A little while back I wrote what seems to be becoming an annual feature: the "We didn’t get our school supply list in time for the tax-free weekend" post.  Well, I think I discovered something even worse than not getting the list: a store that pretends to have your school’s list and uses it to shill stuff that might even be on the school’s banned list.

According to blogger Kelby Carr her local Wal-Mart provides shoppers with school supply lists that purport to be from the schools and/or teachers themselves.  And in the comments to her post you’ll find just a few people with their own, similar stories.

As Kelby points out it’s one thing to provide a "suggested list" and quite another to position your school supply list as being "official" when in fact it’s not.  She also makes a great point that many families that shop at Wal-Mart may not have a lot of disposable income, so if they end up buying some unnecessary items it could really hurt them.

Esbee wrote today that she finished up her school supply shopping with relatively little damage to her pocketbook, and she also points to a Letter to the Editor in the Winston-Salem Journal that asks why our public education system isn’t able to provide supplies for children despite all the money we spend on it.   Although I think the letter writer was a little too snarky and the letter was written in such a way that he sounds like he’s blaming the poor for their problems (he wrote "needy" children), he has a valid point when he asks why we can spend so much money on education yet not find a way to make sure kids have paper, pencils, protractors, compasses, etc.

I can still remember the kids who showed up on the first day in clothes they were embarrassed to wear because they were old, out of style, torn up, etc.  The kids’ families literally didn’t have the money for new jeans so they wore their older brothers’.  Those same kids were on assisted lunches and tried to hide the fact.  So you can imagine the stress their parents were under when it came time to buy supplies, and I’m sure it made this time of year that much harder on them. I’m also sure that today there are many families feeling that same kind of stress.

So let’s ask our leaders why things are the way they are, but let’s also make sure that our community’s children get what they need for school.  It’s only right.  Esbee also points to an article about organizations and individuals who are helping kids get what they need.  Let’s all do what we can to help.