Wal*Mart invents classroom-specific back-to-school lists and adds contraband to them
Wal*Mart's class-specific lists of "Back to School" supplies that local teachers want kids to show up with on day one are pure fabrications -- and they include items that are prohibited on school-grounds:
When we noticed the local Wal-Mart had shopping lists not only specific to school and grade level, but to teacher, we were thrilled. We started tossing items in the cart to spend, spend, spend.Truth About Wal-Mart Back to School Lists (Thanks, Thomas!)Weren’t we a little surprised to learn afterwards that Wal-Mart invented those lists. Not only were we a bit surprised to learn they did not, in fact, base the lists on anything remotely suggested by the school. Wal-Mart, in fact, put items on the list that are BANNED from being brought to school.
Our daughter’s school said Wal-Mart makes up those lists on their own, and a number of items (such as crayons) are on a list from the school. A list of items parents are specifically told not to have their child bring to school. Seriously?
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Oh Walmart, you never cease to amaze in how low you will go, and I'm not talking about prices...
Walmart is suggesting things for parents to buy for their kids' education. The only contraband article mentioned here is crayons.
I'm sorry, when did crayons stop being a somewhat essential childhood art tool? This has got to be one of the most laughable examples of anti-Walmart outrage I have ever seen.
@joelmichael, the outrage is not so much at the crayons themselves as the deception.
You know, lying.
Claiming that they have lists from specific schools and teachers which are nothing of the sort.
This article is a prime example of "show, don't tell" - I read the article and couldn't get an example of "contraband" or "banned" items (besides crayons), only paragraph upon paragraph that Walmart was suggesting parents buy something they might not need.
I want to be outraged, I really do, but I want to see the list myself and say "But why would my 2nd grade son need a kilo of plutonium?"
I call b.s. on this.
The article doesn't site anyone, doesn't mention the school district or town where this happened, and doen't even mention what any of the caps lock'd BANNEND items were!
It sure wouldn't surprise me if a company like Walmart would do something like this, but i'd need some proof first.
@5
i'm going to agree with you, since the wal-marts around here have the same exact lists that the school system itself mails out
Those in school back to school lists always puzzled me. In class, the teacher provided all the crayons, construction paper, scissors, etc... we needed. For homework, we usually had a bottle of glue at home. We certainly had scissors and a big old box of crayons around. And we didn't need to run out and get new ones every year.
Even basics like three ring binder and such did not get much use in the early grades.
I think the bulk of the back-to-school purchasing is just yet another excess of consumer culture.
If your kid is bringing lunch, he or she will need something to carry it in. Clothes and shoes that fit are important. Maybe a bag or backpack for books. A small notebook to jot down assignments and, oh yes, required materials.
The rest of it, for the younger grades, is just a waste. By the time the kid is junior high or high school, they'll know what they need and will be told in each class as they start.
Add me to the skeptics camp. I find the logistics of this hard to understand: WalMart infiltrated schools, learned the names of every teacher, and planted these lists in only the appropriate stores? This sounds like it would require a lot more time and effort ($) than it's worth.
Plus, she only "presumes" other stores are doing this.
Remember, it's no longer Wal-Mart. It's Walmart*
Eeeeeenteresting. I've seen King Sooper's (here in Denver) selling large packages of school and class specific school supplies. Don't know if they're guilty of chicanery or not.
If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that this particular Wal*Mart probably used lists provided by the school from a previous year, which would explain why they have teacher-specific lists. To fabricate such a thing would take a good amount of time and effort on someone's part, and would be a very difficult scam to keep secret.
As for the banned items...well, school rules get tighter every year. I only graduated from high school 8 years ago, but from what my sister has told me (she works at the same high school we graduated from) it is a very very different place now. It's not outlandish to think that something that was perfectly okay to bring to school last year is now some huge threat to humanity.
