Tag: back to school

4 Tips to Help You Save on Back-to-School Shopping

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After the holidays, back-to-school shopping is the second-largest spending season of the year. The average household spends nearly $688 annually on school supplies, new clothing, and electronics like laptops and calculators, according to the National Retail Federation. With school supply lists getting longer and costs rising, more and more parents are searching for quality items at a reasonable price. With this in mind, we’ve outlined four of our favorite money saving tips for the back-to-school shopping season.

1. Do Your Research

Walking into a brick-and-mortar store may encourage you to buy items that aren’t on your list. Why not save time (and money) and hit the web? Nearly 40 percent of parents will turn to the Internet for back-to-school shopping in 2018, the National Retail Federation predicts. The reasons vary, but two stand out – for one, online retailers specializing in back-to-school products typically negotiate lower prices than traditional retailers. Secondly, purchasing school supplies online enables you to ship your order directly to your door, saving you a trip to the store (or multiple stores). Beyond internet research, ask other parents where they buy school supplies and where they’ve seen the best deals.

2. Buy in Bulk

Back-to-school basics such as paper, pens, folders and pencils are available in large quantities at lower prices. Stocking up on these fundamentals will allow you to supply your student(s) throughout the year. We recommend purchasing bulk school supplies online so the larger boxes can be delivered to you. Our exclusive Big Box™ line of school supplies is a great bulk option, with quantities ranging from 150 units to 500 units per box. Plus, if you have leftover supplies at the end of the year, consider donating them to your student’s school or teacher.

3. Buy Now, Save Later

The back-to school rush typically begins in late July, giving parents a limited amount of time to purchase mandatory school supplies. This short period is often chaotic and stressful, and the last-minute rushing can cause families to exceed their budgets. Consider shopping throughout the year for items that can be used year-round, like pencils, notebooks and even crayons, as many retailers choose to have school-supply promotions during the off-peak season.

4. Shared Classroom Supplies

Classroom supplies are a newer addition to many school supply lists, and a growing number of teachers now request for incoming students to bring shareable items such as tissues, cleaning supplies and washable markers. Rather than increasing your household spend, team up with other parents and invest together. Several of these products can be purchased in large case packs known as “classpacks.” Get your student’s class quality products without breaking the bank.

We hope these tips help you save more this back-to-school season. As a reminder, if you have a surplus of back-to-school items, including backpacks, consider donating them to your local teachers or schools.

Back-to-School 2018: Here’s Where Teachers Can Get Discounts on Supplies

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They could be the three words that parents most love to hear: back to school.

For many, August will see children heading back to classrooms for the start of a new school year. For teachers, it means getting a classroom stocked and ready as their students return. It can also mean a hit to a teacher’s wallet. A growing list of retailers are offering teachers some relief in the form of discounts and special offers. Below is a list of some deals from online and brick-and-mortar retailers:

