Our daughters elementary school has a rule that tennis shoes are the only shoes they should be wearing, because they run track every day , Yes on rain days they run around the gym.
Our daughter had never worn tennis shoes until she was about to start kindergarten!
I took her to one of the best shoe stores in town to get her fitted properly and to ask them a lot of questions about what to look for in good shoes.
Once I learned that, from then on, I was able to find her shoes from different sources,
Remember, their feet can grow very quickly, so you may need to purchase different sizes even through each grade level.
I purchased her shoes from discount store or places like sports stores,
I kept in mind that she needed a good pair and we were lucky because she has a regular sized foot and did not have any special needs for her feet.
I always feel bad for the parents that need to find extra wide or extra narrow shoes for their children, because they are more expensive and the perfect fit is very important. It takes more time, money and patience to shop for their children. I could pretty much go into any store that sold children's shoes and purchase them off the shelf.. Now her taste in shoes? That was the hard part.. Ha!