What's A School Supply?

Back when Terri started School-Pak, in 1991, it seemed that it was an easier time. We took the teachers' lists, put together an order blank and filled the orders. It didn't take long to do them back then. A few notebooks, folders, some pencils, crayons, a box of markers. We were a little worried that moms would run away from the program since the kits cost somewhere between $20 and $30.

Then the schools were told by their districts that the items always provided by the district just couldn't be handled anymore. With all the increased costs, from teacher salaries and benefits, to the cost of new textbooks, desks, copier paper, administration salary increases, all being met with a decrease in tax revenue, something had to change.

Taxes had to go up to cover the needed expenses. So... how about asking your parents to bring a box of tissues? If every kid in the classroom, say 25, brought a box of $1.50 tissues, the school district could save $37.50 for each classroom. So if there were 4 classrooms per grade and 8 grades per school, there would be a $1,200 savings per school.

So tissues ended up on the list. Next came paper towels. Then baby wipes, hand sanitizer, antibacterial soap, Clorox wipes, ziploc bags (gallon, quart, sandwich, snack), and on and on.
Eventually the costs of the packs started to creep up. That $20 pack became $30 to $35. The $30 pack went to $40-$45 per pack.

Of course, moms that didn't buy packs didn't necessarily go out and buy these grocery store items, so the teachers asked for a little more. Then, knowing that parents might not send more during the year, the lists began to add more quantity for each one.

All this to get to the point. I just received a kindergarten list from a school looking for a quote. It contained 3 Kleenex boxes, 3 rolls of paper towels, 5 containers of baby wipes, a box of freezer ziploc bags, 2 boxes of sandwich ziploc bags and 4 containers of Clorox.

All this works out to $46.55 at our discount prices. So, back to that classroom of 25 kids. Total savings: $1,163.75, and they'll have to find place to store 75 boxes of Kleenex, 75 rolls of paper towels, 125 containers of baby wipes, 25 boxes of freezer bags, 50 boxes of sandwich bags and 100 containers of Clorox.

Bad news for moms of twins!

I read in the paper this past week that Kimberly-Clark will be laying off 1500 workers as sales are down. Not to schools.

By the way, they still need a rest mat, backpack and a whole lot of school supplies.

Don't get me wrong. We don't mind selling all this stuff, but someone ought to do a reality check. This is coming out of family pockets at a time when the economy is in trouble.