School supplies | A burden for our children?

It’s back to school for thousands of children and I would like to share a reflection that I have had for several years at this time of year.

Marie-Eve Lavoie
Resident of Laval

I am a mother of two children and my youngest will start her fifth year of primary school. This year again, I had the task of buying school supplies from the list provided by his school. The learning books in mathematics, French and English must be purchased from a specific bookstore, which provides parents with these books which have been pre-ordered by the said school. Why were these notebooks not delivered directly to the school, then given to the children at the start of the school year?

The purchase of school supplies is the responsibility of all parents of students attending an elementary school in Quebec. Why is this task not carried out by the schools? Why ask thousands of parents to do it?

Admittedly, this would require resources from the schools to take care of the orders and then to distribute the material in the classes, according to the needs and requirements of the teachers. However, buying school supplies in large quantities would probably save money.

This approach would also have other advantages. First, the teachers would be assured that their students have all their material on time and that their particular requests are respected (ex. color of duo-tang). For the students, they would not have to carry all this material on the first day of school in a backpack which is often too heavy for them. For parents, many would certainly pay an amount for these school supplies rather than having to shop for them themselves.

This approach would be respectful of the environment and would promote responsible consumption by allowing the recovery of used but undamaged equipment at the end of the school year for use the following year.

Less material would thus end up in the trash because it would become useless for many families and only the missing material would be purchased at the start of the new school year.

I hope that my reflection will be able to feed that of school principals, school service centers and the Ministry of Education on current ways of doing things and on possible avenues for improvement.