A LIGHTER LOAD?
Back-to-school spending remains costly, but it’s down from last year
Back-to-school supply lists can be long — folders, glue sticks, pencils, notebooks. Not to mention new school uniforms and items needed for baseball practice, cheerleading or glee club. Shopping carts brim with goods this time of year, and they often come with a hefty price tag.
Although families across the nation can still expect to pay several hundred dollars per student for
school supplies and activities this year, there is some good news.
According to the 2018 Backpack Index, a study that tracks classroom supply and fee costs, the cost of outfitting a child for back to school fell slightly this year.
The study found that parents can expect to pay $637 for elementary students, $941 for middle-school students and $1,355 for high-school students, on average. That’s about a 6 percent decrease from last year’s expected costs.
The study’s authors determined the prices by randomly selecting schools in eight states and pricing the back-toschool items at major national retailers.
“While the 2018 index found some good news for families, parents continue to pay significant sums to equip their children for a successful school year,” says George Mokrzan, chief economist for Huntington Bank, which coreleased the Backpack Index.
The amount Arizona parents must shell out for supplies depends on the district, the type of school and the age of the child. Some parents reported spending as little as $25, others more than $200 for supplies alone.
Many families struggle to keep up. In Arizona, more than 600,000 children receive free or reduced lunch at school. Almost 1,000 schools have a majority of students who qualify for the lunch program.
As president of Arizona’s teacher’s union, Joe Thomas said he has seen the struggle firsthand. He recalled a young girl whose family couldn’t afford eyeglasses. The Arizona Education Association picked up the bill.
If families can’t afford the essentials, they don’t have enough money for a backpack or other supplies, he said.
“Those types of needs go beyond what schools have to supply, but it describes the need,” Thomas said.
And parents aren’t the only ones straining to supply children with what they need for school.
Although it’s called the Backpack Index, the study’s co-partner recognizes the shared burden of outfitting children for the first day of school.
“Regardless of reduction in cost, the price of school supplies remains a challenge for low-income families and for teachers who often supplement supplies for their classrooms,” Dale Erquiaga, president and CEO of Communities in Schools, said in a statement.
The National Center for Education Statistics, a federal group within the U.S. Department of Education, found that 94 percent of U.S. teachers spent their own money on supplies in 2014, the last recorded school year. Those teachers spent an average of nearly $500 without reimbursements, according to the report.
Arizona educators have reported paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars to get their classrooms ready for the school year.
Take Caitlin Velasco, for example. The eighth-grade teacher at Rincon Vista Middle School in Tucson has spent $100 just for posters that her district requires.
Over the course of the year, Velasco budgets about $1,500 for classroom supplies.
Teachers largely place the blame on Arizona’s Legislature, which has squeezed the education budget since 2008. By 2015, Arizona had reduced its budget more than any other state. The result? Class sizes increased, while extracurricular programs and money for school supplies, among other things, took a hit.
“It’s frustrating because that limits what you can do in the school,” Thomas said.
Teachers’ discontent over classroom limitations was a factor in Red For Ed. The movement grew into the largest teacher walkout in recent American history, lasting days, prompting the closure of more than 1,000 schools and affecting more than 850,000 students.
While teachers largely received the pay raises they sought, their pleas for more education funding, including for classroom supplies, were unheeded.
A proposed ballot measure for the next election, Invest in Ed, would nearly double income-tax rates for the wealthiest Arizonans and redirect the money to public education.
At the district level, funding for school supplies often changes year to year, Thomas said. The constant is that state teachers continue to reach into their own pockets to prepare their classrooms.
“It depends on where you are, but overwhelmingly, what’s in the classroom is what teachers bring,” Thomas said.
The problem intensifies in lower-income areas.
Annie and Mitchell Conway, married educators, expect most of their students to come to class without supplies, so they’ve spent $600 and plan to spend $500 more throughout the year.
They both work at Title 1, or lower-income, schools that have large minority, refugee and immigrant populations. In a message to The Arizona Republic, Annie wrote,” Our kids aren’t able to afford many supplies and what the district provides isn’t enough.”