Passion: At the end of the year we would send home extras if there were enough for each student to get a fair share. Otherwise, we would adjust the list for the next year and/or store them for kids who would start in the middle of the year. (Some of these are homeless or escaping an abusive situation and are protected under the McKinney Act.)

Our PTA always had backpacks for new students who couldn't afford the list items so that when they came into the classroom, they would not be embarrassed or feel 'different' in any way.

Sorry this is so long. The teachers are not profiting by asking for these things. Most of them. And I never got $800 to spend on anything, unless it was a grant for a specific purpose, which had to be documented.

Go volunteer if you want to know what happens to the items you buy.

Edited to add and refine comments.

I buy an extra set of everything in the fall when it's cheap and send it back to school sometime in Feb, that way he has a fresh set of supplies 1/2 way thru the year

Sad but true there are children who don't eat except at school. If your area has some depressed areas and you drive through you can see why. There are food deserts and low or non existent employment opportunities and no transportation and let's face it, there are some people no one would hire. And the children pay the price. It's a huge problem, probably not the place here for a long discussion, but, yes, there are children who are hungry.

I was lucky and had a decent budget for my classroom supplies and didn't ask parents for anything. I liked getting my own because everything would be uniform and I could color code also..the yellow folders are for math, the green writing etc. I,too, didn't allow sharpening during class time. Each day we'd start with a container of sharpened pencils and one to collect the dull pencils to be sharpened at the end of the day.

I know someone who teaches in the same area of Florida. She gets a small baggie of post-its, highlighters and pens for her own use and anything else she is expected to buy or ask her elementary students to provide. Fortunately for her, her Mom shops the back to school sales and buys things for her to use. In a public school district, every expense has to stand up to an audit so I'm not sure how school monies are spent on teachers' clothing. I sure never got money for that!

I won't even get into the subject of hungry kids. But in rural NH, we had many who didn't know if they'd have anything to eat when they got home and if anyone would even be home when they got there. Very, very sad. Hard to get good test scores out of kids who are living under such stressful conditions. Now, I'll step off my soapbox!

Just wanted to add that the school sales are not as good as they used to be, as well. Over the past few years, the big box stores have stopped offering as many deals. As teachers, we would share the good places to get supplies. I pretty much stopped shopping at Staples for school because their deals weren't all that great.

When I was buying for my kids and now grandkids. I wait until the supplies are all on sale, check the sales adds. Wal-Mart and Target are normally in competion. Don't wait until the week before school because they go up. I also buy lots of extras and normally have enough for the whole year. My kids were always great at telling me late at night or early the morning of school that they need something. My one son always told his teacher he forgot his pencils so I gave her a big box that she kept in the drawer for him. I also buy my project boards from the dollar store too, that's another great one, waiting until the last minute to say they have a project due. I try to plan ahead. Here in Va most are buying school supplies this weekend because its tax free for school supplies and hurricane season preparedness.

Last year the teacher wanted the parents to buy her red pencils, etc. the things she uses. My daughter and I agreed, no way. That is not our job. Now if I have extra stuff, I'll give it to their teachers only because even though they do the fund raising at Wal-Marts, etc for kids who don't get what they need. Not all kids who need it fall onto that list and do without. The teacher on the other hand, knows what kids just don't have any supplies or anyhow what they need. Just because you don't qualify for assistance doesn't mean you don't need help buying supplies, clothes, etc.

No $$ for pens, but have cell phones and cars- gas costs $$$.... My mantra would be no pen, no grade! Oh but that wouldn't be allowed...

I understand what you are saying, I have a daughter that is a teacher, and you would be surprised at how many hundreds of dollars she spends out of her own pocket each year for school supplies for her students that don't have any. This is not school money, but her own money. So those of you that can buy your children's supplies please do so.

I love school supplies! I will help out the grands with their lists. I would also be happy to buy some of those penny and dollar items and donate to the schools.. Have a brand new one opening down the street this year. Maybe I will check into that...

I work in a school and kids go thru pencils like crazy. At my school when the custodian sweeps he sweeps up whatever is on the floor. The kids getting up constantly to sharpen pencils is so distracting. In the lower grades I would say the kids need 3 or 4 packs crayons. They break them and lose them. Usually the best time to hit the sales is before school starts. There aren't usually any of the good 1 cent sales later in the year. I spend a lot of my own money to supply kids that don't have any. In kindergarten sometimes they use a glue stick every 2 weeks.

Several parishes (counties) around here have drives called School Bus drives (Stuff the Bus). A large school bus parks in a parking lot (perhaps at a Walmart, downtown, or anyplace where people can easily bring donations). When the bus is full (to the brim!) Another bus drives up and it goes on until nighttime. They will fill sometimes 7 or 8 busses during one drive. Many stores also have school supply drives where donations fill shopping carts. We have very generous people who want our kids to have what they need. The school supplies are donated to local schools.

That being said: for 33 years I purchased classroom school supplies to be sure that the kids in my class had what they needed when supplies ran short. It was part of my "household budget." I'm not sorry I did it.

Thats ridiculous! What happened to books, notebooks? If the kids are glued to computers they may as well stay home and take classes like some adults take college courses.
a lo-o-ong time ago when my youngest was in elem. school and calculators were popular.....the teacher was asking that the kids bring a certain type to class. I marched over and told the teacher, not my kid....you will teach her how to use her gray matter first, then we will discuss calculators...ended that request!- til the last quarter of that year...entitled intro to calculators......

I was a high school math teacher for 26 years. I did the same thing when a student needed a pencil. Some would even leave me 1 sneaker as collateral, but I always got the pencils back. I also bought mechanical pencils which I got cheap. Would figure out the cost per pencil, then have them for sale (usually 10 cents). I never made a profit on them. Kept the money and went out and bought more!