Colorado families struggle to pay skyrocketing back-to-school costs
August 14, 2017
Sisters Melissa, center, and Estrella Romero shop with their new friend Natalie Guard on Aug. 5, 2017 in Denver. The women's group Rocky Mountain Active 20-30 put on the event to shop for back-to-school supplies for low-income students in the Denver area.
Tens of thousands of students will stream back to Colorado classrooms this month, their backpacks loaded with pencils and paper, binders and ballpoint pens — and, increasingly, items that schools used to supply: tissues, cotton balls, hand wipes, ziplock bags.
The price tag to equip one child can easily reach $100 to $150, school officials and parents say. And that doesn't include clothes, shoes and specialty items like calculators.
"It's a big change" from the past, said Lorraine Alcott, who volunteers at an annual supply giveaway for Jefferson County Public Schools students. "It just seems that our (supply) lists just get longer and longer."
Every student at one school was asked to bring five dozen pencils on their first day to bolster the school's dwindling supply, Alcott said.
