When members of the 2023-24 Marin County Civil Grand Jury read a story in the IJ about some parents feeling the pinch of the cost of buying school supplies for their kids, something didn’t sound right.

Over the years in many Marin public schools, parents would be asked to buy required school supplies for their youngsters. These would range from binders and notebooks to boxes of Kleenex or paper towels.

For most parents, this was more of a hassle than a household budget-busting expense, but for others it was both.

And, as the grand jury’s report, “A Free Public Education Includes School Supplies,” states, the requirement undermines the important concept of a free public education.

“While the use of supply lists varies throughout the school districts, the Grand Jury concluded that many schools asked, or suggested, that students or their families purchase supplies that schools are required to provide. In addition, teachers often use their personal funds to pay for supplies so their students can fully participate in school activities.” the report states.

Its findings may not be earth-shattering, but they should serve as a lesson to Marin’s public school leaders that the practice is contrary to the state’s guarantee that its public schools provide all the supplies, materials and equipment necessary for their students “to fully participate at school.”

That goes for extracurricular activities, as well.

As the report states, that doesn’t mean districts can’t accept private grants and donations from school or service groups or foundations for needed supplies.

“Back to school” sales are an American tradition and over the years schools have offered parents and students lists of supplies they need.

Are those lists supposed to be helpful guides or an implied requirement?

Even if it’s a close call, that’s wrong.

Teacher-suggested lists started growing about the time that Proposition 13’s property tax cut started taking big bites out of public school funding.

As the grand jury report details, in many cases, teachers have spent their own money to provide their students with needed supplies.

That’s wrong, too.

Given the amount of time and energy devoted to public schools asking for money — both taxes and donations to fund-raisers or requested annual family donations — providing their students with the supplies they need, in classrooms and schools’ extracurricular activities, should be a priority.

Some local districts even include advertisements from large companies that sell school supplies on their websites. In some cases, there’s also a list of suggested supplies.

In some schools the list says it is voluntary. In others, there’s no such advisory.

Even the inclusion of an advisory that buying the supplies is voluntary still sets up a sense of “haves” and “have nots” among students.

On Miller Creek Middle School’s website, the grand jury found a “Sixth Grade Supply List,” essentially an implied shopping list that ranged from pencils and erasers to scissors graph-ruled paper for math class.

These are basic supplies that should be provided free to every student.

The report’s footnotes provide links to lists provided by other Marin schools.

The grand jury recommends that schools detail that those lists are “entirely voluntary.”

Still, schools seem to be walking a fine line, implying that those who do not buy them are going to have to ask for basic supplies. While legal, that situation certainly seems to chip away at our nation’s foundation of free public schools.

The grand jury is doing its job as a panel of court-empowered civic-minded citizens holding up a public mirror to what’s going on in Marin. Its findings should be good and bad, promising and troubling. It is supposed to challenge the status quo.

When it comes to needed supplies for students in our public schools, the grand jury’s findings show it’s time for Marin districts to take a harder look at their classroom “shopping lists,” whether or not they specify they are voluntary.