May 17, 2016 at 1:22 am

The discussion of gifts for teacher appreciation got me thinking about parents who buy school supplies or gift cards for stationery and craft stores, because more often than not a teacher will be spending out of pocket for classroom supplies.

In North America, teachers used to have a reasonable budget for basic school supplies such as paper and pencils, for craft supplies, and for classroom decor, rewards like stickers or stamps, etc. Today many teachers say they are hard pressed to keep even a supply of paper and pencils in the classroom. Art supplies are bought with their own money, as are things like calendars, posters, alphabet borders, etc. that teachers hang on the classroom walls.

Many teachers will spend $500 or even $1,000 per year of their own money on supplies for their classrooms. And it appears in some jurisdictions, contract negotiations might result in teachers losing even the small stipend they get each year.

Is this situation common where you live? Are student families and the community at large aware that teachers are spending their own money? Does your community do anything special to address the shortfall?

I’d love to hear your feedback!

• This topic was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by  Kyla Matton Osborne (Ruby3881). Reason: Tweaking graphic

May 17, 2016 at 1:04 pm

I have no idea about this, as I always thought those classroom supplies are considered as budget from the school, so the teachers should not need to take out their own money to buy them.

Spending $500 – $1000 a year for the classroom supplies can be a burden to a teacher, though I do not know how much a teacher earns.

I really do not know about this, as I have never thought this can be expenses from the teacher. I would like to ask my friends who are teachers about this.

May 17, 2016 at 1:35 pm

@kaka135 I’d love to hear what your friends say! Teachers in  Canada earn a decent living once they are established, but it can take years for them to gain full-time employment. In the United States, teacher pay is often low.

Many stores in the US, and a few in Canada, offer teacher discounts for office and art supplies, printing, and that sort of thing. But it’s still frightfully expensive to equip the classroom. Even some furniture and storage units the teachers have in their classrooms can be provided by the teacher because the school does’t give them enough.

May 17, 2016 at 4:50 pm

Everywhere teachers spend for their own supplies even when the supplies they buy are for their class to use.. It really and can be a burden for teachers. Here in the Philippines, a lot of teachers in the rural areas have really low salaries and they are still required to provide for what is needed (visual aids and all) to help them with their discussions and reports. But I hope that the system will change for teachers, maybe an allowance from government or private schools where they are employed to help them pay or buy their materials.

May 18, 2016 at 6:30 am

@slayer08 The teachers union here in British Columbia has recently asked the ministry of education to cease funding to private schools. We can only hope if that measure is taken, that funding for things like classroom supplies will become available.

May 18, 2016 at 7:02 am

I worked in the local school system here in Kentucky for several years. I can say without a doubt that many teachers here spend money out of their own pocket on their students. I was a teacher aide and I worked directly under many teachers. There was never a time that children had to do without if their parents could not or would not provide for them. This included school supplies, money for field trips, daily snacks, lunches and even some of those children were given clothing, shoes and coats when needed.

In my opinion, you simply cannot work in a school system if you do not love children. Those of us who loved those children did everything we could to make sure they all had what they needed and a lot of the time what they wanted too. By no means was I able to buy as much for the kids as those teachers did because my earnings were much less. But, I never saw a time when children went hungry, cold or without learning materials and rewards for hard work thanks to those selfless teachers who adored them.

May 18, 2016 at 8:49 am

@s-stephens It sounds like you worked with a great bunch of teachers! I’ve definitely known both teachers and teacher’s aides to look after their students in times when they had unmet needs. Yes, it is a labour of love.

May 18, 2016 at 9:52 am

When I taught, I used to spend so much on supplies!  You’re allowed to count $200 on your taxes but that barely touches it.  At one point, I had to buy a teacher’s edition of a classroom text book because the school wouldn’t buy one.  Buying workbooks to copy pages for the kids was common, etc.  Especially since I taught special education, my school wanted to give us nothing…our budget was nonexistent!

May 18, 2016 at 10:46 am

@ruby3881/

in our country , every pupils and students had to donate $5 per year for miscellaneous fees.