  • Academic Superstore: With some exceptions, part- or full-time students, teachers, or faculty members attending or employed by an accredited, degree-granting institution (K-12 or higher-ed) are eligible for a discount on school supplies.
  • A.C. Moore: Get 15% off your purchase with a valid teacher ID.
  • Barnes & Noble: Get 20% off the publishers’ prices for books purchased for the classroom. 
  • Bookmans: Get 20% off purchases when you sign up for Project Educate.
  • Costco: Teachers who sign up for a new membership can get over $60 in savings with a valid teacher ID.
  • Container Store: Sign up for the Organized Teacher Discount Program through Dec. 31, 2018, and get email notice of sales and discounts.
  • DickBlick Art Supplies: Get school supply discounts and free lesson plans.
  • Discount School Supply: Get discounts on school supplies to U.S. educators.
  • DollarDays: Get wholesale prices on school supplies. For information on additional discounts, call 877-837-9569 or email sales@dollardays.com.
  • First Book: Get 50% to 90% off retail book prices if you are in one of these groups.
  • GelPro: Get 25% off your online purchases with a verified teacher ID.
  • Half Price Books: Teachers get a 10% discount when they sign up for an Educator Discount Card.
  • Hobby Lobby: Get a 10% discount on in-store purchases. You must pay with a check or bank card provided by your school.
  • Home Depot: Teachers in public schools can apply for a tax-free exemption on classroom purchases.
  • JoAnn Fabric: Get 15% off both in-store and online with valid teacher ID.
  • K12 School Supplies: Get a 30% to 80% discount on closeout and clearance school supplies.
  • Kennelly Keys Music: Get a 20% discount on orders of books and sheet music made through the phone or in-store only. Call 425-771-7020 or email websales@kennellykeysmusic.com for more information. 
  • Kiwi Crate: Get discounts on bulk classroom orders.
  • LakeShore Learning: Join the Lakeshore Learning Teacher’s Club and get 15% off in-store purchases.
  • Michaels: Get a 15% discount on in-store purchases.
  • Naked Binder: Get special discounts on nontoxic, environmentally safe and 100%-recyclable school products. Email info@nakedbinder.com or call 877-446-2533.
  • Oriental Trading: Get discounted teaching supplies. 
  • PBS: PB Learning Media offers teachers free access to digital curriculum-based resources.
  • Pencils.com: Get 10% off all orders with a valid teacher ID. 
  • Quail Ridge Books: K-12 teachers can get a complimentary membership to the Readers’ Club, which includes a 30% discount on The New York Times hardcover bestsellers and a 10% discount on most items for personal purchase. You can also get a 215 discount on books for classroom use. 
  • Raymond Geddes School Supplies: Sign up for a Raymond Geddes School Supplies account and get 10% off your next order. 
  • Scholastic Teacher Store: Get special discounts and sales on books, software, curriculum programs and teaching resources. 
  • Silhouette: Silhouette offers a discount to U.S. and Canadian teachers. Send your account address, school name and location, and teaching certificate to education@silhouetteamerica.com.
  • Timesavers for Teachers: Get 20% off purchases when you use the code “timesavers.”
  • Yoobi: Elementary schools that have more than 70% of students enrolled in the free or reduced-price lunch program can get free classroom packs.

Original article here: https://www.wftv.com/news/trending-now/back-to-school-2018-here-is-where-teachers-can-get-discounts-on-supplies/792804121

Private-label Products: Bringing Value to Our Nonprofit Partners

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Private-label offerings are playing an increasingly critical role in some of the country’s largest online marketplaces, with house brands now accounting for as much as 30% of all sales. This trend not only indicates changes in the way consumers shop, especially when searching by brand and price, but also presents a new challenge for online retailers seeking to remain competitive.

For DollarDays, developing affordable, private-label brands as a means to better serve its large nonprofit customer base was a no-brainer. The company launched its Big Box™ bulk school supplies line in spring of 2017, contributing to a reported sale of more than 11 million units of school supplies annually. Big Box™ encompasses a full line of high-quality, low-cost school supplies, pre-filled backpacks and pencil pouches, and flip-flops, all of which has been hand-picked by DollarDays’ in-house merchandising team. The company plans to expand the line to include additional school essentials through the end of 2018.

“We understood private labels had to become part of our go-to-market strategy,” explains Shelly Chaney, Vice President and General Manager of DollarDays. “Online shopping means our customers have the ability to compare products and have better visibility on quality and price points. With private-label lines, we can better hit these targets, giving even more value to our nonprofit partners.”

Encouraged by the success of their Big Box™ line, DollarDays next pursued the opportunity to create a backpack label that met their nonprofit partners’ needs for premium bags at an entry-level price for backpack drives and other back-to-school initiatives. The resulting Forward™ backpack line, rolled out in early 2018, features a more spacious front pocket, reinforced strap-to-bag seams and contoured, fully adjustable shoulder straps with mesh. This attention to detail helps ensure Forward™ backpacks can compete against more expensive brand-name lines.

“With our private-label brands, we’re able to customize every aspect to the needs of our very niche consumers, like nonprofits,” says Melissa Castelo, Senior Product Manager at DollarDays. “It enables us to control not only the brand positioning but the distribution and activation, as well.”

By building out its own labels, DollarDays has found new ways to differentiate itself during the search process and drive destination shopping. Additionally, the company can continue to offer national brands and remain competitive in a “good, better, best” scenario while still capturing market share with an aggressively low price point. Through the remainder of 2018, DollarDays will continue to explore other product categories that may help them increase their presence outside of school essentials.

“Consumers today expect exceptional products at a price point that is cost effective,” stated Chaney. “We’re working on cultivating other private-label lines that focus on helping our nonprofit partners meet the fundamental needs of communities around the world.”

