Lakeshore Learning vs. Printable Classroom Supplies: A Procurement Manager's Cost Breakdown

Every spring, I sit down with a stack of school supply requests. The teachers who submit them fall into two camps: the ones who type 'lakeshore-learning' into a search bar and want ready-to-use materials, and the ones who type 'graph paper printable' and want to handle it themselves. Both are right, depending on the item.

The principal wants a fountain pen recommendation for signing diplomas. And someone always asks what is the size of printer paper before printing a file. I've managed our classroom supplies budget for six years—roughly $45,000 a year, 40+ vendor orders, and a procurement spreadsheet that does not forgive. This breakdown is how I think about 'order it' versus 'make it work.'

The Real Comparison: Order It vs. Make It Work

The comparison isn't 'Lakeshore Learning vs. some random brand.' It's more useful: buying ready-made classroom supplies vs. using the DIY/print route. Both have a place. But after tracking every order, I changed my mind about which one saves more money.

My Old Assumption Was Wrong

Everything I'd read about school budgets said the same thing: printables are cheaper because you skip the retail markup. Let me rephrase that. Printables can be cheaper. In practice, our 2024 print logs told a different story for full-color items.

For black-and-white graph paper, printing is almost always cheaper. For colorful bulletin board borders, the ink and labor ate the 'savings.' The conventional wisdom—that a $0 page is always better—doesn't account for a teacher spending her Sunday cutting strips in front of a TV.

Let's say we go the printable route for a school-wide display. The upside was maybe $60 in border materials. The risk was 14 teachers spending Sunday night cutting paper, or worse, the display looking ragged by November. I kept asking myself: is $60 worth asking teachers to work off the clock? It wasn't.

Lakeshore Learning Bulletin Board Borders vs. Printable Borders

This is the one I almost got wrong. As of our January 2025 order, Lakeshore Learning bulletin board borders cost about $4.99-$5.99 per roll, and a roll covers maybe 39 feet. That's not free. But it is ready to cut and staple. A printable border is often 'free' from a teacher-sharing site. That's where the TCO hand-waving starts.

Let's do the ink math. Our leased color copier costs us about $0.32 per full-color letter-size page when I include toner and paper. A border PDF might use 8-10 sheets to make the same 39 feet. That's $2.56-$3.20 in supplies. Add lamination if you want it to survive more than one month—say $0.30 per linear foot, so another $10-12. Suddenly the printable option is over $13, and I haven't counted the 25 minutes of cutting.

I have mixed feelings about this because printable decor has a design flexibility that pre-made rolls can't match. On one hand, a teacher can create custom colors and themes. On the other, the hidden labor is real. The way I reconcile it: use printable borders for small accents and custom themes; use Lakeshore Learning bulletin board borders for standard, school-wide displays.

I still kick myself for one 'cheap' border experiment in 2023. The generic set was two inches shorter and the color looked faded next to the art projects. We re-ordered from Lakeshore after two weeks. That's a $120 replacement order I could have avoided if I'd asked one basic question: how does this look in a real classroom, not in a screenshot?

Graph Paper Printable: The One Where DIY Usually Wins

For graph paper, I'll take the other side. A graph paper printable is genuinely cheap. At our 2024 rate, a black-and-white page ran roughly $0.04 in toner and paper. That beats a $6 pad of graph paper, especially if you only need 10 sheets. You can even save the PDF and reprint next year—my favorite kind of purchase: a one-time download cost amortized over four years.

But there's a trap. Many free PDFs come from international sites. If you're in the United States, what is the size of printer paper? The standard is US Letter: 8.5 x 11 inches. According to the ANSI standard for US paper sizes, Letter is 8.5 x 11 (Source: ANSI, January 2025). If the template is A4—8.27 x 11.69 inches—and your printer driver scales it to Letter, the grid squares may no longer be exactly 2 cm or 1 inch. For a measurement lesson, that's a real error.

So the rule in our school is: always open the PDF page setup and check the dimensions before pressing print. If it says A4, decide whether to print on A4 paper or resize it and state the new scale.

The Fountain Pen TCO Surprise

Now the fountain pen request. A fountain pen sounds like an indulgence for a school budget. But when you compare it to disposable gel pens over three years, it's not crazy.

Take a common starter fountain pen, about $28, plus a $13 bottle of ink. If I remember correctly, a 60 ml bottle lasts about nine months of daily writing. That's $41 in year one and roughly $17 a year after that. A teacher who uses one $2 disposable pen every two weeks is spending $52 per year. The fountain pen catches up by year two. It also asks to be refilled, not thrown away, which fits the sustainability side of a school's budget narrative.

The catch is exactly what you'd expect: loss and breakage. A $28 pen that disappears hurts more than a $2 pen. So my procurement policy is simple: buy a refillable fountain pen for the head of each department and for office staff who sign documents, not for shared classroom bins. If you want a one-time staff gift that says 'we thought about it,' a replenishable fountain pen is a better long-term dollar than a gift set of ballpoints. I'm not 100% sure every teacher will love the nib, but the ones who like pens will.

Scenario Picks: What I'd Actually Buy

Let me be concrete. I don't think there is a single winner.

• Ready-made classroom displays? Lakeshore Learning bulletin board borders. Take advantage of the teacher discount if you're a school, and verify current pricing—as of Jan 2025 our order ran about $5 per 39-foot roll.
• Math manipulatives, quick grids, or homework sheets? Use a graph paper printable and print only what you need. For bigger runs of 200+ pages, consider a short-run online printer like 48 Hour Print instead of draining your copier; standard products and quantities from 25 to 25,000+ fit that workflow.
• Staff gifts or document signing? A refillable fountain pen for adults who can keep track of it. Disposable pens for everything else.
• Before you print anything? Check what is the size of printer paper in your printer settings. In the US, it's Letter—8.5 x 11 inches. In many other countries, it's A4. The difference matters for graph paper and printable borders.

Oh, and I should add that I'm not down on printable classroom decor. It has a place. The issue is that we called it 'cheap' without counting the ink, the time, the lamination, and the reprints. The same goes for Lakeshore Learning: if you only look at the price tag, you'll miss the teacher discount, the time saved, and the durability. The total cost is what matters.

The Bottom Line

What was best practice in 2020 may not apply in 2025. The fundamentals haven't changed—schools still need durable materials and honest budgets—but the execution has transformed. I used to assume every printable was cheaper. Now I assume the opposite until I check the ink and labor. I used to think a fountain pen was a luxury. Now I'd rather buy one good pen for an adult who signs documents than restock a box of disposables every semester.

If you're making a procurement decision today, don't ask 'which is cheaper?' Ask 'what is the total cost, including someone's time, ink, paper size mistakes, and replacement risk?' That's the comparison that actually pays.