Meeting demands of school

Some school supplies are classroom necessities.
By JOSH MOUND
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
At the end of each academic year, trash cans line schools' hallways. The scene is the same from school to school. Cleaning their lockers, pupils cast old pens, papers, folders and notebooks into the bins. The notebooks, hope parents and teachers alike, are filled with more class notes than graphic depictions of teachers. Regardless, they are disposed of quickly. Just nine months before, these now-dismissed school supplies were bought in a late-summer shopping rush.
From the classic simplicity of the No. 2 pencil to the technological wonder of the graphing calculator, education demands a range of materials. Beginning in kindergarten and extending through college, the money doled out for school supplies is an overlooked but irksome cost of education.
The ritual purchase of supplies is a strange rite. Parents must drag their sons and daughters to the store. It is one of the few occasions when a shopping spree on a child's behalf will be resisted. For the most part, school supplies are the blandest of purchases. Rarely do protractors send a child's heart aflutter.
Necessities
Many schools furnish a list of needed supplies to pupils and parents at orientation.
"We start the parents off with something very basic," said Cindy Lasky, Boardman Glenwood Middle School secretary. She noted that these basics consist of the usual suspects such as pencils, pens, notebooks, folders and three-ring binders.
"When students get to their classes they find out specific requirements from teachers," Lasky added.
Each district, and often each school within the district, handles school supplies differently. In some areas, pupils receive a long list of needed items, while in others they are responsible only for a handful of items.
"We provide supplies for our students in the sufficient quantities they need," said Mike McNair, the supervisor of community relations and public information for Youngstown City Schools.
According to McNair, the school system tries to minimize the cost to pupils and parents by providing as many materials as possible. Though pupils are responsible for providing their own uniforms in Youngstown City Schools, they are responsible only for what McNair terms the "natural" supplies such as notebooks, pencils and pens.
In most local school districts, the cost of no-frills supplies throughout grade school and middle school is between $25 and $75. However, costs can vary.
Youngstown schools have a short list of supplies, but the cost of uniforms must be added to the total. Schools in other districts may have lists requiring more than 20 items, and that's just for the first grade. The required materials can range from sandwich bags to a computer headset. Fortunately, the majority of items can be obtained inexpensively from office supply stores during back-to-school sales. Most items -- such as crayons, markers and notebooks -- can be obtained for less than a dollar each, while oddities such as the "fat" glue sticks preferred for younger pupils can be somewhat pricey by comparison.
The cost of 'cool'
Though plain supplies can be found at bargain prices, parents can end up laying down more cash on the checkout counter than anticipated. The overall cost of school supplies can be driven up by pupils' desires to "fit in" and buy the hippest, most "cool" items. Certain products are particularly conducive to this type of "cool"-seeking.
The wild-card item is almost always the backpack. It may be the most obvious example of a school supply in which style can trump substance, leading to the selection of a budget-busting pack over a less-costly alternative. Backpacks, after all, are not merely a sack in which to carry books and gym clothes; they are an extension of a pupil's wardrobe. Just as the selection of the "wrong" shoes or shirt can, in the mind of the pupil, condemn him or her to a life of painful ostracism, so too can the selection of a "lame" backpack.
What style is in with the pupil's peers? The ultra-trendiness of a funky clear-plastic backpack? The arty aloofness of a messenger bag? The gadget-savvy toughness of a huge monstrosity with 27 pockets, fit for overnight backpacking in the Andes?
Popularity dictates the styles, and the most fashionable are usually not the cheapest.
High school
In high school, pupils are generally given the autonomy to select some of their own classes. With a greater array of possible course options and the hierarchical nature of many subjects -- organized into varying levels of challenge -- the school supplies needed by any one child becomes much more individualized and the costs more wide-ranging.
"At ninth grade, that's when you're going to get teacher-by-teacher [supply lists]," Poland Schools Superintendent Dr. Robert L. Zorn said.
For example, an advanced math class may necessitate a graphing calculator, which can cost between $75 and $100 dollars, while a remedial math class would require only a $10 scientific calculator. Other classes, such as art or chemistry, may entail the purchase of further materials or the payment of a one-time fee.
In the end, it's best for parents and children to put debates over the merits of Justin Timberlake and Lebron James three-ring-binders aside. Though the coolness afforded to the lucky pupil displaying such a fine binder is priceless to him or her, it is a waste to the parent shelling out the cash.
Both pupils and parents have valid points of view that the other must struggle to understand. In the end, what's more important: a few cool points or a few bucks? After all, the two binders aren't that different.
They will both find their way into the trash can at the end of the school year.