DollarDays Launches Affordable Backpacks for Nonprofits, Schools

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DollarDays, a strategic platform for charities, nonprofits and other betterment organizations to purchase wholesale goods, today unveiled its Forward™ collection of backpacks. The company developed this exclusive, retail-ready line to better assist these groups with fulfilling their outreach projects and other missions.

“Every child deserves the right tools to support their educational journey,” explained Shelly Chaney, DollarDays’ Vice President of Merchandising and Design. “There’s no reason to sacrifice quality for price when it comes to something kids use over and over, like backpacks. That’s why we’ve invested in our own line – to give our customers a premium option at an affordable price.”

Forward™ backpacks start at $2.50 USD per bag and come in three sizes – 15”, 17” and 19” – making them ideal for children from preschool through college. Other features include expanded eight- and 12-color assortments with traditional, neutral and trending shades; a full-width, zippered front pocket; reinforced strap-to-bag seams to aid in preventing rips, tears or other damage; and contoured, padded shoulder straps with breathable mesh backs.

The announcement of the Forward™ line comes almost one year to the date after DollarDays rolled out its first private-label venture, the Big Box™ brand. Big Box™, which encompasses a broad range of basic school supplies and pre-filled school supply kits, outperformed expectations in their first year, and Forward™ is following suit; during the collection’s six-week pre-ordering period, customers purchased nearly 45,000 Forward™ backpacks, or approximately 1,700 cases.

In line with its corporate mission, DollarDays will provide all customers who purchase Forward™ backpacks with a 5% merchandise credit to be donated to the school, nonprofit or charity of their choice. Additionally, all Forward™ backpacks can ship same-day from the company’s warehouse in Dallas, Texas, to customers located in the contiguous United States, depending on the time at which the order is placed.

To learn more about DollarDays’ Forward™ backpacks, visit dollardays.com/forward.

About DollarDays
Founded in 2001, DollarDays is the leading supplier of wholesale goods for nonprofits, businesses and betterment organizations. By sourcing affordable products, backed by exceptional service and meaningful community engagement, we strive to inspire and empower our customers to accomplish their missions to improve the lives of people around the world. Recognized as the City of Phoenix Mayor’s Office “2018 Product Exporter of the Year” and Internet Retailer Magazine’s “B2B E-commerce Marketer of the Year” for 2016 and 2017, DollarDays is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. For more information, visit www.dollardays.com.

Back to School Bucks Seasonal Trends, Becomes Big Business

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As national uproar spreads around teacher pay and educational funding, questions are also being raised around whether schools are increasingly underfunded for classroom supplies. Class supply lists continue to grow and are becoming more costly for families nationwide. DollarDays, a premier supplier of school supplies, recently released a report that up to 85% of supplies were being purchased outside of the traditional month of August, indicating more teachers and parents are making purchases throughout the year for items normally supported with tax dollars.

“The average class list costs parents more than $400 per year per child,” explains Shelly Chaney, Vice President and General Manager of DollarDays. “[W]here we used to see back to school as a seasonal event, we are now seeing individuals making purchases throughout the year, often to offset the needs in classrooms.” […]

When it comes to school supplies, DollarDays is one of the most popular back-to-school destinations [online]. [The company currently] offers over 75,000 [bulk] products sold at wholesale [or below-wholesale] prices. [A]fter 17 years in the industry, [DollarDays] truly [knows] how to source and support the products that ensure retailers keep high margins without being concerned with warehousing product.

“Stocking the shelves with school supplies is about finding the right mix of offerings,” says Chaney. “We can partner with retailers to determine the right category mix, select the correct packaging options and determine whether planograms are the right methodology for their space, all while offsetting costs. This level of partnership ensures our customers have the right solution to sell these products and meet the needs of their own customers.”

As more schools face economic challenges and many districts transition to year-round curriculums, it’s no doubt […] retailers will continue to see the back-to-school industry break out of the traditional seasonal time period. In fact, it may be just a matter of time before school supplies become routine items for any retailer’s product mix.

