Back to school time can come at a pretty difficult time for families.
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It’s on the back of Christmas and school holidays where the financial stresses on a family are among the highest.
People will say “live within your means” and that is true to an extent.
Yet it is hard to begrudge parents wondering why they then have to fund what appear to be basic items for schools as their kids head back to school.
Everyone, surely, can understand buying essential school items for your child, which parents have been doing seemingly since time began.
Pens, pencils, rulers, pencil cases. That’s all understandable.
Yet these days there is seemingly an increasing list of demands placed on parents to provide for their child’s school.
Tissues or hand sanitiser for example.
The list the Illawarra Mercury used as a guide called for eight whiteboard markers per child.
Eight whiteboard markers per child. Seriously?
And the demand for glue sticks was very specifically one brand, not the cheapest one available.
Why are parents being asked to provide items like whiteboard markers, tissues and sanitisers?
We did some sums based on a list provided to a local parent for their child.
On our estimates we roughly worked it out to be over $70 for a child to adhere to the demands of the school.
It’s when parents have two or more kids those costs really start to mount.
Keira MP Ryan Park says parents shouldn’t be footing that bill.
“Something is seriously wrong when families are footing the bill for basic school supplies while the government splurges billions of taxpayer dollars, knocking down and rebuilding perfectly good Sydney stadiums,” Mr Park said.
“Back to school budgets are already tough enough on households; we shouldn’t be slugging parents for hand soap and whiteboard markers.”
We tend to agree.
