[EinNYC]

It's finally good to be acknowledged in print for selflessly spending hundreds of dollars of your own money to help your students. Not that it was ever appreciated by the administration, but most teachers have a strong sense of what the right thing to do is, and they spend the money. Watching the students' sense of wonder doing the hands-on activities with the materials you bought with your own money was reimbursement enough. And quite often, these were the only hands-on activities the kids got to do, because laboratory classes, where they were SUPPOSED to get hands-on activities, became paper labs. No more watching solutions turn blue from yellow, no more exploring the anatomy of a crayfish, no more observing the unearthly protozoans in a drop of pond water (which I personally collected from a nearby lake because there were no funds to buy samples from Carolina Biological Supply Co.). At best, there were computer simulation labs, about as satisfying as filling out a form online and at the other end of the spectrum were paper handouts to fill out. But, NYC has PLENTY of money, it seems, to hire additional layers of bureaucrats, many of which are patronage positions, and attorneys to harass teachers, particularly high-priced senior teachers. The damage done in removing virtually all senior teachers will be felt for generations. And they were the very ones who were the first to dig into their own pockets to further the students' education.

[grania]

$480 isn't a lot, spread over more than 30 weeks to the teaching year. When I was a full-time teacher, I never spent anything I'd complain about.

I spent seven of my retired years in very fine company. I was an urban public school substitute. Those are the people who have a gripe about the cost of supplies. Substitutes have to purchase enough supplies to have on hand so that they can make supplies and materials available. Very often, everything is locked up in that classroom. And those substitutes? They're providing for the students from an income that's much less than the teacher.

NEVER ONCE did a teacher offer to reimburse me. But then again, when I was a full-time classroom teacher, it never occurred to me what a burden this was on substitutes.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

As conservative as I am, I see no reason not to give every full time teacher a couple thousand dollars a year for classroom extra’s. I think they would love the chance to manage that small budget, and it would certainly help the kids. Now if a teacher F’s it up they should be fired of course, receipt’s aren’t too much to ask for.

The same goes for prison’s and mental health. So much pennywise and pound foolishness.

[ClearCase_guy]

I would say that, in general, educational institutions are not interested in spending money in the classroom. Not for teachers’ salaries, not for supplies, not for equipment, not for paraprofessionals. Everything that impacts the kids seems to be in short supply.

Hey, the pension funds need to be filled with cash, the PACs in Washington need funding, and the Superintendent’s Assistant needs an Assistant.

It’s about priorities.

[Smittie]

I’m just impressed that this thread has made three posts without some self taught born genius complaining about how teachers are overpaid, under-worked leeches on the public dole...

[dfwgator]

Imagine if they just eliminated one feather-bedded position in the School District administration, how many supplies that could buy.

[struggle]

I do...I have my own Japanese program at the HS level, and I had to buy all the used textbooks with my own money in case I leave my current school.

[Trump.Deplorable]

$480? Cry me a river

Big deal

I spent more then that on a new suit.

When I worked in a school district every classroom teacher had $3,000 to spend on supplies for their classrooms, this is stuff beyond what is already bought, like computers, equipment, text books, etc. My department I ran was the IT department, I had a $250,000 yearly budget for the district with one school.

Did some teachers use personal funds to buy school supplies, sure did. But mostly for stuff that isn’t sold in the catalogs. Did some file the form and receipt to get reimbursed? Sure, some did, but others didn’t cause it was a small amount anyways. But they all sure like to bitch about it like $50 was like half of their 80K a year salary and they would end up living in a van down by the river...

And the biggest complainers about their salary were the veteran (as in they were there longest) teachers, they all would bitch about how lowly paid they were, but were actually making around 110K-125K a year. They would compare their salaries at Corporate America, or veteran police officers, and when I would point out that none of those positions get the summers off, every single stupid federal holiday off or weeks off for Christmas break or Easter Break, their faces would get red

The least complainers were your new teachers, the ones fresh out of college, making 47K a year, they were just happy to have a job. Teaching jobs in NJ is very competitive and many won’t get a teaching job. Too many grads, not enough openings.

Get rid of the unions and this problem would solve itself.

[Sparticus]

I’m quite skeptical about the claim the average teacher is spending a ton of money out of pocket. The parents in our kids’ school district buy loads of stuff for the teachers... computer equipment, goodies in the teachers’ lounges, latte deliveries, birthday presents, gift cards, ad nauseam. We got committees to organize all the committees for raising and spending money on all kinds of junk. Every year we get a multi-page list of crap to send them to school with. Why in the world would one 5th grader need a dozen glue sticks for a single school year? Two quarts of hand sanitizer!?

[Brilliant]

That is pretty ridiculous that teachers are expected to purchase school supplies for their students from their own pocket.

[TBP]

I’m not that sympathetic to the leftists’ screams to spend more on education, as we spend a bundle already, and we’ve gone from second in the world when the Department of Education was formed in 1979 to near the bottom. But this is one area the school districts should be covering, not the teachers themselves. (Buy and get reimbursed, if the need is immediate.)

Unfortunately, they would rather spend the money on a massive excess of administrators.

[-YYZ-]

Teachers here in Ontario, Canada, sure aren’t underpaid. They make as good or better money than I do, with a gold-plated pension plan. Still, I’m forever seeing kids fund-raising to buy extra supplies for their classes. Given the amount of money we dump into public schools, there shouldn’t be any need, ever, for a teacher to spend their own money for in-class supplies.

[P.O.E.]

What I’d like to see is districts springing for in-class emergency supplies. First aid kit, kitty litter & a lidded bucket (imagine being in lockdown & someone pukes from nerves?), water, etc.