Original article here: https://independentretailer.com/2018/05/08/back-to-school-bucks-seasonal-trends-and-becomes-big-business/

Teacher Spend Hundreds out of Pocket on School Supplies

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Parents aren’t the only ones who spend big on back-to-school supplies. Thousands of teachers around the United States offset their school supply budgets by forking over close to $600 of their own money just for the most basic of supplies. Some of the most sought-after items include staples, copy paper, holiday decorations and colored pencils, but, for many educators, the list has grown to hygiene items and clothing. It’s these day-to-day necessities that leave teachers scrambling to ensure they have the items their classrooms need to run smoothly.

Two-thirds of all classroom supplies are purchased by teachers, and more than 91 percent of teachers offset the lack of basic supplies for students that fall under the poverty line. The costs quickly add up, and out-of-pocket teaching supplies can equal close to $1 billion every year.

The Impact of a Well-stocked Classroom

Sadly, without these expenditures, many classrooms would lack the resources children need to learn or to participate in creative projects, and with the majority of public school students living under the poverty line, many parents simply can’t afford to pay for supplies.

When teachers are able to provide their impoverished students with adequate supplies, their learning experience is transformed – their limitations become opportunities and equality in the classroom environment.

Finding a Solution

The year 2018 has carried a continuous debate around education policy, school choice, vouchers and teacher training. Budgets are spread further and tax dollars are intensely debated. What we must remember is that students need tools to learn, and it’s incumbent on parents, school districts and policymakers to fight for these resources. Parents must urge their local school districts and state legislatures to adequately fund education, including instituting programs that outfit teachers and schools with the supplies students need in order to learn. Teachers must remain vocal about the supplies they need the most and advocate for the districts that have the greatest needs. We should not let a lack of basic supplies keep them from doing their jobs. It’s time to support our teachers, give them the tools they need and ensure that all classrooms are well stocked throughout the school year. Our children deserve better, and understanding there’s a need helps to create conversations about solutions.

It’s our hope that every classroom will soon have access to unlimited supplies pencils, pens, highlighters, chalk erasers, crayons, STEM toys, books and highlighters – simply, tools that help our children learn. The basics can seem so basic in the right light.

School Supply Costs Continue to Rise

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From backpacks to binders, to USB drives and glue sticks, the rising cost of school supplies is putting a definite pinch on the average families’ budget. When families are simply unable to choose between the grocery bill and the school supply list, it’s our children that suffer, often creating a class system in our public schools.

Experts say school districts have considerably less funds for supplies, so they are forced to push the costs onto families or even more likely the teachers. Basic classroom staples like markers, construction paper, cleaning supplies, tissues, copy paper and printer ink become limited and must be stretched throughout the year. While the requests may seem like mild annoyances for a middle-class family, it can feel like an insurmountable burden for poor families, who already struggle just to outfit their own kids for school. Many parents have to make the difficult choice between basic grooming and hygiene necessities or back to school supplies, prior to the school year starting. It can just be too much of a stretch for them.

  • This year the supply list for an elementary school student costs about $650, up from an inflation-adjusted $375 in 2006,according to the annual Huntington Bank’s Backpack Index.
  • A middle-school student might run $1,000; up from $525. And sending a fully equipped high-schooler off to class can cost nearly $1,500 — compared to $800 just 10 years ago.
  • All together that’s an average of about $1,000 — nearly the same as the average U.S. monthly mortgage payment.

If there is more than one child in the household those costs can multiply and often begin to feel overwhelming. In fact, a recent research poll done by the nonprofit Junior Achievement, states 60 percent of U.S. parents struggle to pay for their school supplies.

Buying in Bulk Saves Throughout the Year

Buying school supplies in bulk is one of the best ways to save money, especially over the long run. If you’re looking for ways to get more “bang” for your buck as well as keep a nice hefty stock of items you use every single day in your classroom or in your student’s bag, then shopping bulk wholesale is the only way to go.

Check out these amazing products that you can use all season long.

The Organizations That Help

As the need for school supplies increase nationally, more organizations are attempting to step up to fill the need. Here are a few partners that currently support back to school and school supply shortages:

Back-to-School Promotion Ideas for Small Businesses

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What’s the status of your back-to-school marketing plan? According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), the average family will spend more freely on school and college supplies this year. It expects total spending for K-12 and college to reach $75.8 billion, up from last year’s $68 billion.

The annual NRF survey, conducted by Prosper Insights and Analytics, suggests that more than 50% of shoppers will start back-to-school shopping three weeks to one month before school starts, while 22% will start shopping with only one or two weeks left.

