Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

How A Purchasing Co-op Can Help

  • By Angela Webb
  • 10/01/16

For people working hard to educate students, time and money are invaluable; there’s not a minute or a dollar to spare. That’s why it’s so important for districts to take advantage of every resource. Purchasing cooperatives are a great place to start.

Co-ops save you time and money by doing the work for you. Co-ops can offer competitive pricing that’s otherwise unavailable to individual districts by nationally leveraging their purchasing power. In other words, vendors are willing to exchange lowered prices for a pool of customers. When you’re part of a co-op, the vendor will provide a list of eligible and approved products available at exclusive prices — all you have to do is shop the list to save money.

If you’ve got a large project, you can use your co-op as a centralized place to see all products, so there’s no need to get multiple bids. These items are pre-approved to make sure they’re competitively priced and meet state guidelines — which means you don’t have to spend time wading through red tape. Since they’re designed to meet statutory, policy and administrative requirements, you can think of co-ops as a one-stop-shop for your district. Plus, you’ll benefit from “customized contact” perks. These include coordination of delivery and certain on-delivery services not available to individual customers.

When you join a co-op, you become a member of a network of educators. You’ll be invited to exclusive conferences on current trends, summer-creditive programs and opportunities to meet other educators. Essentially, a co-op offers a place for you to do all the things you want and need to do, but wouldn’t otherwise have time or money for.

Many co-ops offer free membership. TIPS is available nationally, is free to join and includes all standard services. Shop around and see what’s best for you.

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

About the Author

Angela Webb is director of Sales at School Outfitters. She can be reached at 866/619-5311 or [email protected].

Featured

  • Designing for Every Mind

    Learning environments have the power to shape not just what students know, but who they become. When a school is designed with genuine empathy—for the full range of ways students think, sense, and engage with the world—it becomes more than a building. It becomes a catalyst for growth, confidence, and belonging. That is the animating idea behind neurodiverse design, and it is one that is transforming how more architects and designers are thinking about school design.

  • Virginia Tech Tops Out New College of Engineering Building

    Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., recently celebrated the topping out of Mitchell Hall, which will soon stand as the largest College of Engineering building on campus, according to a news release. The university partnered with Skanska on the 285,500-square-foot facility, which has an expected completion date of winter 2028.

  • Q&A: How to Prevent Kitchen Grease Fires in Commercial Kitchens

    School cafeterias and university dining halls serve thousands of meals daily, relying on high-heat equipment like fryers, grills, and ovens. While these operations keep students fed, they also generate significant grease-laden vapors. Without proper controls, this grease becomes a silent fire threat. As a certified exhaust cleaning specialist and business coach who has helped hundreds of institutional facilities achieve NFPA 96 compliance, I emphasize that proactive grease management isn’t optional; it’s a core fire/life safety practice.

  • Tomball ISD Opens New Tomball West High School

    Tomball Independent School District in Tomball, Texas, recently celebrated the official opening of Tomball West High School, the district's third comprehensive high school, with a community ribbon-cutting ceremony, according to a district news release.