Huntington Bank report shows rise in school costs

By KALEA HALL

khall@vindy.com

The costs for parents and for area school districts has increased from last year ­— one bank says as much as 20 percent.

Huntington Bank released its Backpack Index report in July to show the hefty costs for parents to send their elementary, middle-school and high-school students back to school.

For elementary students, Huntington shows parents spending $642; $918 for middle-school students; and $1,284 for high-school students.

“The cost relative to today where it was 10 years ago has risen significantly,” said David Janofa, Poland superintendent.

The Backpack Index has been done for the past eight years as a way to share the information with Huntington Bank communities.

The index represents those areas and includes the cost of school supplies from backpacks to calculators. The list also includes extracurricular-activity items such as school fees, field-trip fees and musical-instrument-rental costs.

School officials in the area say their staffs have narrowed the school-supply lists down to help ease the cost for parents. In Poland, they have also reduced extracurricular-activity fees.

“The day and age of school systems footing the bill, I don’t think that will ever come back,” said Vince Colaluca, superintendent for Austintown.

A loss of funding from the state has pushed some of those costs onto parents, Colaluca said, but it is a partnership between the district and the parents to serve the students.

“You can be pretty economical about it,” Colaluca said.

Costs also have increased for school districts.

Janofa said supply costs have risen an easy 10 percent over the past couple of years for office supplies and other items for the district.

Colaluca said Austintown has done what it can to save taxpayer dollars.

“All the costs have gone up, and we have to live within that budget,” Colaluca said.