Some pencils, a notebook and a ruler aren’t enough for kids heading back to school this year. Throw a USB flash drive, three kinds of notebooks and some hand sanitizer into their backpacks.
Those are the items showing up on local elementary and middle school supply lists. Nontraditional items and a slow national economy aren’t making parents’ annual quest to outfit their kids for school any easier.
“We have boxes and boxes of crayons and markers at home, but it all has to be new,” Stevenson resident Ruth Jones said as she sifted through binders at Target on York Road in Cockeysville with her daughter Brynn, 10, an incoming fifth-grader at Pinewood Elementary. Jones was also shopping for her three other children entering the fourth, third and first grades.
“This year I said not everyone’s getting a new backpack, not everyone’s getting a new lunchbox, unless you really need it,” Jones said.
Nationwide, parents with children entering grades K-12 will spend $594 per family, up 5.5 percent from last year, according to a recent survey by the National Retail Federation. Total back-to-school spending is expected to reach $20.1 billion, including $7.9 billion in clothing.
Those numbers track a general increase in inflation. Government data released last week showed a 5.7 percent jump in inflation in July from the year before, and a 1.7 percent increase from May to July.
“This year’s back-to-school shopper is a bargain hunter at the core,” Phil Rist, vice president of strategy at Ohio-based BIGresearch, said in the National Retail Federation’s survey. “Though parents want to make sure kids are fully prepared for school, they will be comparing prices online and in stores before making any big purchases.”
Checking off the list
Many elementary and middle school lists also include some odd items. Among the requested supplies are boxes of tissues, bottles of hand sanitizer and USB flash drives.
“They always ask for crazy things,” said Laura Martin, a Lutherville resident who was shopping for her two 8-year-olds heading into the third grade, also at Pinewood. “The flash drives are big now. I heard that by middle school, all the assignments come and go on flash drives. I guess it cuts down on paper.”
Flipping through her own small stack of supply lists, Jones said most of the old standbys are still required, and pointed out that most parents improvise as they shop.
“I think you look at this and think you have to get everything on the list,” she said. “But as you go along through the years, you find out it doesn’t really matter.”
With the unusual additions to supply lists and soon-to-be students clamoring for new gear, it’s up to parents to make sure the essentials make it to the classroom.
“They get new backpacks, clipboards in their favorite color,” Martin said. “I have to try to slip in normal stuff like notebooks with regular colors.”
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