This fees are used by the teachers to supply exercise books, stationary, art papers , craft supplies, dustpans and broom plus the wastepaper baskets for each classroom.

Hence, teachers do not have to fork out any money on their own.

Everything is being paid for but of course, there is no receipt to prove the purchase.

Sometimes, when I asked my son whether he had seen any new things in the classroom, he said “NO”.

Obviously, the money had gone into the pocket of someone else !

However during art lessons, indeed, we parents do not have to buy every craft items. Some of them were supplied by the school.

It would be very unfair to expect the teachers to pay for the supplies.

How much they had earned per month ?

Why can’t the teachers claim from the headmaster?

May 18, 2016 at 10:54 am

This may be true to some teachers and I applaud them because they are the real dedicated educators that persevere in teaching our children for a better future.

May 18, 2016 at 10:56 am

@lolaze Lack of funding is rampant in special education! And yes, teacher’s editions of textbooks are hard to obtain. I know a lot of teachers will order a free exam copy of a book, teach with it for a year and photocopy from it to give the students their lessons. Then when the publisher wants to know if they will be ordering books for the students the following year, they just say no.

May 18, 2016 at 11:16 am

@peachpurple $5 per student here wouldn’t even be a drop in the bucket for a teacher’s expenses.

In Canada it’s common for all students to pay the school a fee for consumable materials. This can be anywhere from $25 or $30 per year, all the way up to $100 or more per child per year. This is in addition to fees paid for field trips, school bus transportation, lunchtime supervision, before and after school daycare, participation in athletics, shop classes, art or music, end of the year mementos like yearbooks, class t-shirts, etc.

Parents are also expected to pay for school supplies (often $100-$200 per student each year,) uniforms or gym trip, several pairs of running shoes, such things as tennis balls to put over the legs of the desk and chair, earbuds, blank computer media or thumb drives, etc.

There are no tuition fees for public school in Canada, and textbooks are always provided on loan when used. But many classes are taught without a textbook because there’s a shortage. Or students can only use the book at school, because they have to share. Parents are also expected to donate such things as printer paper (one or more reams per child,) additional school supplies (mostly notebooks and folders that rarely, if ever get used,) boxes of Kleenex, bottles of hand sanitizer, etc. for classroom use.

Further, craft supplies are often requested and school fundraisers are frequent. Pizza lunches and hot dog sales are popular, as are sales of catalogue items such as magazine subscriptions, cookie dough, chocolates, etc. In some cases the funds are specifically earmarked for a given project such as the end of the year field trip, but I have witnessed several instances where the school just seemed to swallow up the money raised by parents for a specific purpose, and then claim there was simply “not enough money in the account.”

Education is an extremely costly proposition in Canada, for families and for teachers. Most of our tax dollars seem to get stuck somewhere outside the school, even when the school district is declaring a surplus for the year. Make no mistake, no teacher here is lining her pockets with monies received from home!

May 18, 2016 at 11:19 am

@jentleheart Where I live, the majority of teachers spend out of pocket for their supplies. This is especially true of teachers who are beginning their first year in their own elementary school classroom. Such teachers may spend upwards of $1,000 to equip their classrooms with all the little things the school doesn’t provide.

May 19, 2016 at 4:08 am

@peachpurple I also do not think the teachers here spend their own money to buy the supplies, as their pay per month is not high, I think.

@ruby3881 I just remembered that, a friend told me, whenever her daughter needs to do any craft work, the students or parents need to buy the supplies on their own. So those supplies are being paid by the parents instead of teachers here.

Whenever the students are doing any project work, the students are the ones who bear the paper, printing or binding costs.

When I was in high school, each of the students contributed a certain amount of money to the class fund monthly, and whenever we needed to buy some extra supplies or classroom decoration, we used the fund. We did not get any funds from the school for all these, so the students/parents are actually the ones who are paying for the supplies.

So, when the students can’t bring home the textbook, they will not be able to review and revise what they have learned when they are at home. It’s quite hard for them to study in such way. I am not sure if this happens to my country as well, I just know the text books are on loan too, so the students do not need to buy. I even heard some complained the books are too old, there are some very new ones too, but I have not heard anyone not getting a book.