Northwest Middle School Dumps Thousands in Unused School Supplies
Updated: Friday, 22 Jul 2011, 12:36 PM CDT
Published : Thursday, 21 Jul 2011, 8:51 PM CDT

By Dane Placko, FOX Chicago News

Chicago - At a time when Chicago Public Schools are struggling for money, residents might be surprised by what FOX Chicago News found in the dumpster behind one school on the Northwest Side.

Thousands of dollars in school supplies - most of them unused - tossed in the trash at Northwest Middle School in the 5200 block of West Palmer, in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood.

The concerned viewer, who tipped off FOX Chicago, was outraged by the waste they found. As school officials preparing for the new year dumped boxes and boxes of unopened school supplies straight into the trash.

The tipster said to check the dumpsters behind Northwest Middle School. Sure enough, in one of the dumpsters lay thousands of dollars worth of books and unused school supplies that had apparently been tossed out in just the past few days.

Boxes and boxes of unopened chalk in packs of 12, enough to supply hundreds of classrooms for an entire school year, were found in that dumpster. At $0.89 a box, that’s just over $10 per pack, wasted.

There were also reams of unopened writing paper, drawing pads, bottles of glue at $1.19 each, boxes and boxes of books – some used, others brand new - and hundreds of textbooks and test preparation booklets.

Not a single page was marked.

Hundreds of rolls of adhesive tape, at just under $6 a piece, had been dumped, still inside the office depot boxes that were delivered to the school.
FOX Chicago wondered how Northwest Middle School could afford to simply throw away these valuable supplies, at a time CPS is facing a budget deficit in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

When asked the reason behind throwing out all the supplies, Principal Marilyn Strojny explained they were conducting inventory.

"To actually know what our inventory was,â€