Perhaps back in December, you saw several teachers in South Dakota on a hockey stadium鈥檚 ice rink. Stories of teachers struggling to find money for their classrooms are becoming more and more . Take a district that sends its dollars to charter schools, add a recession, some inflation, and we鈥檙e using the front, back, and margins of all our lined sheets of paper, my friends.
The end result for me, a 5th grade teacher in San Diego, is a personal yearly budget of $350 from my district that must include my printer ink, copier paper, pencils, student notebooks, and lined or construction paper for the entire school year鈥攁nd, heaven forbid, I should want to write something down on a chart or use a colorfully bright marker. Soccer balls? You gotta be kidding!
According to the fundraising platform AdoptAClassroom.org, of their own money on their classrooms, the highest amount ever. Meanwhile, school districts around the nation are determining how to spend COVID-relief funds. As much as kids need more support for a great many things related to pandemic relief, I鈥檇 like to suggest that districts use some of the relief funds on classroom supplies.
What if teachers were given a classroom-supply budget of $3,000? It far exceeds the few hundred dollars we currently get, but it would still be well under what鈥檚 typically budgeted by the district or state. What would happen?
Let鈥檚 start with yours truly.
The first thing I would do is allot about $600 to buy the books my students want. Can鈥檛 find a book you want in the class? I鈥檒l buy it for you. Teachers know how costly it is to keep up with the latest trend-setting reads. Providing students with motivating, engaging, and high-quality literature should always be the basis of any elementary school classroom.
I鈥檇 spend another $600 just on school supplies鈥攅verything from glue to construction paper, from copy paper to pencils. (Trust me, it would barely cover what we鈥檇 use.) School supplies keep my classroom standards and expectations high. When a classroom has the right core materials and media to work with, students have the potential to create high-quality work. Why does it seem impossible for those creating school budget allocations to see that when a teacher can鈥檛 afford paper, a teacher cannot expect children to complete an assignment written on a piece of paper? And, please, let鈥檚 not talk about switching all work to 鈥渧irtual turn-ins.鈥� I think we鈥檝e tried that, haven鈥檛 we?
What if teachers were given a classroom-supply budget of $3,000 to spend on school supplies and materials?
With another $600, I and my colleagues would stock equipment for both physical and social interaction, as well as resources for a school garden where students would have opportunities to grow ingredients to cook healthy meals in a nutrition class. Physical and health education don鈥檛 exist in any proper form without the materials they necessitate. Students would be playing tetherball, basketball, soccer, and four square with more than enough equipment to go around.
With the next $600, I would purchase curriculum. Now, you might say, teachers are provided with all that anyway, right? Wrong. We鈥檙e provided textbooks, barely. Sometimes, we鈥檙e provided with disposable student workbooks for a subject. But with those extra dollars, I鈥檇 purchase rich curriculum with which I would spend copious amounts of my summer break reading, reworking, and tailoring to fit my students鈥� needs for the new school year and I would share the curriculum with my grade-level team. But if I could, I鈥檇 also purchase costumes for readers theater, so students could practice fluent reading while role-playing history; my science cabinet would be stocked full of chemistry supplies, and, at long last, there鈥檇 be terrariums and equipment for life science at my disposal.
And finally, with my last $600, I鈥檇 continue to incentivize students and reward them by hosting engaging events that bring parents, community members, kids, and staff together once it鈥檚 safe to do so. The reality is that making inroads into the community I serve is only possible with a reasonable amount of money. I鈥檇 buy telescopes as prizes for my yearly Star Night and Science Fair event. I鈥檇 purchase ice cream for all families at my yearly Malcolm X Library and Ice Cream Night. At the end of the year, we鈥檇 commemorate our hard work at Mr. Courtney鈥檚 Barbecue and Fishing End-of-Year Celebration.
What would giving teachers a budget for their own supplies do? In short, it would help them to plan fabulous lessons and buy materials that stimulate minds and activate engagement鈥攖he very types of things that bring social-emotional and rich academic learning to life.
Imagine a classroom filled to the brim with the raw materials you want your children to have. Imagine a class where the teacher and the students get what they need because your tax dollars finally go to the person best suited to purchase it for them. That鈥檚 the kind of learning environment I want for my students.
