It’s time for the
back-to-school daze

By Diane Prokop
Times Staff Writer

Nearly 56 million students will be heading to the nation’s elementary and high schools in a couple of weeks, in addition to 18 million students who are enrolled in colleges and universities across the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
No wonder retailers love this time of year.
Second only to the holiday shopping season, back-to-school shopping makes for a lot of back-to-school profits for the nation’s merchants. Maybe that’s why some advertisers tout it as the most wonderful time of the year.
Statistics compiled by the National Retail Federation project that your average family will spend $563.50 on back-to-school merchandise, an increase of nearly 7 percent compared to last year’s average expenditure, $527.08.
Getting the kiddies ready for the classroom, however, isn’t exactly a piece of cake. In fact, it’s not something Shari Sperling is looking forward to.
"Just thinking about getting into the routine again. It’s hectic getting him off to school in the morning, and then homework," Sperling said as she and son Caleb, 8, shopped for school supplies at the Target store on Roosevelt Boulevard.
Caleb’s coolest new back-to-school purchase was a Hairy Zoo highlighter, with a lion’s head on the cap of the marker.
Animals also were big one aisle over, where Julia Halas, 7, picked out a puppy copybook and a kitty cat backpack.
Characters like Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants may come and go — remember that big purple dinosaur? — but puppies and kittens will always be in fashion for little girls.
For Julia’s big brother Alexander, who will enter the fifth grade at Nazareth Academy, back-to-school shopping didn’t hold the same thrill.
While their mom Jennifer hasn’t done any Internet shopping to ease the frenzy of the Labor Day countdown, she does think it’s a good idea.
"There always are things on the list that you miss when you’re here," Halas said.
Although Maureen Guinan and her mom Theresa have used the Internet to check prices, they prefer the hands-on approach to shopping. The Rhawnhurst residents were loading up their cart with storage items for the Little Flower grad’s dorm room at The Restaurant School.
Theresa Guinan, who teaches eighth grade at the John Welsh School in Kensington, constantly keeps an eye out for bargains on notebooks, loose-leaf binders and other stationery items.
"We buy just in case (the students) don’t have them. Get your bargains now," she advised.
That’s just what Shawn Thomas was doing as she leaned on a display table at the JCPenney Outlet store in Franklin Mills last week, crossing items off her back-to-school list for her children Kennedy, 13, Sloane, 12, and Mackenzie, 10.
"I’m looking at price," the discerning shopper said.
Stores that sell office products, such as Staples and Office Max, are catering to folks like Thomas.
Price wars that target items like Elmer’s Glue and crayons and pocket folders can be found on the front pages of many an office-store circular these days. Last week, Staples was charging just 7 cents for Elmer’s Glue or crayons, while Office Max was pushing rulers for 4 cents and notebooks for 50 cents.
Price isn’t all that’s on the minds of parents, though. Safety is at the top of the list for Joe Curran and Mike Pelonzi, two fathers from New England who found that necessity was the father of invention. After the Columbine High School shootings eight years ago, the dads looked for something that might protect their own children, but they didn’t find anything suitable.
"I was in the Army and we’re both sportsmen. We know the damage a bullet can do," Curran said by phone from Massachusetts last week. "It’s a big need that was being unfulfilled."
So the two friends are providing parents with My Child’s Pack — a bulletproof backpack. Featuring a 20-ounce bulletproof shield, it retails for $175.
"It’s because society is so crazy. We’re friends and two concerned dads," Curran said.
It could be that parents also consider it a back-to-school necessity. Though My Child’s Pack has been on the market for just a couple of weeks (get information at www.mychildspack.com), the inventors/entrepreneurs, aided by a wave of media publicity, quickly sold their initial inventory.
"We have the factory ramped up," Curran said, adding that orders are expected to be shipped in four to six weeks. ••
Reporter Diane Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dprokop@phillynews.com