As we head toward September and into the final few weeks before students head back to school, Small Business Computing asked small-business owners to share details of their most successful back-to-school promotions and tips.

Be Helpful: Back to School is Stressful

Getting ready to head back to school can be stressful for your customers—both the parents and the students. Nicole Gardner, Dormify‘s COO, recommends that business owners personalize their back-to-school campaigns to their audience and to be helpful to their customers.

“Be helpful. It’s a stressful time for many parents and full of anxiety for students. Offer resources and accommodate customer requests where you can,” she advised. “Figure out if you’re speaking to the student or to the parent, and adjust your tone, your messaging and your offers accordingly. Use all the customer data you have and get hyper-targeted; we find email to be the most effective marketing channel for accomplishing this.”

Coupons & Discounts Attract Back-to-School Shoppers

Mike Catania, CTO of PromotionCode, works with 15,000 retailers, a third of which are small businesses that regularly compete against national brands and big-box retailers. When it comes to the back-to-school rush, Catania recommends coupons as a particularly effective marketing strategy for local businesses.

“Because they’re local, these businesses can tailor their offers not only to a specific school name (to build associative brand recognition), but they can also provide tiered offers based on different grade levels,” says Catania. “For example, a coupon offer that gives X% off storewide (where ‘X’ represents the grade level of the incoming student) has been an extremely popular offer.”

Celebrating students also creates a positive back-to-school promotion for retailers. Doug Messer, co-founder and CEO of University Beyond, said the company’s most successful back-to-school promotion was a holiday they created.

“We call it ‘National Student Discount Day,’ and last year, we had more than 100 brands participate,” said Messer. This year, “[A]ll participating brands will come together to promote our website via Twitter, drive a mass audience to view and use the available discounts, and sign up for our site. We already have major enterprise companies reaching out to participate again this year.”

Use Social to Talk up Back-to-School Promotions

Social media is a good way to cash in on local back-to-school shopping. “Local social media is far more influential than national. Posting that coupon to social media and tagging the school for which it applies will help move it along to parents who, in turn, can make it go locally viral with minimal advertising efforts on your part,” says PromotionCode’s Catania.

Daniela Arango, public relations specialist for DoItWiser, also supports using social media to boost back-to-school promotions. Arango says that small-business owners can create excitement around back-to-school sales on social media by launching a pre-sale ad campaign to generate expectations around your offers and products.

She also recommends offering online coupons or promotions to visitors and clients on your website in exchange for subscriptions to your mailing list or follows on social media. “Your customers get a discount on their back-to-school purchases, and you build a community around your brand.”

Arango suggests that businesses take advantage of user-generated content to show how your customers use your products at school. This gives your future clients a sense of closeness, trust and familiarity with your brand.

Back-to-School Promotions for B2B

B2B businesses also find success with back-to-school promotions by taking advantage of email campaigns, social feeds and good deals.

Marc Joseph, former CEO and president of DollarDays, a B2B business that sells 225,000 general merchandise products by the case at wholesale and closeout prices to entrepreneurs, small businesses and nonprofit organizations, explains.

“Today, our banners feature office and school supplies, back-to-school clothing, accessories, writing instruments, and backpacks. All of these products tie together because we want to be the one-stop shop for all back-to-school needs,” says Joseph. “This also works with brick-and-mortar stores or online B2C sellers. Once a customer comes into your store, you don’t want them to leave. The best promotion is to offer everything they need.”

For example, DollarDays sells backpacks with a per-unit price starting at $3.19. Email campaigns and social media promote the item to draw people to the website. Once prospective customers land on the site for a backpack, they can see all the school supplies they need to fill the backpack—all in one place.

How to Promote Back-to-School Outside of Retail

Many back-to-school promotions center heavily on retail stores and online shops, but many small-business owners can capitalize on students and parents shopping for school-related deals. Ajmal Saleem, owner of Suprex Learning, a startup tutoring company, says the back-to-school promotion is especially important.

“Parents commonly seek our tutoring services during the summer to help their kids keep up their skills during the break; however, back-to-school is an excellent time to offer promotions, and parents are willing to spend the money if you can show them it’s a good investment,” says Saleem. “We offer bulk tutoring packages right before the school year starts. When a parent purchases more hours of tutoring, it not only provides us with sustained business, it helps parents keep their children’s momentum going.”

