School furniture, whether its student desks, school chairs, classroom tables, folding chairs, computer desks, or other classroom furniture, is a purchase not often available in the average school budget. So, when the time comes to make purchases, it’s important to get these decisions right and stretch every dollar as far as possible.

Comfort and fit are two important factors in selecting school furniture. Some desks feature an all-in-one model with the chair built in, but for others, the chair is separate. Either way, you want to make sure the school chair measurements match for each age/grade level. Check out School Measurements That Matter – one of our other helpful blog entries – for a complete and concise assessment about seat height, width, depth and backrest height.

In addition, classrooms in the 21st century are much different than they were in the 70s and 80s, with the long rows of single file desks. Today’s teaching environment is often focused far more on technology usage as well as a more collaborative, gather-round atmosphere. This results in the need for tables of various sizes and shapes or for the furniture in place to be portable so it can easily be moved or reconfigured.

Does the item provide the functionality you and your students will need? Students often need more room to spread out now, with books, laptops or iPads, etc. so larger desk surfaces or simple shared tabletops can be an effective solution.

In addition, many schools like the flexibility of tables or desks having adjustable legs so the furniture can be used at various grade levels. Our rectangular adjustable activity tables (in a variety of sizes such as 30” x 60”, 30”x 72”, 24”x 48”, and 30” x 48”) have been a popular fit for this request. The same is true of our adjustable height trapezoid student desks and our Advantage or Virco open front student desks.

Always try to order in bulk whenever possible to save on costs and shipping. We can’t speak for other companies, but at Classroom Essentials Online we do our absolute best to work with you on costs when creating a high item purchase order. We realize it’s not every day you may need to purchase this number of items and we will do whatever possible to combine or discount shipping and, overall, make you glad that you did all your school furniture shopping at one location.

If there’s a likelihood of needing additional, matching school furniture in the future, you won’t want to buy from some closeout warehouse location or a company that’s here today and gone tomorrow. At Classroom Essentials Online, we are a family-owned business with a more than 30 year tradition of serving our customers. We offer competitive prices, excellent quality and top notch customer service. Contact us through our website at classroomessentialsonline.com or by calling 1 (866) 404-7671.

We look forward to making your classrooms innovative learning spaces!