{"id":282189,"date":"2018-08-14T06:06:28","date_gmt":"2018-08-13T20:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=282189"},"modified":"2018-08-14T06:06:28","modified_gmt":"2018-08-13T20:06:28","slug":"no-price-increase-in-school-supplies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/no-price-increase-in-school-supplies\/","title":{"rendered":"No price increase in school supplies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
From left, Cassandra Castro, cashier; Colleen Rana, sales representative; and Wilma De Leon, accountant at Modern Office Supply in San Jose. (Bea Cabrera)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Prices of school supplies have remained constant this school year, according to a roundup of stores on Saipan.<\/p>\n

Wilma de Leon, accountant at Modern Office Supply in San Jose, said their prices have stayed pretty much the same as last year\u2019s. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not have an increase in the store so parents and students can expect to see the prices of office and school supplies in our store to be affordable. Even though our costs went up, our prices did not,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

De Leon said the company chose not to increase the prices at Modern Office Supply, concerned as they are with family incomes that have remained stagnant.<\/p>\n

Also, she projects sales figures this year to stay the same as last year\u2019s. \u201cEven if the Public School System removed some items from their school supplies list, the school still goes to us to buy the items that were omitted so they can provide to their students,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

De Leon said the surge of people shopping for school supplies started two weeks ago. \u201cPeople started to pour in to get school supplies two weeks ago because the private schools opened early, like the first week of August, while PSS will start Aug. 15, 2018.\u201d<\/p>\n

The store is open from 8am to 7pm but De Leon said they do extend hours when they still have customers beyond closing hours. \u201cWe understand that parents only have time after work.\u201d <\/p>\n

She said they\u2019ve been getting over a hundred customers every day since private schools started classes and they expect more customer traffic in the weeks to come. <\/p>\n

The National Office Supply on Beach Road also did not impose a price increase. In fact, \u201c\u2026we are even offering a back to school discount,\u201d said National Office Supply\u2019s Alice Legaspi.<\/p>\n

The store started its back-to-school preparations last week, Legaspi said, to accommodate the opening of private schools and PSS this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI notice that we get more people as the day of the school opening draws near and we understand that because parents have time after work and some wait for payday,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

As for sales, Legaspi believes that sales will be lower this year than last year\u2019s. \u201cI think our sales will be affected by the CW-1 situation. We all know that a lot of CW-1 workers were sent home because of expired visas. Some of them have children attending school on island and since the parents had to leave Saipan, the children went with them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know this to be true because I\u2019m a CW-1 worker\u2026based on personal knowledge, enrolment this school year went down a little because of children that went home with their parents who had CW status\u2026 I also know several parents transferred their children from private to publics schools so there is a student population \u2018shift\u2019 in a way,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Elena Justo, sales representative of Digitech Computer Services in Garapan, said their laptop sales is better this year than last year\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cParents are more open for their children to have their own computers. Laptops are no longer a luxury but a necessity in school,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of our customers are high school students from PSS and the sales of our laptops went up recently because of the school opening,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The zero-price increase in the prices of school supplies on island has relieved many parents. \u201cWe are very happy that school supplies are still affordable. I noticed that the price of pencils and notebooks are the same as last year\u2019s,\u201d said Maricel Bayog, mother of a 2nd grader at Garapan Elementary School.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe welcome this as we not only get what my child needs for school but we also have savings and can use the money for other things. It\u2019s also good that the PSS list of school supplies decreased this year and it is only asking for really basic items like notebooks, pencils, pens, etc.,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Jona Cordova, a mother of a first grader at Koblerville Elementary School, is also relieved that the required list of school supplies has been cut short. \u201cNow we only have to think of getting basic school items,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Cordova also lauded school supply stores for keeping prices down. \u201cWhen we started shopping for school supplies last week, my husband and I were relieved to see no price increases and we did not have to come up with a bigger budget this year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prices of school supplies have remained constant this school year, according to a roundup of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":282209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[22312,67,40,22313],"class_list":["post-282189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-modern-office-supply","tag-people","tag-pss","tag-wilma-de-leon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}