With back-to-school season just around the corner, one New Westminster woman is upset her child’s school won’t let her shop for her daughter’s supplies.
Alice Cavanagh’s daughter will be in Grade 4 at École Qayqayt Elementary School this fall and as she’s done in past years, she will be ordering her daughter’s school supplies through the school – even though they have plenty of leftover supplies at home.
So why can’t she send her daughter to school with leftover supplies? Because parents of Qayqayt students are required to purchase school supplies through the online ordering service available on Qayqayt’s website. There is no alternative, according to Cavanagh.
“You can’t just pick and choose what you need, and at our school in particular, you don’t have the option to shop on your own,” she told the Record.
Right now, nearly every elementary school in the district manages school supplies differently. While many offer some kind of online purchasing portal, most also have an opt-out option for parents who want to buy the supplies themselves or reuse supplies. Qayqayt and Connaught are the only schools in the district that do not have an opt-out option, according to the schools’ websites.
“The concept of having to have everything brand new at the start of the school year, really is irresponsible. It’s financially irresponsible, it’s environmentally irresponsible. These are the values we keep saying as a society we want to see our kids have … so we should demonstrate them,” Cavanagh said.
This isn’t the first time she has raised concerns about the supplies process, but when she has brought it up, she’s been told it’s up to the school principal to decide how supplies are handled. She’s also been told that Qayqayt uses the online ordering system to ensure there’s equity among students’ supplies.
“If everybody starts off with exactly the same things, everybody is equal, but I feel there’s got to be a better way of handling it that has less impact on the environment,” Cavanagh said.
But New Westminster school district superintendent Karim Hachlaf says parents can’t be forced to buy their children’s supplies through the school.
“The parent will always have the option to go buy supplies if they wish,” he said. “If there’s an instance where a parent wanted to purchase their own, we’ll always allow that.”
According to Hachlaf, the school district is currently reviewing how school supplies are managed in an attempt to create a more consistent system among all New Westminster schools. This review began during the last school year and is expected to continue through the upcoming year.
Once the review is complete, parents can expect to see some changes with the school supplies process in the 2019/20 school year, Hachlaf added.
“We are definitely wanting to reduce the variation so parents aren’t confused as to why one school is doing things a bit differently and offer a more standardized approach to school supplies with the premise as well that the intent is to do that so parents are not purchasing supplies unnecessarily,” he said.
