Letter: Parents, Save Your Receipts!

[Editor's Note: Albany Patch would love your 300-word letters to the editor. .]

Back to school time seems to be bilk-parents-with-school-shopping time for some local businesses.

Target has had a kiosk with lengthy lists of supplies needed for each grade level at Cornell and Ocean View (but not Marin?) and AMS for most of the summer.

I am a kindergarten teacher at Cornell and, according to Target, my students need to bring "Play Dough", a rest mat, and about 15 other items to school—items that are not on our legitimate supply list (which parents should have received at the end of last year or with info mailed out over the summer).

I've complained to the manager twice and finally got the response that this display was from corporate headquarters and they can't remove it.

Office Depot has similar lengthy lists, but does not title them with actual school names, allowing for the impression that this is a suggested, rather than required, list of supplies.

Given how supportive our Albany families are of our schools, I hate to think that they're being taken advantage of.

When my students show up on the first day of school with their Target shopping bags full of unnecessary items, I'll have to let their families know that they've been had.