P.S. Ironically, one of the captcha words on this post is "inconvenience" lol
Wal-Mart is now officially Walmart (all one word with no hyphen) they have a new logo too complete with a anus ... opps ... I mean asterisk. Link: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/less_hyphen_more_burst_for_wal.php
@7 - Many school districts, including mine, are now "asking" (read: requiring) students to bring supplies with them the first day that will go into a common stockpile for that teacher's room. We were asked to buy and bring in things like boxes of Kleenex, pencils, notebook filler paper, etc. It's becoming pretty rare around here for the school to provide these expendables. My wife and I wondered the other day what our tax dollars were paying for, because it sure wasn't (a) school supplies, or (b) anything not directly related to a NCLB-based education.
My sons' public school has a list for each grade level on their web site, available just a couple of weeks before school starts. These are required items. This list runs from pencils to antiseptic hand soap, and no deviation from the specs is acceptable. I can't send any old comp books I have on hand, f'rex. They have to be a particular kind in a specified set of cover colors. If they don't have the complete correct set on the first day, they come home with a note detailing what is missing, with a demand to get right ASAP.
I have never been able to find the complete kit in one place. Typically, I spend a weekend assembling ours. If someone around me had a checklist and the whole caboodle, I would fall at their feet in gratitude.
And by the way, I just read on the PTA mailing list that the first-grade list has an error: the students must bring in two DOZEN glue sticks each instead of two. Isn't this stuff supposed to come out of taxes?
interesting how a culture in its infancy (consumerism) can so quickly implant its suckers into its societal host. Since when has the merchant ever been other then the foe? Don't parents read nursery rhymes and fairy stories to their children any more?
Must be a regional thing. The Walmart here gets its back-to-school lists directly from the local schools. The list that was offered there for my kid's school was identical to the one I got in the mail from the school board.
I would like to see the lists of this person's actual items versus the one that Wal-mart gave them. What were the supposed "banned" items? What school doesn't have crayons on their list? All of my children ranging from K-5th grade have always had crayons on their list!
I left a comment regarding the crayons on the woman's site. If she was upset she spent money on crayons for her little Joey or Jilly, she needs to think twice.
Maybe she should just sit down with Joey or Jilly and color, because heaven knows if she bought a box of crayons, and was worried about the 99 cents she spent on them, she definitely didn't have a box before.
Which means little Joey or Jilly may never have sat down with Mommy Dearest and colored.
Now if that isn't a sad state of affairs, I don't know what it.
Manny and Bob- No, your tax dollars are not enough. Even with the extra supplies, every teacher I know has wound up buying supplies out of pocket, even in fairly affluent suburbs. I will admit though that 2 dozen gluesticks does sound a bit excessive.
Yeah there was a distinct lack of details in the article. Granted, I sorta agree, but really, if the school is sending out a list, any parent who buys unneeded crap because they listened to the store that sells it deserves what they get.
It's nothing compared to the back to school flyer featuring guns and ammo put out right after columbine years back.
@Manny
What does the school do if the parents cannot afford all the items on the list?
When I was in school all I needed was a notebook and a pencil or a pen (and a scientific claculator later on).
Also I would hope that these lists are being sent out to all the department stores in a town otherwise it looks like the school is MAKING you shop at Walmart to get your kids the best start possible?
Oh and yes the article is misleading but the points raised by the replies are alarming.
FYI for those of us who remember the school supplying everything - we're now in a land far, far away, and it sure doesn't look anything like Kansas (or any other state you can think of).
My daughter is a 1st grade teacher. Last year she spent 500USD+ for classroom supplies and didn't get a penny back from the school. Some parents chipped in, but it wasn't enough at all.
Hell, the IRS gives teachers a write-off (on Schedule A - if you don't itemize, you don't get it - on her salary, that will be about 2016) on the income taxes. If the Feds recognize this, you have to wonder what's up in the local school districts.
It's not like she teaches in Atlanta - that I could see - they spend money arguing about what color you garbage cans are, you know, important stuff. No $$$ for school supplies. But she teaches in the rich suburb - their taxes are paltry compared to what I paid when I left NY 20+ years ago.
nith @ 21: The PTA asks for donations of money and extra supplies so they can help, but very few parents ask for it. I suspect that the teacher ends up eating the cost of supplies for those poor-but-proud kids.
