<br>Parents struggle to cover school fees, supplies

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Lisa Sobecki, vice president of the Toledo Board of Education, understands the hardships many families face with fees and supplies. She has two elementary school-age children, and her husband has been out of work for more than a year. THE BLADE/LORI KING Enlarge | Photo Reprints

There are fees for clay and paint in art class. And for the metal to craft jewelry.

It's $40 for photography class. And there's a charge for biology lab supplies.

Safety goggles for science classes are three bucks.

Band is $20, to rent an instrument. The budding musicians have to pay for reeds, oil, strings, and for uniforms or costumes they might need.

Japanese language students cover $6.40 for special "exercise worksheets," and prealgebra requires a $12 calculator.

Taking Spanish isn't free, either - a workbook this school year costs mucho dinero, $25.50.

For seniors, there's school pictures, which can run into the hundreds of dollars, and $50 or more for a yearbook.

Apart from school fees, there's also the supply lists parents are given for their elementary and middle school children. Supplies can run more than $100.

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The little and not-so-little hidden costs beyond the basic three Rs are stinging some Toledo-area families.

And as the economy continues to sputter, some are finding it increasingly difficult to pay the extra charges and to buy regular school supplies for their children.

But parents this year will have to spend more after two years of family budget austerity when they reused old shoes, clothes, and school supplies, according to a National Retail Federation survey of more than 9,000 families.

The survey found the average family plans to spend $606.40 on back-to-school clothes, shoes, supplies, and electronics, compared to $548.72 last year.

Total spending on school-age children is expected to reach $21.35 billion, the federation said.

TPS school fees are due tomorrow for Kathy Echelberry, a 50-year-old single mother with two teenage sons attending Bowsher High School this year. Class begins Aug. 26.

"I'm a teacher [in the Swanton schools], so I see it from both sides. But the ends, they just aren't meeting for us," Ms. Echelberry said as she checked out a free DVD from the library last week. "I'm kind of hesitant to go pay the school fees because my paycheck went in this morning, and it's pretty much already gone."

She said she's not sure of the exact amount this year because her two sons, Phillip, 17, and Paul, 14, are taking a variety of courses, including art.

Her oldest son has an internship with the Toledo Repertoire Theatre, and the teens also have summer jobs, she said.

The first-grade teacher has a mortgage and a home-equity loan. She ran up credit cards and regrets it now as she struggles to clear the debt and cover the school-fee expenses.

Ms. Echelberry, like other working-class parents, makes too much for her sons to qualify for free-and-reduced lunch, a federal subsidy that also exempts students from many local school fees.

"I don't qualify for any of that, and now I have a son who's a senior and ready for college. I hear senior year is expensive with yearbooks and pictures," she said. "The middle class doesn't qualify for the free stuff. We're stuck."

As families approach the new school year after the Great Recession and now-tepid recovery, many are poorer. Their incomes might have fallen from a job loss or maybe their homes have lost so much value that they can no longer tap into evaporated home equity for credit and bridge loans.

Like Ms. Echelberry, they might already have a second loan.

The stories are repeated across Toledo and the region.

"You can kind of tell who's hurting more than others," said Chris Varwig, a mother of two TPS students and the former president of the Parent Congress.

"I pay the fees every year and there are some things that parents know to expect. But the middle class is pretty much struggling," she said.

"We have always known that free-and-reduced lunch [recipients] did not pay those fees, and those kids are deserving. But it's been a struggle for some families that are penny pinching to meet the costs."

She said many parents don't like to admit they're having trouble, and so often it remains a hidden issue.

She points out that some principals and teachers run their own unofficial charities out of their offices, receiving unsolicited donations of supplies and collecting unused or leftover goods they dole out to families that recently have come into need.

Charities, businesses, and parent groups, among others, hold drives for back-to-school supplies, including more expensive items such as backpacks.

Elementary school parents are expected to supply boxes of crayons and markers, glue sticks, and brand-specific products that might be more expensive, such as Ziploc plastic bags, than other generic alternatives.

Some of the supplies are the essentials of first and second-grade happiness.

But it adds up, and some teachers around the Toledo area have taken a look at those lists and tried to pare them down for parents, they say.

The Blade did some back-to-school bargain shopping last week based on a supplies list for Arlington Elementary School first graders.

Working from a list the school provides parents, the bill at a Toledo-area WalMart came to more than $43. Other than a backpack with a college logo, the supplies were all generic and didn't feature any movie characters, teen vampires, or other pop-culture symbols on the folders or notebooks. Those cost more and students want them, parents say.

Some of the supplies will likely run out over the year and need to be replaced, such as wipes or the plastic bags.

The teachers request Ziploc bags so the young children can carry home some hard-to-keep-track-of items, such as flashcards.

