OPINION: NJ’s school supply crisis: Why parents are left paying for basic classroom needs

3-minute read

With my youngest now a high school senior, it’s been a while since I had to make that early August trip to Staples with a school supply list in hand, hoping to snag those Spider-Man folders. But curiosity got the best of me, so I decided to see what today’s parents are up against.

I pulled up a fifth-grade supply list from a New Jersey school and bought everything on Amazon. The total? $106.70 — just for classroom essentials. That doesn’t include the backpack, school clothes, gym gear or winter wear like hats, gloves and boots. And forget about art supplies, sports equipment or renting a musical instrument.

Families with children in elementary through high school spend an average of $874 to prepare their kids for school.

What’s worse is that some of these items on the list aren’t even for the kids — they’re for the classroom. Disinfectant wipes, dry erase markers, erasers — parents are now expected to cover these, too. 

And don’t even get me started on Sharpies — you can’t buy just one; it’s a four-pack or nothing. And really, does my kid actually need 72 Ticonderoga pencils?

This is what public education looks like in New Jersey today — parents are footing the bill for what should be covered by the schools themselves. And let’s not forget that many underpaid teachers already dip into their own pockets to cover other classroom needs.

When I partnered with the Morris County Interfaith Food Pantry as a collection site for their backpack drive, I never expected the flood of calls, emails, and visits it would trigger. For every one person who came to drop off supplies, five or six more showed up asking for help because they simply couldn’t afford what the school required.

And then there were the complaints — angry, baffled parents who couldn’t understand why, in a state that spends nearly $40 billion on education, with an average per-pupil cost of $26,970, they still had to buy basic classroom supplies benefiting all the students.

“Seventy percent of my taxes go to the local school, and they can’t buy a spiral notebook?” they asked, incredulous.

When families are driving 30 minutes to my office because they can’t afford school supplies, it’s clear we’re not dealing with just a lack of funds — we’re dealing with a crisis of misplaced priorities.

But not all hope is lost. Right down the road from my district office on Main Street in Chester, the local school board passed a novel idea: All supplies will be paid for and provided to every student this year, ensuring a “consistent educational experience.”

But to make this work statewide, we need leadership from Trenton. Education budgets are tight because of unfunded mandates, and many districts have suffered serious cuts in state aid. We shouldn’t just ask local taxpayers and parents to keep footing the bill — we need to shift that responsibility to the state.

Why not create a fund within the Department of Education specifically for school supplies? It could be financed by restraining the nearly billion dollars lawmakers add to the budget each year for their pet projects.

This is a commonsense fix that prioritizes students. It could also be a first step to finally fixing the more complicated broken education funding formula, which picks winners and losers among districts.

I remember the embarrassment I felt when I came to school without the supplies I needed. My father, a single dad raising three girls on public assistance, protested the “ridiculous” supply lists by sending us to school without them. I’ll never forget the pit in my stomach and the flush on my face when the teacher said, “Take out your …” and I had nothing to take out.

Those were not so different times, and I want to believe that in New Jersey — a state that prides itself on offering a world-class education for every child — no student will start the school year behind because they don’t have the tools they need.

We need a solution like providing school supplies, even if it means no more Spider-Man folders. It’s a small price to pay to ensure all children start the school year on equal footing.

Aura Dunn has been an assemblywoman since 2019. She represents parts of Morris and Passaic counties in the 25^th Legislative District.