Back to school madness – parents scramble for school supplies and hot gadgets

It’s that time of year again – school starts on Tuesday and many parents and families are scrambling to get everything ready in time.

And getting ready for school usually means spending lots of money.

According to a survey by the Bank of Montreal, the average parent will spend $170 per child for elementary school supplies, about $220 on high school school supplies and about $660 for university students, on top of tuition.

However, British Columbians are spending the second least on school supplies across the country, second only to Ontario.

Parents we talked to say the key is reusing some of the school supplies from past years and keeping your eyes open for some good deals.

Experts say in some cases it might be best to wait until kids start school to see what they are using and how much they need, and to go online to find the best deals.

For some kids however, it’s not about the best deals, but about the new gadgets on the market.

This year it’s all about screen size and connectivity with tablets and iPads once again scoring high on wish lists, although the tablet comes out on top.

And it seems more and more kids are using them in the classroom.

“Samsung’s got their Samsung school where the teacher is connected with all the tablets and laptops in the class, being able to beam the information to the kids, and they can beam it up to the teacher and the big monitor on the wall,” said Mike Agerbo with Get Connected Media.

Schools are turning to technology to get ready for the year as well.

Surrey School District recently spent $120,000 developing its own app. You download it for free – select the school your kids go to – and you can tailor precisely what information gets pushed to your smart phone or computer.

While there are many products on the market right now, some of the biggest, Google Glass for example, are still to come.