Parents on Central Coast Do Last-Minute School Shopping

Shopping carts at Target in Santa Maria were in constant motion.

Monday as parents pulled last-minute school supplies off shelves in preparation for the first day of school Tuesday.

Tori Anderson goes to school in Lompoc and starts back next Tuesday.

Though he has an extra week of summer vacation, he is “excited about projects” and looking forward to making new friends this school year.

Tori’s mom, Barbara Latham, says last year she spent between $60 to $75 on school supplies for her son.

She credits the Lompoc school district for taking the time “to really look at what the kids need to succeed.”

Latham and her son moved to California from Texas two years ago. She said in Texas the school supply list was “more of a teacher preference” and took more money out of her wallet.

Maria Vega is a Central Coast native. To help her parents out, she took her brother, who is going to the fourth grade, shopping for school supplies.

Vega told KCOY 12’s Cory James that she was also shopping for her first year of law school and noticed that there were “a lot of basic things that we are both getting for each other.” She did, however, notice some differences and said when she was in elementary school “mechanical pencils were a huge thing for us and now for them it’s like nothing.”

Vega adds that there are fewer but more expensive items on the lists for kids.