Toledo Board of Education Vice President Lisa Sobecki knows the struggle. She works for Lucas County, but her husband was jobless for more than a year and found work about a month ago, she said.

They have two children at Ottawa River Elementary School.

"I've heard some parents grumble about the fees, but they pay it. At the end of the year, they know what the fees are," she said, referring to a school board vote every summer approving the new fee schedule for the next year.

"If you can't pay the fees, tell the school about it," she said. "And while you're buying supplies new, buy extra because they're cheaper now than they will be in a couple of months because of all the great sales."

Ms. Sobecki said she empties out her children's bookbags at the end of each school year and collects the pens, pencils, and markers hiding in the little pockets and inside creases.

She spent $300 one day this summer for the school supplies and clothes needed to meet the TPS uniform requirement, she said.

"Of course it's a little sting, but I didn't wake up that morning and say, 'Oh, my God, $300.' My husband and I planned for this," she said.

It has amounted to a double whammy for families.

Ohio school districts, enduring historic budget deficits, are trying to find extra revenue by increasing fees and cutting services. Their main source of local money, property-tax collections, has ebbed along with the value of homes and land.

At the same time, parents are less able to cover their daily expenses and absorb the increased school charges. In many cases, they also have to take on new expenses from lost services, such as driving children to school because bus service has been curtailed.

According to the survey by the National Retail Federation, families said that on average they'd spend about $96 per student on back-to-school supplies, not including clothes and electronics.

About 43 percent of the families said the economy would cause them to spend less. Nearly 30 percent said they'd reuse last year's items, and 39 percent reported they'd look around for deals and do comparison shopping in newspapers and circulars.

Experts predict many Ohio school districts, including TPS, will face continuing struggles as they try to balance their 2011-2012 budgets. Families could be asked to pay even more and face more lost school services.

TPS needs the largest-ever new money levy to pass in November, which would raise about $22 million annually but still leave officials about $11 million in the hole for the 2011-2012 school year.

Some Ohio school districts have responded to recent fiscal crises by increasing school fees or eliminating programs and services, such as sports and bus service.

TPS canceled sports with low participation and scaled back bus service, among other savings, this school year.

A few of the TPS school fees have increased, particularly those for some art class materials. The charge for the advanced metals and jewelry class, for example, increased to $30 from $25 last year.

Even so, TPS has kept most of its fees in check over the past several years. And the district doesn't charge for sports, in contrast to Sylvania schools, where parents of student athletes have ponied up extra for years. For example, playing one or more high school sports is a flat fee of $125.

Sylvania schools spokesman Nancy Crandell said some school fees have gone up and others have gone down. For elementary schools, the total this year increased $3; for junior high it's $10 more, and for high school it's $20 more, she said. There was a decline overall of about $10 for career technical education students, she said.

Perrysburg schools is now considering a similar fee for sports and other activities that used to be free as it struggles to meet its budget goals for the 2011-2012 school year.

"We are putting the committee together that will provide a recommendation in January or February," said Rachel Johnson, executive assistant to the superintendent of Perrysburg Schools.

Suburban districts across Ohio have increased school fees with the logic that suburban parents, in general, can more easily afford it.

But for TPS, about 70 percent of its students are eligible for the federal free-and-reduced-lunch subsidy and are exempted from the school fees, according to Jim Gault, TPS' interim chief academic officer. So increasing the charges for the other 30 percent of students wouldn't raise much additional revenue, Mr. Gault said.

As a result of the student body's economic profile, the schedule of fees approved by the Toledo Board of Education in June hasn't changed much over the years, he said.

Increasing fees would only drive students away, he said.

"You don't want to penalize kids or move them out of classes they want to take because they have some need," he said. "Photography class - you could theoretically charge $300 to take that class. But if your fees are that high, you're eliminating a large percentage of the population."

Staff writer Janet Romaker contributed to this report.

Contact Christopher D. Kirkpatrick at:

ckirkpatrick@theblade.com

or 419-724-6134.

37.90104 12.49646

Kathy Echelberry's sons, Phillip, left, and Paul, students at Bowsher High School, have summer jobs. Phillip is an intern at Toledo Repertoire Theatre. THE BLADE/LORI KING Enlarge | Photo Reprints

There are fees for clay and paint in art class. And for the metal to craft jewelry. Safety goggles for science classes are three bucks. Band is $20, to rent an instrument. The budding musicians have to pay for reeds, oil, strings, and for uniforms or costumes they might need. Japanese language students cover $6.40 for special "exercise worksheets," and prealgebra requires a $12 calculator. Taking Spanish isn't free, either - a workbook this school year costs mucho dinero, $25.50.