6/3/2025
by Victoria Ritter
When an educational supply store in central Texas was in danger of closing, a family of educators sought to keep the business running. Today, Educational Outfitters in Killeen is a relevant and reliable resource for teachers, parents and homeschoolers.
Founded by Cindy and Randy Schoel in 1995, Educational Outfitters served area educators and families for 26 years from its original location in Harker Heights, TX. When the Schoels decided to retire in December 2021, Jaime Williams saw their notice on Facebook. She, along with her sister, Melissa Walcik, and their parents, were teachers and had frequented the store many times. Together, they approached the Schoels with an offer to buy their business.
Owning her own store had been Williams’ dream for many years. She recalled how, in her freshman year of college, she took a business program and was inspired to own an educational store. She was soon dissuaded after taking an accounting class and decided to become a teacher instead.
In December 2021, both of Williams’ parents had retired from teaching and Walcik was only a couple years from retirement. The timing couldn’t be better to take over Educational Outfitters. “By the time the store came available for sale, I was at a point in my career where I was feeling I needed a change,” Williams recalled. “It was at the right time.”
The surrounding area was in need of Educational Outfitters to stay open. At one point, there used to be several educational supply stores about an hour south and north of Harker Heights. Now, there is only one left, which caters to the early elementary crowd. In contrast, Educational Outfitters provides supplies for elementary through high school.
The turnaround was quick. Williams and her family re-opened Educational Outfitters the following May. Williams and her family are a lean, mean team. “My dad comes in when we have big orders,” Williams said, adding her mom and sister work full-time at the store. “We have one other employee who is also a former teacher; she runs our homeschool classes and works part-time.”
Educational Outfitters moved operations last year down the road to Killeen. While the store has better access to the main road, visibility remains a challenge.
“We’re trying to get the word out that we’re still here,” Williams said. “The newspaper has done articles, our local superintendent even did a shout out to us on her weekly message before we moved, but that’s our biggest challenge.”
Orderly and organized
Educational Outfitters’ current location is roughly 5,800 square feet, a bit smaller than its previous store. “Our building used to be an old house that has been added on to several times by former owners,” Williams said. “When people come in, they think that our store’s bigger than our former location – it’s not. It’s just the way it’s set up and organized.”
Upon entering, patrons will first see a display area with new products or “anything we want to highlight,” according to Williams. An early childhood section is on the left. To the right are decorations such as accents, background papers and borders along with grade books.
Moving further into the store, one can find an area of office supplies, motivational items and magnetic products. Smaller rooms feature science and math; social studies, language arts and foreign language; and religion, sports, art and music.
There is a small classroom that doubles as a meeting space for area nonprofits and homeschool classes. A playroom is available for kids to use as their parents shop.
Educational Outfitters seeks to be a one-stop shop for its customers. Its inventory includes decorations and supplies, books, workbooks, games, manipulatives, learning materials and STEM/STEAM kits.
“We sell Kindermats your round, which is a big seller around here because we’re the only ones who carry them year around,” Williams said. “Our daycares send parents over here all the time to get them.”
Additional big sellers include materials from Teacher Created Resources, mats and poly charts from Ashley Productions and Spectrum workbooks from Carson Dellosa Publishing. Other brands in stock include North Star Teacher Resources, Scholastic, Eureka, Pacon Creative Products and Musgrave Pencil Co. The store carries around 11,000 SKUS, but the list is expanding.
“We’re still growing,” Williams stated. “When we bought the business, a lot of the vendors Cindy had used had either gone out of business or merged with another company. We’re establishing those relationships and finding new vendors.”
Williams gets ideas for products through a Facebook group of dealers, by listening to customers – including local teacher friends – and searching the internet for what’s new and trending. A recent trend is an uptick in manipulative-based learning.
“We’ve noticed that with the increase of schools that are trying to go digital, students aren’t getting the foundation skills that they need,” Williams observed. “Parents and teachers are coming in constantly, saying they need hands-on manipulatives because they’re not getting it through this digital system anymore.” Products that help combat this issue include Unifix cubes, Base Ten blocks and graph papers.
When considering a new product to put on her shelves, Williams hones in on the “why” behind it, honing in on how it teaches a certain skill and why it’s important. She also wants products that are multi-functional and provide a good value for buyers.
“Our goal is to always try to show customers multiple ways that they can use each product for different skills,” she said. “For example, counters for early childhood, you can use it for counting, patterning, sorting and creating letters. There are different ideas for the same product – that way, customers feel like they’re getting a better deal out of it.”
Reaching beyond the classroom
Teachers and parents come from near and far to visit Educational Outfitters. The store is within half an hour of seven school districts. “We also have teachers who come all the way from Austin, Waco and Rockdale which are one to two hours away,” Williams said.
Apart from schools, Educational Outfitters also sells to daycares, churches and homeschoolers. While its online store sales pale in comparison to in-store purchases, the digital catalog is a handy resource for people out of the area.
“Because we’re in a military town, we have a lot of people come in while visiting family. They’ll shop while they’re here, then they’ll take our brochure and say, ‘I’m going to order later,’ and ‘I’m going to share this with other teachers.’”
The store draws further attention by participating in community events. It partners with a local Realtor for an annual back-to-school teacher bash and attends new teacher orientations, homeschool events and parent nights. Educational Outfitters donates products to smaller school districts – as well as one school that was destroyed by a tornado – and passed out pencils during Red Ribbon Week, a drug prevention awareness campaign.
In the store, Williams hosts homeschool classes; these started out as free events, but now charge a small fee. “We now charge $5 per class because when the attendance was free, we’d have people not show up,” Williams explained. “Once we started charging, they all showed.” The homeschool classes started as a weekly science class divided by age – one session for ages 5 to 7, another for ages 8 to 12 – but in the past year they’ve included writing classes.
“The parents are encouraged to join in on the class,” Williams said. “Our teacher, Jayne, is wonderful. As she’s teaching, she’s also explaining to the parents, how they could do this at home, to give them that knowledge as well.”
Williams is proud of how her family has continued the store’s legacy and welcomes every customer like family. “We thrive on giving that personal experience,” she said. “We want people to find what they need and enjoy their time here. We feel like this is our next adventure, and we’re enjoying it as we can.”
