Educational supply store closing doors after 32 years

By Cece NunnCece.Nunn@StarNewsOnline.com

Saturday

Mar 22, 2014 at 7:15 AM

The decision by Teacher's Aid came after years of dwindling profits because of the economic downturn.

Jennifer Altman walked into Teacher's Aid on Tuesday with her two children and asked the owner, "How are you settling in?"Mark Olsen had to break the bad news. The store, a source of educational supplies, is closing after 32 years and only about five months at its new Long Leaf Mall location."I love being here. I don't want to go, believe me. But I've tried everything," Olsen, who has owned Teacher's Aid for seven years, told Altman.The decision to close came after years of dwindling profits because of the economic downturn and what Olsen sees as a continuing problem for teachers in North Carolina."I don't blame the failure of our business on teachers at all, but there's definitely a trickle down from the lack of support teachers receive," said Olsen, who has a 10-year-old son. "We've suffered from it the same way the teachers have suffered, the same way the parents are suffering."The store's customers weren't limited to teachers. Home-schoolers, churches and parents looking for educational tools shopped there. Altman, who home-schools her children, was looking Tuesday for some workbooks for her daughter, who had become frustrated with the slower pace of an online curriculum."It just made things so convenient" to be able to go to Teacher's Aid, Altman said, because the only other times she gets to see home-school educational materials in real life are at conferences held twice a year. Additionally, Teacher's Aid has been selling home schooling supplies on consignment for the past three years.Kathy Hoke, another shopper at Teacher's Aid on Tuesday and a retired teacher, has been buying items at the store since the early 80s."I'm going to miss this," said Hoke, who bought gifts for her grandchildren Tuesday. "It's just been a good facility to meet your needs for teaching and parenting and grandparenting, and it's always been run by good people. I think it's a sign of the times with more people now doing things off the Internet."Everything was 30 percent off starting last week, but Olsen expected to offer a higher discount before the store closes for good, at the end of the day on March 31."Smarter businesspeople probably would have looked at it as far back as 2009 and 2010, the trends of a couple of years, but the depth and the magnitude of that sort of economic hurricane that came through is still being felt," Olsen said.After Olsen bought the business, he moved it from the Kerr Avenue shopping center across from Harris Teeter to a bigger space."When we moved over there, it was at the peak of the business. We wanted to sell globes and whatever technology we could and science products," Olsen said. "Things tanked so quickly after we moved over there that we had this sort of rapid expansion and then very quickly we were whittling it down to a smaller space." Teacher's Aid opened at Long Leaf Mall on Nov. 1 last year."If you're going to get into business, you have to have a certain optimism, so you just keep saying we just haven't found the way yet; we haven't found the right opportunity or made the right thing happen, made the right change, or we haven't been patient enough," said Olsen, who made the decision to close last month. "After a while, if you're selling things for what you paid for it, you're just not going to get ahead in any possible way."Kristina Mercier, a seventh-grade teacher at Roland-Grise Middle School, said she feels "very sorry that he's going out of business because even though I didn't need to go in there every week or anything, it was nice knowing it was there if you wanted something special."Mercier's classroom walls are decorated with posters from the store on various topics, including famous people who have come back from massive failures to become successful, like Henry Ford. "My kids have seen those, and it's about time to cycle them out," said Mercier, who had hoped to buy new posters from Teacher's Aid. "Maybe I'll get over there before they close. Or maybe I'll just put them up for another couple of years."

Cece Nunn: 343-2310On Twitter: @StarNewsOnline

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