The change is not just in the requirement that the parents supply everything. It is also in the uniformity required. You have to have the exact version on the list. For example, my son got corrected in front of his class for taking a black plastic recorder instead of white.
The cost is a substantial burden (particularly since you have to buy the whole year's kit at once), but it is the lack of personal choice that troubles me. How can you teach your kid to comparison shop or make decisions when there is no discretion or personal preference allowed? This has costs down the road.
I love that not only does the back-to-school shopping list include required items for your child, but also things for the entire class, like kleenex and anti-bacterial wipes, that then get put into the "community chest". wow...so what are my taxes paying for again?
You know what sickens me? Parents that rush out to Wal-Mart every August to buy all new stuff for their kids because they don't want their kids to be embarrassed for having the same Trapper Keeper or backpack they brought to school the previous year, and then have the gall to claim that their dollars are "precious".
Here's a tip for this lady. Care more about your child getting a good education than you do about how "embarrassed" they'll be. A little embarrassment will probably build character anyway. It'll teach them to value the kinds of things that won't make them a slave to Wal-Mart when they grow up instead of feeling the need to follow the latest trend all the time.
Of course, what should we really expect from somebody who refers to herself as "web goddess"?
Honestly, what is the school going to do if you don't bring the right "type" of supplies? Fail your kid? That reeks of a potential lawsuit.
I don't know what our taxes are paying for, but it's not classroom supplies. These teachers are paying out of their own meager salaries for shit like paper towels and TOILET PAPER because when the school has gone through its allocation, there is no more. The allocations are frequently gone by Christmas, because the jackass bastards we elect to represent us keep slashing and burning the budgets to where the schools barely have enough money to buy textbooks to SHARE, let alone have anything left to, say, wipe after they pee. (I can see some asshole legislator thinking "what the hell, Johnnie's underwear's gonna get washed anyway -- let him go home with skid marks!)
Here's the call to action -- if you are a parent, take a day off to be in the classroom to help your kid's teacher -- she'll be grateful for the help, and your eyes will never have been that wide open to how badly we are failing our kids. I've been volunteering in the classroom since day one of kindergarten, and I've completely changed my tune. Teachers give everything -- including a decent lifetime salary -- for your kids, and they get shortchanged -- no respect, no money, and demands just as bad or worse than anything you deal with in your 8 to 5.
Here's the other call -- when school supplies are cheap, buy an extra set and take it to your kid's teacher -- pick up a package of tp or paper towels when they're on sale. It won't even make a dent in your grocery bill, and some kid whose mom can't or won't spend the money gets the chance to have the right tools to learn. I haunt the clearance racks at Target and Walmart -- when paper and pencils are on sale, the classroom gets a bonus that cost me a few bucks.
As to Walmart making up lists? This isn't system wide -- all three of the stores near me (as well as KMart, Target, CVS, and Walgreens) have the crappy multiple-Xeroxed sheet that the school mails out --so yeah, they have the same list that the school distributes.
count me in with the ones calling b.s.
lb @ 26, It is mostly enforced by pressure from an authority figure and embarassment / shame in front of classmates. This will come up day after day, project after project. Most parents will go a long way to avoid subjecting their kids to that.
I suppose that if you resist your child's tears, the notes from the teacher, and your own desire not to make the teacher pay it out of her pocket, it would get escalated to the principal. I don't know how far they can carry it, because it seems to be illegal in our state for them to require students to pay for their own supplies. Who has time and money to go to court over glue sticks, though? The PTA is all about ways to conform and make nice, as far as I can tell.
What are my taxes paying for?
Teacher/Administrator Salaries, Bus Sriver salaries, janitor salaries, sports equipment (ugh), bus fuel/maintenance, utilities, new desks after little Billy carves them up, computers, etc.
If taxes really were enough schools wouldn't need to take money from commercial enterprises like Channel One...
