Parents stormed store aisles on Saturday, crossing items off their school-supply checklists on the weekend before most Denver kids head back to the classroom.
No. 2 pencils, glue sticks, washable markers, safety scissors and … Clorox wipes?
Yep. Clorox wipes and antibacterial gel if you’re a student at Newlon Elementary School in Denver.
Principal Debra Whisnant is a stickler for all things sterile. While she has no scientific study to back her claim, Whisnant decided that classrooms armed with bacteria-killing liquids have fewer kids out sick.
“It does make a difference,” Whisnant said. “I can think of two rooms off the top of my head that I’ve seen it make a difference.”
The fewer kids out sick, the more days they get soaking up reading, writing and math, she said.
So understandably, some back-to-school lists are getting longer these days.
As parents frenetically lug kids to discount stores this August to fulfill school wish lists of paper, pencils and crayons, teachers and principals have quietly over the years added small items – some strange – to make their lives a little easier this fall.
At Slater Elementary School in Lakewood, for instance, preschoolers have to bring a change of clothes to keep at school.
“Why?” mom Martissa Spencer pondered Saturday morning. “Because they wet their pants. They go out and get muddy. They throw up. Preschool is fun.”
Just then the preschooler himself, 3-year-old James Spencer, burst from the aisles at the Target store in Lakeside wearing a bright blue Hello Kitty backpack big enough to fit the boy inside.
“It’s bigger than he is,” Spencer said.
Spencer opted for the early shift at Target, where she hoped to avoid back-to-school shopping crowds.
Store managers keep Target staffed with extra employees for the days before school starts, when business usually doubles.
“It can become a disaster pretty quickly,” manager Shannon Alexander said.
Shopper and mom Audrey Aguilar said the lists have gotten more complicated over the years. Recent additions include dry- erase markers and water bottles.
“People are more aware of how hot it is when kids go back to school,” she said.
And longer lists mean more money. The items on one list for sixth-graders in DPS added up to $34.32 at Target.
Just because the school asks for it, doesn’t mean they’ll get it. Many parents focus on the basics: paper and writing utensils.
Amber Wilson, a teacher at Grant Middle in Denver’s West Washington Park neighborhood, said she suggests after school starts that parents buy a Palm Pilot for students in her class. She has some Palm Pilots in the classroom for students to use for writing, but she said some kids like to use them as planners too.
She does leave that request off the back-to-school supply list that goes out to families in the summer though.
“I think it would scare parents,” she said.
Staff writer Abbe Smith can be reached at 303-820-1201 or asmith@denverpost.com.
