A record-spending year for school supply costs in Illinois, data shows

SYCAMORE – As Illinois students return to classrooms, they’ll be using school supplies purchased by families in a record-spending year without the aid of a state sales tax holiday, retail data shows.

In August 2022, Gov. JB Pritzker and tother state leaders created a 10-day period when the state sales tax on school supplies and clothing was reduced by 5%, down to 1.25%. Illinois teachers will be given a $500 tax credit in 2023 – double what was provided in 2022 – but without the inflation relief-focused legislation that created the tax holiday.

Angeline Moorehead and Dylan Nolf are parents of children attending Sycamore High School and Sycamore Community School District 427′s pre-Kindergarten program, the Little Spartans, next year but they don’t think the school supply lists are overly burdensome.

“I feel like it’s pretty reasonable, I still feel like, compared to like food costs and stuff going up. I feel like supply lists are still pretty easy to manage,” Moorehead said of their high schooler’s school supply list.

Nolf said the pre-K supply “list is clearly inexpensive,” but he estimated they still spent about $100 on their preschooler’s supplies and a bit under $300 for their high schooler.

School supply lists for many districts in northern Illinois can be found online for easy access for parents.

In Sycamore, lists are broken down by each school and grade level. A typical first grade class has a list that includes Crayons, pencils, a composition book, headphones, scissors, pencils, markers, and glue sticks; whereas, an eighth grader is required to have a TI-30XIIs calculator ($10 to $40 on Amazon), more notebooks and graphing paper.

Data shows, however, it’s not the average pencil-and-paper classroom costs that are driving the spending.

American families with children in K-12 school are expected to spend an average of $890 on back-to-school spending this year, according to data collected by the the National Retail Federation.

Back-to-school spending is estimated to reach $41.5 billion in 2023, a record number, according to the NRF. That number also includes back-to-college spending. Driving the costs is the price of electronics such as laptops, tablets and calculators, speakers or headphones and other accessories, followed by clothing and shoes.

With spending up, shoppers also are using more online tools to buffer the bang for their buck, according to the NRF. In 2023, back-to-school buyers used more comparative shopping tactics online, shopped more sales, bought more store brand or generic items and used coupons more often compared to 2019 and 2022.

Sycamore District 427 Superintendent Steve Wilder said school principals work with teachers to figure out what to put on a school supply list, but during the process faculty are mindful of the fact that not all parent’s can afford the cost of the supplies as well as others. That’s especially true for families with children in older grades who’s supply lists feature graphing calculators and other pricier items, he said.

“Teachers have a chance to collaborate a little bit, and you know, we try to focus on what the kids need for school, try to be respectful of parents, and their budgets, and the rising cost of school supplies. So, we really try to focus in on what we think students are going to need to be successful,” Wilder said.

Tori Mack, a Sycamore mother with daughter about to start first grade, said she thought school supply list was long. She said this summer, however, she’s focused more on ensuring her daughter is prepared for grade school.

“I know it is a burden on a lot of parents, but at the same time schools have a lot of expenses. I want to contribute however we can, and buy school supplies for her and the class,” Mack said.

Wilder said the materials students need to succeed in school has changed since he first began working in education around the turn of the century.

“In my 25-plus years, that [school supply lists] has changed quite a bit, and some things are the same – we still use paper and pencils – but technology has had a big impact on what students need in schools,” Wilder said.

Graphing calculators have been a costly (many Texas Instruments calculators go for $89 or more) school supply item for students in enrolled in high school math courses. Wilder said personal computers – something Sycamore schools provide to students – mean students don’t have to lug around a backpack filled with textbooks to every class.

“Because all the students have electronic devices like a Chromebook, some of the resources that they used to use, that they used to carry around in their backpack – they don’t do that any more, they’ve got access to that information online and that makes it a little bit easier,” Wilder said.

Mack said she used School Tool Box, a DeKalb-based company that packages all the items in a given school’s supply list and ships the supplies to buyers across the country. According the the website, the cost of school supplies for a student at Sycamore’s North Elementary vary between about $60 and $90, however parent’s are not pigeonholed into only purchasing supplies through that retailer.

Nolf didn’t purchase his items through the school supply retailer, but said the cost of the school supplies might be a bit burdensome for some parents. However, his partner, Moorehead, said some of the most costly materials they bought for their high school aged daughter – something included in last year’s state sales tax holiday – were not on the school supply list.

“It’s the school clothes that gets the most pricey,” Moorehead said.