Even vCalc, a crowdsourced calculator-creation platform, offers back-to-school promotions. The vCalc platform invites people to use math knowledge to solve everyday challenges and to build and share free equations, algorithms, constants and collections.

Kurt Heckman, vCalc’s president, said they ran a student contest last fall that went so well that it’s now an annual back-to-school event. Called Coding for Community, this contest encourages students to use the vCalc platform to create free online calculators for the benefit of their communities. Prize money ranges from $25 for honorable mentions up to $1,000 for two grand-prize winners.

“The results have been surprising. Students have built free calculators that are now being used all over the world,” says Heckman. “This annual contest is a terrific way to get our product into the hands of more students every fall, and it’s now an ongoing part of our back-to-school promotion regimen.”

Check out another blog here: https://blog.dollardays.com/2021/06/21/ideas-for-starting-a-small-business/

Teachers Create Our Future

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All of us have bragged about the great teachers we’ve had who have helped us along in life, but not every teacher is wonderful. Some teachers just don’t strive to improve and help kids.

According to About Education, ineffective teachers share similar characteristics:

  • They lack the ability to manage their classrooms. If they can’t control the students in their classrooms, they won’t be able to teach them effectively.
  • [They] lack real content knowledge. They will quickly lose credibility with their students if they do not know what they are teaching, making them instantly ineffective.
  • [They] lack motivation. [These] teachers do not challenge or stay engaged with their students.
  • [They] lack organizational skills, [making them] unproductive and overwhelmed.
  • [They possess] poor people skills, which affects students, parents, other staff members and administrators [and] can quickly become the downfall of a teacher.

On the other hand, greatly effective teachers:

  • [L]ove to teach and have a passion for teaching young people
  • [D]emonstrate a caring attitude
  • [R]elate to their students one on one
  • [T]hink outside the box
  • [A]re willing to be creative and adaptive to individual needs
  • [A]re proactive rather than reactive
  • [A]re excellent communicators to everyone who surrounds a student
  • [C]hallenge their students to do better

[W]hy would anyone ever want to become a teacher? The budgets for our classrooms dwindle each year, and teachers continue to take money out of their own pockets to provide their students with supplies. [S]chools are getting older, and fewer new schools are being built annually. Based on the school shootings over the last few years, teachers must now worry every day about the security of their students and themselves. […]

[Despite] these [concerns], teachers continue to inspire, and new, idealist[ic] college graduates are joining their ranks. This year, 284,000 new teachers joined public schools, compared to 222,000 a decade ago, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. Public schools employed 3.1 million teachers this year, putting the average pupil-to-teacher ratio at 16 to 1, […] the same as it was in 2000. Public school expenditures this year were $634 billion, [or] $12,605 for each student. The […] average [percentage] of high school [students who dropped out fell to] 6.8% […] from […] 10.9% in 2000. The percentage of students enrolling in college in the fall immediately following high school […] is 65.9%; in 1976, it was 48.8%. Looking at the decline in dropouts and the increase in kids starting college, […] our current crop of teachers must be doing something right.

It does pay to stay in school. Today’s working adults age[s] 25 to 34 with a bachelor’s degree earn around $46,900 [annually], while those with an associate’s degree earn around $35,700. High school graduates earn around $30,000 [per year], and the median is $22,900 for those without a high school diploma.

The fact that the United States is ranked the 14th best educational country in the world according to Pearson is a real wake-up call. […] South Korea is ranked first, followed by Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Finland, the United Kingdom and Canada. Pearson found the top-ranked countries offer teachers higher status in society and have a culture emphasizing education. Society’s attitude about education and its underlying moral purpose seems to be stronger in the top-rated countries. […]

It continues to amaze me that people want to become teachers. New teachers make around $36,000 [annually] and can earn $58,000 after 20 years, so striking it rich does not seem to be the reason to pursue this noble career. These teachers have a spirit that the rest of us just don’t possess. This school year, teachers took an average of $513 out of their own pockets for classroom supplies, food for hungry kids in their classes, instructional materials and books for their student. […]

It is up to concerned citizens and parents to make a difference for our kids and give teachers more help. The National Teacher Assistance Organization gathers donations […] for professional assistance to teachers. At Donors Choose, public school teachers post classroom project requests, and you can donate to the project that most inspires you. At Class Wish, you can help fund any teacher in the country. […]

