As a parent of 3 school aged boys, I'll start by saying the Fiskars brand holds up extremely well. We're using a pair now that's on year 3, and still going strong.
I'm appalled to read that some schools ask for doubles of everything and donate the extras. That is simply rude. There is also absolutely no reason to not release school supply lists in the fall, or for students moving into intermediate/middle/high school to have the lists available when homeroom or team assignments are posted. There is NOTHING worse than living in a smaller town and having 800+ kids get their supply list and only having 3 local options to get it all in one night.
My biggest recommendation is to stock up on the "basics" of school supplies when you see them on sale. Target, Walmart, Kmart, etc. start running school supplies in their sale ads in July around here. Pencils, pens (including red), highlighters, dry erase markers, (our elementary has dry erase wall boards instead of chalkboards), folders, etc. If you're lucky enough to get the unused school supplies sent home at the end of the year, go through ALL of that stuff ASAP. One year I got enough in "new" supplies home that I probably could have bought a lot less for the following fall. Keep all of those supplies in a designated spot, make sure they're well labelled, and make a note on your July/August calendar so you remember where you stashed it.
I somehow ended up with an abundance of 1-subject notebooks (bought a pile for a dime each!), pens & Pencils, composition books (got those at .45 each, what a bargain!) after we got the middle school supply lists. They'll get used eventually
PS--My big gripe is calculators! We were told last year that our middle school furnished graphing calculators for our 7th grade darlings who were taking pre-Algebra, and we wouldn't have to purchase a calculator while they were in middle school. Fast forward to this year. The high school changed math textbooks, so the darlings taking HS algebra in 8th grade had to purchase a new calculator
for the following day! Of course, no parents or local retailers were ready for the run on this particular make and model of calculator. I had to actually order it through work to be guaranteed my darling had his calculator by the end of the week--AND
had to send a note so he wouldn't get docked grade points for needing 3 days to get the stupid calculator. Thankfully it was only a scientific calculator and not the graphing, because once he's at the HS next year he'll need the graphing type. GRRRR!