I think Miss Kelby censored me out, plenty of other comments, and mine is still awaiting moderation! Pretty much echoes what I said earlier, and now I think the source is even less credible, not like I said anything to harsh:
"If I am reading this right:
“…and a number of items (such as crayons) are on a list from the school. A list of items parents are specifically told not to have their child bring to school.”
What kind of sick school bans crayons? Really!? REALLY!? No wonder kids are having problems these days, and will end up working at places like Wal-Mart. The arts are something that should NEVER, EVER be ban, and yet it happens more than it should. Maybe some Dodo was munching his orange crayon, or some devious brat wrote on a wall, but that doesn’t mean you ban them. It’s not like my five year old is going to pull a Joker and put the crayon through someones eye.
Granted it is pretty crummy to have Wal-Mart deceptively force you to purchase crayons for your child. I mean, you could probably put them to use too, assuming you bought them because your child already didn’t have a set."
#29:
It could be that the school is trying to save parents some money. In other words: "Don't have your child bring crayons to school. We already have plenty."
#30, I don't see why the parent would be so outraged that they were on the "BANNED" list. I do agree that some of the wording down the line makes it seem like they could recommending against it (re: "specifically told not to have their child bring"), however, the rest of the tone of the post makes it seem like this is not the case at all.
I'd love to see good in it, but without knowing what else is on this "BANNED" list, it is hard to say. If it was on a list along with sharp scissors and box cutters, then I don't see how it could be there for saving money. If it is on the list with construction paper, glue sticks, and other things that can be bought in bulk, then, maybe the school was trying to help.
The way it was written it makes me feel that her child went to school, was chastised for buying crayons, and came home crying, with a note pinned to her shirt saying "BAD PARENT! You bought her crayons, those are 'BANNED'".
To those asking where their taxes go to if not for school supplies:
You want your taxes to pay for it, pay more taxes. Or, at least, vote for politicians who will increase the percentage of taxes spent on schools.
Most public schools here in the greater Boston area are fairly broke. All the teachers I know (my girlfriend and many others) spend anywhere from $100-$500 a year of their own money on school supplies for the students.
Ok, granted it was not very well blogged (she's not a professional journalist, just a mom with a blog) and granted she's an idiot for going to Walmart to "spend spend spend" but it seems to me that she has a good point about it being purposefully misleading so as to seem official:
"...there is no way to describe these lists except as ones that are trying very hard to look official. They have a fax send line at the top of the page (who on earth faxed these, if not the schools?). They not only state the school, but also the grade level and they have various lists based on teacher. Each teacher has slightly different supplies required. If that doesn’t look like something official from the school, I’m not sure what would."
Imho, if she were going out of her way to slander Walmart, she could have done this a lot more easily and thoroughly than simply citing school supply lists and crayons as the only "contraband" items. There are too many other illegal and unethical practices they engage in that make much easier targets. I get that she feels genuinely duped by the big W.
It is beside the fact that the school district doesn't want the kids bringing in crayons. Yes, this seems idiotic, but again, the point is that Walmart seems to have gone way out of their way to have the specific info when it seems they do not.
Whoever said 12 glue sticks would be needed per student must have a deal with the local manufacturer / supplier. "Hmmm glue stick sales are way down. Let's see what we can do about that..." I don't see how that many would even be available, much less needed in an entire school year. Are they trying to glue the students in their seats?
Lastsly, I believe "Web Goddess" should be seen as an ironic title since she can't even seem to pad her text. This is even more reason I believe her story as a parent, and not a professional Walmart slanderer. Please people, consider the track record of who you are defending before you call B.S. on an average citizen throwing a pebble at the goliath.
#33 I have, from her website:
"biz-cops-political-investigative newspaper journalist turned hardcore mommy blogger." She also currently writes for several travel sites. I do think her angle in this post was more mommy and less journalistic.
