School supply lists have been in stores for a few weeks now, staring down children and parents who are still trying to enjoy the last flickering rays of summer. This is the norm, and has been for as long as most of us can remember.
However, school supply list demands have grown and become much more demanding and expensive over the last few years.
These school supply lists don’t look like they did when we went to school decades ago, either. Many lists include flash drives and other electronic devices.
Now, parents can expect to pay over $100 for the average K-12 kid to get everything on the list.
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This could be due to tightening budgets on the schools’ end, but should parents be expected to foot the bill? Many say no, and with good cause.
When you see school supplies this time of year pic.twitter.com/fB2hW1gK0j
— That Awkward Moment (@awkwardposts) August 16, 2014
For instance, Kimberly Brown, mother and school supplies shopper, said that everything on her kid’s list will cost around $400.
“It seems like it gets more and more and more expensive,” Brown told NBC, “It seems like they’re asking for way too much stuff.”
So, if one should decide not to purchase all of the items on the school supply lists, would there be trouble?
Spent $280 on school supplies for a Kindergartner & 4th grader. When I was a kid we needed crayons, Elmer's glue & a box of Kleenex. Damn!?
— TeriKOyahyoubetcha (@terio1429) August 16, 2014
“There’s nothing said to anyone who doesn’t bring it,” teacher Terese Boronda said. School supply lists are simply suggestions, according to some teachers.
However, teachers are many times the ones who must make up for what the parents don’t provide. Sometimes they pay hundreds out of their own hard-earned money, from educating your kids, to supply what is lacking in their classrooms.
When your parents take you out to shop for school supplies that's how you know summer is over
— I SAW THEM (@FyckinStyles) August 16, 2014
That hardly seems fair as teachers don’t make much in the first place.
“I think people take for granted that it just magically appears in their classroom, but it doesn’t,” explains Adrianne Wilson, owner of Twice as Nice resale supply store and teacher.
Good luck to all the parents and teachers out there tackling school supply lists this expensive school year.
Image via Wikipedia Commons
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