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Thousands of children went back to school Tuesday, many carrying new lunch bags or backpacks and sporting the latest fashions.
But this year, back-to-school spending around the country dipped as families guarded their spending to counter rising food and gas prices.
And in addition to educational needs, parents are increasingly being asked to fill their children's backpacks with non-curricular items such as paper towels, tissues, hand sanitizer and soap and bring items in bulk, such as reams of paper and multiple pairs of scissors.
The average family will spend nearly $100 on school supplies this fall, according to data from the National Retail Federation. Still, overall back-to-school spending is expected to fall as much as 24 percent from last year, according to a survey by consulting firm Retail Forward of Columbus, Ohio.
David P. Brennan, a marketing professor and co-director of the Institute for Retailing Excellence at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., said shoppers are focusing more on what they truly need and reusing anything they can, especially clothes.
But some spending can't be avoided.
Tanya Ratino of Olney, who considers herself a frugal shopper, spent about $100 buying 90 percent of what the schools had requested for Jack, a fifth-grader at Olney Elementary, and Lauren, an eighth-grader at Rosa Parks Middle. And that doesn't count what James, a junior at Sherwood High School, will need when he gets his list of required supplies.
That seems like a lot to Tanya, especially since her children used to attend a private school.
"Public school supply lists seem a lot more expensive, and they need a lot more stuff," she said. "I am not sure why."
Moxley's three children, Jenna, an eighth-grader at Mary of Nazareth School in Darnestown, and Jeff and Matt, fifth- and first-graders at Great Seneca Creek Elementary in Germantown will be spending less time in the lunch line.
"Last year, I let them buy whenever they wanted to," said Moxley. "At the end of the school year I realized what it was costing."
She estimates that Matt bought lunch four days a week, while Jenna and Jeff bought lunch three times a week, totaling $90 per month. She plans to decrease lunch-at-school spending by limiting them to buying lunch once a week.
"Once a week for each of them would add up to $6.75 per week or $27/month — less than one third the cost, plus a note from mom in the lunch box almost every day!" she wrote in an e-mail to The Gazette.
Paper towels and glue sticks
It's not only parents who open their wallets for back-to-school shopping.
According to a National School Supply and Equipment Association study released in July, 94 percent of core curriculum primary and secondary school teachers reported using their own money on school supplies, spending an average of $395. The amount paid out-of-pocket by teachers had been on the rise since 2001 but dropped 30 percent from $552 during the 2006-07 academic year.
One theory is that parents have been pitching in more, according to Adrienne Watts, vice president of marketing and education at the Silver Spring non-profit.
"The expectations are higher and the lists are longer," Watts said. "… We're definitely seeing parents take on more of a burden, but teachers have always dipped into their own pockets."
Though some school supply lists categorized items as either required or optional, purchasing the supplies are not mandatory, said Chris Cram, a Montgomery County Public Schools spokesman.
"When the teachers put their school supply lists out, it's with the intent that they're probably not going to get all of it," said Eric Wilson, principal of Arcola Elementary in Silver Spring.
At Waters Landing Elementary in Germantown, like many other county elementary schools, students are asked to bring in large quantities of supplies to share with their classmates. One of this year's lists included 20 glue sticks.
"Personally, it doesn't bother me; we don't mind helping out. But I have heard from quite a few people who feel the opposite," said the school's PTA President Denise Ackerman.
Meeting the need
Dozens of groups around Montgomery County help parents get their children the supplies they need.
Patty Reed, of the nonprofit Montgomery Housing Partnership, worried that too much had been ordered for the group's back-to-school charity event at the Great Hope Homes apartments in Silver Spring earlier this month.
But that fear didn't last long. Within minutes, students of all ages — those who will start their first year of school and those finishing their last year of college — came to the event to choose backpacks filled with supplies.
The scene played out at four other eastern Montgomery County apartments owned and operated by the group, thanks to the organization of Silver Spring-based Montgomery Housing Project and donations from the Greater Capitol Area Association of Realtors, which over the past two years have teamed up to deliver more than 200 backpacks and school supplies to excited students in need.
With the economy down and prices up, the annual event was more important than ever this year to help low-income families get ready for school, Reed said.
"They literally could not afford to buy these school supplies," she said.
Staff Writers Meghan Tierney, Amber Parcher, Melissa A. Chadwick, Terri Hogan, Lindsey Robbins and Rebecca McClay contributed to this report.
