School Daze, longtime educational supplies store in Olympia, will close

School Daze, a longtime educational supplies store in west Olympia, will close next month, the co-owner of the business said in brief comments to an Olympian reporter last week.

Wendy England said Thursday that the store, open for 36 years, will close in December. She and her husband, Jerry, could not be reached on Sunday.

School Daze in Olympia is off Cooper Point Road in the Capital Village shopping center. It also is next to the South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanity store.

The couple used to operate a store in Tacoma, but it was closed in January 2013, according to The News Tribune.

“The economy just killed us,” Jerry England told the paper in 2013. “We’ve tried to weather it, but we’re soaking more of our money into it and it’s not working.”

England said sales had been falling for some time, and that 2012 was their worst year for back-to-school season.

In a recent survey, teachers said they spent an average of $356 of their own money on classroom and instructional supplies in the 2009-2010 school year, compared with $552 in 2005-2006. The retail market study by the National School Supply and Equipment Association shows teachers expect that number to keep falling.

This story was originally published November 22, 2015 at 2:56 PM with the headline "School Daze, longtime educational supplies store in Olympia, will close."