Your point can easily be reversed, how many boxes of crayons would a single Wal-mart need to sell to turn a sizeable profit? If your average box is, say 99 cents, and they are marking it up, oh I don't know, 90 cents a box, and say she even lives in a sizable town, with something like 10,000 kids needing to purchase this erroneous box of crayons, that is only a $9,000 profit. I highly doubt this localized Wal-Mart is suffering so greatly to depend on slanderous profit from back to school items. They probably make more in people buying 5-Star's new decorated notebooks in a few days, then they would in their crayon scheme for the whole back-to-school season.
Now I'm not condoning Wal-Mart, if they really did go through the trouble to make a measly profit by fooling poor & gullible parents into buying erroneous goods, shame on them! Really, what probably happened is some "faxes" got switched, some calls were missed, or the latest lists were never received, and the manager put out last years list. Did our "Web Goddess" do anything to try to figure out where things went wrong? Or would she just rather push the blame? She clearly took enough time to investigate that "Each teacher has slightly different supplies required", if she was so paranoid that Wal-mart was trying to nickle and dime her, why doesn't she contact the teacher, and give us a comparison of the REAL list to the FAKE OMFGWMF ME OVER list.
Or we can all just get our overalls on, jump on the bandwagon, and take our pitchforks and torches to Wal-Mart. They-bad.
Wal-Mart in my town does get the lists directly from the schools, or at least I know they did years ago when I worked there. I was the one who had to call around and get them from the schools.
I was in Staples Friday night,though, and their lists are NOT the lists from the schools. Plus,they have TONS of stuff on them that I know aren't requested by the schools. Really ridiculous stuff. Like the little stick on hanger things that go inside lockers. While there is not anything on the display racks where the lists are that specifically says they are supposed to be the recommended supplies for the schools, there is certainly not anything that would lead parents to think that they aren't. If Staples didn't want to go around getting the lists for all the schools, but wanted to make a list of stuff they thought might be good suggestions, that's fine, but they should have been less misleading in the way they labeled the lists. They should have boldly labeled them something like "Staples recommends..." or "Great Ideas for Back-To-School". Instead, they modeled their racks after the racks used by Wal-Mart to display the lists that are REALLY what the schools have said the kids need. They deliberately wanted to mislead parents into buying a bunch of extra stuff.
Did any of you actually see the kiosk set up at Walmart? They even went through the trouble of printing local school names on it. It looked pretty official. Just pick up your supply list here. It was not generic like Staples.
I'd say most of these posters don't have kids. Cause they would choke at $10K in tuition and the $100+ dollars that school supplies cost. Kleenex included. It is irresponsible for Walmart to lure customers to believe they had some sort of official list.
And please don't come back and post something about it is my choice to spend all that money, have kids yadda, and that I'm an idiot for shopping at Walmart. Fiscal responsibility is something America does not get. Just like childless people don't understand the love for a child (your mother does though). And when I choose to shop at Walmart, I'm being fiscally responsible by saving money on school supplies. Remember: by law my child must be educated. This is not a choice folks. School age kids need supplies. So if you are one to not want to save a buck- than go and join all the rest of the debt-laden in America. I'm not. I'll shop at Walmart. Well- now I'll shop with a list provided by MY school not one fabricated by corporate marketing.
BTW- corporate marketing should not dismiss mommy bloggers. There are tons of ad dollars slipping through fingers. Mommy bloggers have Mommy readers. Most are former highly educated, high-powered career women now choosing to be home with kids. Duh and idiot do not compute.
@26
I was a kid once, thank you very much, and my mother never went for that kind of stuff. So yes, once in a while I suffered, but you know, I got over it. Most of it.
Thinking back, I would have been just as unhappy at not being able to choose what type of notebook and folders I bought anyway. I liked buying school supplies, telling people the exact make and manufacture they have to buy ruins that little joy. We have dress codes, now supply codes? Sheesh.
(And I don't object to teachers saying they want composition and not college-ruled notebooks, that rule I understand. But going as far as to specify what the cover should look like and asking people to buy 24 sticks of glue-stick? No way. My mother bought whatever was on sale and that was good enough.)
Brandon Heyer, if it was trivial, why are you making such a huge fuss about it? Leave the poor woman alone.
