Overall, flash drives don’t belong on that list.

Reality isn’t that neat. On more than one occasion, my daughter learned about a specific supply request on the first day of class as the teacher distributed the syllabus and classroom rules.

We moved to Michigan just before my daughter started junior high, so I don’t know know the school supply requests works in the local grade schools. The community where we used to live in Ohio had school by school, grade by grade, shopping lists posted at an information table or assembled in reference binders in the stores.

But I have seen “suggested school supplies” lists posted by the retailers in the Monroe-area stores. And I know local parents are using them.

When my daughter was in junior high and high school, we did buy bookbags, folders, binders, notebooks and pens. We also bought my daughter’s scientific calculator. There were loaner calculators available from the schools; but those supplies were limited, and my daughter said the loaners had seen quite a bit of wear.

In the meantime, Monroe County parents, here are some other school-related expenses you will be dealing with, depending on the grade level and where your child goes to school: pay-to-participate sports fees, driver’s education fees, yearbook purchases, school photos (including multiple picture variations beyond yearbook pose), letter jacket, class ring, graduation cap and gown, gym clothes, prom dress or tux, class trip fundraisers or fees, bus fare, uniforms for school or the team or scouts …

Look on my category list on the left for “back to school”, “preschool,” “K-8″, “high school,” “college,” “sports” and “Girl Scouts” for posts about those expenses.

So…you’re a young parent in a Brave New World. What happens if you simply wait until the first day of school to buy anything for the kidlets? Will the teacher (the school?) send home a print-out (or maybe e-mail or text it to you) of the supplies she or he (or it?) expects the children to bring to school? Or are you expected to imbibe this information from the local retailers?

Monroe sounds like a nice place to live. I’ve always liked common sense. But that may be a preference reserved to us dinosaurs.

I was used to seeing school-by-school / grade-by-grade supply lists posted in the retail stores where I used to live in northwest Ohio. These lists would be so detailed they would specify crayon boxes of a certain size.

But when we moved to Monroe, Mich., and I inquired about school supply lists for my daughter’s junior high, I got a pretty basic instruction: “something to write in, something to write on.”

Interesting!

Now the real shocker is … look up the school supply lists that are created and posted by the stores. There are more items promoted as appropriate purchases for certain grade levels that I didn’t even put on this list.

Why would you buy all that stuff unless you know it really is needed in YOUR school or classroom?

Let’s see…they can’t bring a binder and they can’t make marginal notes in their textbooks…so…what are they supposed to write on? Five spiral notebooks, a day planner, and a box or backpack take up less space than one three-ring binder with a couple of sheets of paper for their “day planner” and a snap-in plastic pocket to carry the other junk they’re lugging to class? The school can’t provide dry-erase markers (or chalk) or crayons or glue or paints or pencils or paper. Meanwhile you’re also being asked to buy them a digital camera, an mp3 player, and their own padlocks?

Brave new world, eh?