It takes an entire village to bring quality education to the next generation. Our teachers care about their students [and] their neighborhoods, and they want to mold our kids into adults who care about our community. Great teachers start to move the minds of their students along the path of knowledge, preparing them for the journey of life and propelling them into the future of adulthood. Now that teachers are finishing up this school year and preparing for the next, it is up to our legislatures, our community leaders, parents and ordinary citizens to support all of our kids before it is too late. Our teachers have the compassion and willingness to bring our kids back into the top-10-rated countries in the world, [b]ut it is up to the rest of us to realize that a highly educated society means success and prosperity for all. […]

Original article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-joseph/teachers-create-our-futur_b_10325238.html

Back to School: It’s Make-It-or-Break-It Time for the Economy

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Spending this fall for students K-12 is expected to drop 12%, according to a National Retail Federation survey reported in The Wall Street Journal. The average that will be spent on each kid is $634.78, down from $688.62 in 2012. Even those going to college are expecting decreases from $836.80 this year [compared to] $907.22 last year.

[I]t looks like the payroll tax hike, the sequestration and the continued sluggish job market are finally going to rear their ugly heads during the first major sales season of the year. This is troublesome news for retailers, because the back-to-school (BTS) season is like the canary in the coal mine; BTS sales trends historically predict how the holiday fourth-quarter sales will turn out. [I]n another BTS warning about the economy, 47.7% of college students expect to live at home [in 2013], up from 42.9% in 2012.

These depressing numbers tell us that the American family has begun to focus on the needs of their children for BTS rather than the wants of their kids. If working Americans are having trouble getting their kids ready for BTS, what about the children in families stuck in poverty or not working at all? According to The Hechinger Report, poverty is getting so concentrated in America that one [in] five public schools is classified as “high poverty” […] by the U.S. Department of Education. To be classified as [a] high-poverty [school], 75% of [its] elementary, middle or high school students must qualify for […] free or reduced-price [lunches].

Moyers & Co. reports that […] poverty affects 46.2 million people [in the United States], [including] 16.1 million children. […] Deep poverty, [or a household income below] $11,510 [annually] for a family of four, hits 20.4 million people, [or] one in 15 Americans. On top of all this, we have 1,065,794 homeless students enrolled in U.S. preschools and K-12 schools, and […] only 48% of poor children are ready for school by the age of five, compared to 75% of children from moderate- and high-income families.

[W]e have parents who are going to be spending less on their children for BTS, [a]nd we have poverty creating a major burden for schools to figure out how to deal with accommodating these kids’ needs. This is a bleak time for not only our economy but to the answer of how we cope with an all-inclusive society so that no child is left behind.

Some organizations are rising to the occasion with drives to provide the underprivileged with what they need to go back to school with dignity—staples like backpacks, school supplies and clothes. Fox News reported [that] in St. Louis, the National Council of Jewish Women brought a “[b]ack-to-[s]chool store” to 1,200 children in need. […] The Broomfield Enterprise in Colorado reports the organization Crayons to Calculators hopes to provide 9,000 students with new backpacks full of supplies [in 2013]. The City Wire in Arkansas reports on [a] “Stuff the Bus” campaign supported by the United Way, where bright yellow buses will be scattered throughout Fort Smith to collect school supplies for children in need [for] the ninth year. We can all help online at Operation Backpack, where they are gathering backpacks for New York City children in need. […]

We have been putting up with this recession since late 2007. It has been close to six years where the poor are getting poorer, the needy are getting needier, and now it looks like our schoolchildren will be getting less. Spending less for BTS is a major blow to our economy, and when word of this decrease becomes widespread, it will be a major blow to the American psyche. As Americans, we have to do what we can do to ensure the long-term survival of our educational system, because all these kids—rich and poor—are our future. Dig deep into your pockets and help out your local backpack drive by donating backpacks, school supplies or cash so they can buy what is needed for the underprivileged. If you are a parent or grandparent, spend a little more on your kids for BTS so we can prove the predictions wrong. If this BTS season is truly less than last year, then we are in for a long, cold fall and winter retail season, which will keep us in this recession for another year.

Original article here:https://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-joseph/back-to-school-its-make-i_b_3671731.html