My favorite comment so far is HuronBob @36:
If I thought I could get away with it and had some way to figure out who is and isn't a teacher, I'd have been sorely tempted to do it for the first twelve hours or so.It would be, dare I say it, an educational experience.
Teresa,
Ask them to identify Tom and John Dewey in ten seconds.
My point is that people get all wound up in how terrible Wal-Mart is without getting any of the facts and relying on a possibly misguided blog post by a Web Goddess Mommy.
I wouldn't be making a deal of it if there were solid facts, but the fact is, there are none. There has been one other example of a list from Wal-Mart, but not how it differs from the actual list. There have been many people commenting on this site, and the other, about how many of those supplies may seem ridiculous, yet are often necessary. Kids can plow through glue sticks, use tissue like crazy, and cut through a ream of construction paper (I mean, who doesn't love construction paper).
Yet there are STILL people posting about how awful this is. How TERRIBLE Wal-Mart is for posting such erroneous and false statements. PAINSTAKINGLY going through the necessary steps to create fake mock ups of faxed in supply lists. Yet no one has actually seen these lists. No one knows what lies at the intersection of Wal-Mart's fake lists and the school's black-list of supplies. People are just lashing out because they saw Wal-Mart in a post at BB. They switched to autopilot -- caveman with his club. Wal-Mart. Bad.
I also think that saying teachers and parents should only be allowed to post here is unfounded. I can critique wine without ever making a bottle. I may not have ever had a child, but I've been a child. I've gone through thirteen years of public schooling. I've wiped my nose with one ply brown paper towel because not enough kids brought in tissues. I've voted as soon as I could on our district taxes, even coming back from college a second year to do so. I've paid for taxes for a school district I spent nine years going through. My art teacher, who I had all four years of high school almost lost his job because the rich old folk in my town didn't think art was necessary -- they were going to carve out the art department, so our football team could see another season. I may never have had to support a child, but I sure have been one, and I never had those cool binders or fancy pencil pouches.
Frankly, I'm glad you can't get away with censoring out my posts just because I never gave birth to a child. If you were able to, my faith in Boing Boing would be terribly, irreversibly altered.
I'm with Phikus - 12 glue sticks per kid seems excessive. I don't remember even getting through a single glue stick/year in elementary school, and that was in the "whole language/self-expression/hippie teacher" era, when cut-and-paste was what math is now. If a kid needs 12 glue sticks in one year it's because he's eating them.
However, they did give us pencils which read "London and Middlesex Catholic Schoolboard", which (if you scratched off the right letters) could be made to read "London sexaholic Schoolboard". It was a sad day when they changed the name to "London and District".
It's sad to think that, even if they change the name back, the children of my hometown won't experience the same joy I did, since they have to bring their own pencils to school.
And I know this is OT, but can we collectively cool it with the antibacterial stuff? Why do kids in Grade 1 need to sanitize their hands constantly or have their surfaces wiped down with Clorox?
Hello. Wow, some of you have serious crayon fixations. Why on earth anyone would seriously think I am bored enough to invent this story is beyond me. Trust me, I have better things to do. I have many, many retorts. It's so detailed I decided to do a follow-up post:
http://kelbycarr.com/back-to-school-shopping-list-rebuttal/
1. Wal-mart sucks, its old news that they've been doing evil stuff forever.
2. WTF is a glue stick? (Yes, I'm very old).
T'is a stick composed of glue
http://www.global-b2b-network.com/direct/dbimage/50254244/Glue_Stick.jpg
most handy and eats like a sucker rather than the traditional pot of paste.
Sorry, Tak, I'm a traditionalist. Give me the pot o' paste any day. Something to be said for spooning it in.
@46 - A glue stick is just what it sounds like, a stick of glue - a sort of gelatinous solid that you smear on paper to stick it to other paper. Strictly speaking it doesn't work as well as liquid glue, and it has a truly disgusting texture (think flaky bacon fat) but is less prone to misuse - when I was a child I, personally, always doused things so thoroughly with Elmer's glue (whenever I used it) that they fell apart.
@45 - Wow, good for you for coming on the board and sticking up for yourself. Your kid's school sounds like a cool place - kindergarteners aren't expected to provide the kleenex or chalk or crayons. And what would the baggies be for in the first place?
Company?
Weyland Yutani...Our Ripley's former employers. Terran Growth conglom, had some defense contracts under the military. Before your time, Gediman -- they went under decades ago, bought out by Walmart.
On the subject of crayons, did you know that you can now buy a box of 120 colors? My inner 5-year-old went "SQUEEEE!" at the very idea.
i'll hazard a guess that the uniformity required in the supplies is to prevent one girl having a hannah montana notebook and another a "lame" generic. just a guess, though.
News flash: things at Wal-Mart aren't in fact "always" as cheap as you think. Just because the store looks cheap and has a reputation for having inexpensive stuff doesn't mean it's really so.
Whoa! I think we all need to take a deep breath! Perhaps the little boy in some of you that was forced to use his older sister's unicorn trapper keeper is really angry at his mother, and not the author of this piece.
Let's look at the facts:
1. This woman is a veteran journalist (more than a decade and a half), and the fact that she has chosen to work from home as a blogger and web site genius (my word, not hers), is a credit to her character and a blessing to her children (not to mention the Web 2.0 community!).
2. She has no reason to criticize Walmart for the sake of criticizing Walmart. Do some of you truly believe that she's some hacker blogger paid by Target? Come on....let's focus on reality.
3. She's not worried about her child being embarrassed because her supplies aren't "cool." She's worried that this little five year old child will find herself unprepared on the first day of school. Imagine twenty children around your child pulling that ruler out that they were required to have and your child's bag doesn't have that one item. If you're a parent, you have to admit that that is a scary proposition - having your child suffer discomfort because of your mistake.
4. The author is an advocate for parents, and has shown this through her work since making the switch to working from home online. Her websites not only provide writing and money-making opportunities for her, but they offer a forum for other work at home parents to have their voice heard and make money at the same time. Her article criticizing Walmart was not really an article criticizing Walmart...it was a heads up to the thousands of men and women who read it. Better safe than sorry as you head into back to school preparations. Not boycott your local Walmart for all of eternity.
Now let's all remember that this is a woman - a mom - and not Rupert Murdoch vs. Sam Walton. And let's be thankful that we live in a country where people can blow the whistle on shady practices.
Poor lady. If I was dumb enough to trust Wal-Mart to do their own research and the unwittingly bought everything that they told me to without question, I'd probably be dumb enough to be indignant about it when I found out that their lists were wrong.
Just what is going on in that country of yours? I don't have a kid (yet), and it's been many many years since I was one. But IIRC, the list I got goes something like ... pencils, eraser, various kinds of notebooks, watercolour, brushes, etc, plus a list of the text books. No weird things like anti-bacterial soap to be shared for the whole class. In kindergarten, the school buys soap, crayons, and other supplies. The teacher definitely do not buy them. In older grades, you bring your own art block, brushes, etc. The soap is in the toilet, along with the sink.
And the list is only a suggestion. Nobody simply just go and buy everything in the list, especially if you already have them at home. 7 year old kids who turned up in school without some of the items are not shamed by the teacher. What kind of teacher would do that?
In fact, many students would have some items missing the first few days/weeks of school. Some are just waiting to see if they would really need them. The teacher would simply tell you, and you'd go get them with your friends a day or two after that.
In fact, I remember spending 1/3rd of the year without some of the textbooks because they were out of stock, in the school bookshop as well as all the other bookshops in town. The only kids who had those books were those who bought their textbooks from the previous year's students, and those who got free books from the school (loaned for 1 year).
If you need glue for an art project, the teacher would remind you a day or two before, to bring it. You definitely do not need to buy 24 glue sticks at the beginning of the year. That'll be crazy. And the teacher does not buy tissue, paper towels, or anti-bacterial soap for the students.