Back around 2001 our home ec teacher had each of us pay her 10 cents for our homework folders and I thought it was really silly at the time, but now I understand. Students will just trash the materials you buy them, might as well make them pay the dime for the folder. Teachers shouldn't have to pay out of pocket for this shit.
Our school nearly had teachers fired over this. The teachers used it to fund a party at the end of the year for the kids. (The kids had no idea). They did it for years, then someone got pissed and reported one of the teachers. I think it was 5 cents for a blank sheet 10 cents for a copy of a handout.
The district wrote up all involved, and nearly fired one of the teachers for the scheme. The next year teachers got in trouble for not providing extra copies when kids lost their work....
This was a decade ago, long before my time. But it is still talked about, especially when a new teacher says "I ought to charge for the third pencil"....
The kids know they don't have to do anything or buy anything so they spend their money on takis which they manage to crumple up and leave on the floor.
Same in mine, but when I had self-contained classes, most of the parents didn’t have vehicles to go buy school supplies, so I let them know I was happy to provide the supplies for $5. Most took me up on it.
I did the same when I tutored after school, though in that circumstance, the parents were just too busy or didn’t care. When they needed to work on projects, I’d buy the supplies and they’d reimburse me. 🤷🏻♀️
Twice a year I throw a pizza party for my class that does best in attempt and behavior.
Totals about $50.
But all classes know it's a competition, so if they don't win...tough titties.
F this don't snitch shit.
If you know who is making cow or pig noises, tell me.
You get a candy bar.
And if your class meets my expectations better than the others?
Pizza.
If you were handing out candy for chargers in my school you would have started the year with seven and ended with thirty nine and the other teachers would be pissed.
HS SOC/ELA: I write “sanitizer, tissues, pens, pencils, and notebooks are the responsibility of the student” DIRECTLY into the syllabus. The same syllabus both parents and the kid sign at the beginning of the year.
Ditto for zero/late policy and locations of all expected work (it’s all posted in Classroom at the beginning of the year), in the event the kid/parent says “I have no idea what I was supposed to do.”
Whenever I get pushback, I send them a scan of their signature.
EDIT clarity
Thank you!
That reminds me: A parent once said “You’re gonna give (student) a zero for only plagiarizing TWICE?! That’s cold.”
Without missing a beat, I said “ Twice. In a single semester. Welcome to the freezer. Next time bring a jacket.” ISYN
My student teacher’s eyes almost popped out of her skull.
Learned the hard way to do this. I have had some brutal parents and learned the art of CYA.
At the BOY, I take pics of the classroom and explain the basic procedures. I take pics of the turn in basket. I explicitly state the behavior policy. I have students and parents sign, and keep copies on file. I email all this out as well. And put it in GC. I also have template responses I use in response to "I didn't know." Whenever a parent pushes back on a consequence for behavior or academics, I reference that document.
I teach elementary.
Literally everything. Saying too much would dox myself, but my district has recently made it crystal clear how little they value teachers, and the things we provide. So, fuck them, if they won't pay for it, my students won't get it. Lower elementary.
Sadly, I think teachers nationwide can say this about their district. They don’t value education and educators and then complain that kids are stupid. Weird!
There are a few gems out there! Our school recognizes that supplies should be supplied by school. My school secretary heard I had spent my own money on some supplies and she was quick to remind me it wasn’t necessary and reminded me of a few different paths I could take to get what I needed (office, PTA funds, principal’s fund, etc).
My district just tried to introduce an informal policy dictating that anything a teacher's personal friends and family personally buy for them for their classrooms from personal Amazon Classroom Wishlists be considered school donations that the school gets to keep and hand out and not the personal property of the teacher which... obviously didn't go over well and I'm pretty sure also isn't legal. Their rationale was that when teachers (who are affiliated with a specific school) share classroom wishlists or requests for supplies to friends on social media, "the public" is gonna get confused and think they're making an official donation to the school rather than the individual teacher who made the list, so to cut down on confusion, teachers should just treat these gifts as official donations to the school anyway. So basically, they don't wanna supply teachers themselves but they don't wanna look like they're neglecting their educators so instead thought, **"hey why don't we just politely ask to requisition the stuff the teachers' friends and family buy them instead? Genius!!"**
They got so much pushback on that so fast that they had to send out a half-hearted backtrack email like an hour later saying like, "fine you can keep your stuff but we're asking you add a disclaimer saying that the stuff is going to you and not the school 😒"
That’s right! If the school called the textbook company and they needed “just five more” licenses for a textbook at even six bucks a seat,
Do you think the book company is just gonna say oh sure, no charge? No. Everything above and beyond what is agreed to now needs a new quote. That’s life. If I hire a carpenter to rebuild my deck and gee, while you’re here, would you mind repairing a broken window crank? If they do it, it’s gonna be more than your quoted price.
That’s life.
In my heart I believe this but then I find myself buying ingredients for toddler safe play-doh cause they love it and space themed decorations cause my kids all want to be astronauts after I crushed space week. I teach two year olds and go so far beyond what is expected and don’t even get a retirement plan. But I genuinely adore the kids and they are little sponges and will learn as fast as I can teach them so it’s worth it to me. My biggest lesson I talk about 30 times a day is empathy/how to be kind and I hope that makes the jobs of their k-12 teachers easier in the future!
Girl make an Amazon wish list for parents to buy that stuff. All parents want sensory play and as a twos teacher you are seen as nothing short of a savior by most parents. Toddlers are savage and we parents know it.
Pre-k teachers lay the foundation for learning and grade school. Thank you so much from a high school teacher. I appreciate what you’re doing. I know those babies just love you so much.
At my daughter’s preschool, they have classroom volunteers who make Play-Doh every month at home and they use a different color every month based on whether they are learning !!
The teacher also often asks us to give her materials that have to do with what they are learning, and then she returns them at the end of the unit
This is how my friend is. She always manages to con me into helping set up her room and move furniture (custodial preapproved), and she's got a very nicely decorated room, but it's definitely for her. "I have to be in here a lot, so it's going to be a space I like."
Occasionally, she does get a negative comment about the mellow color scheme from parents, but she's all ready with several studies showing mellow colors and less clutter actually help kids focus. It seems to work, because (as far as she knows) no parent has gone to admin about it.
Almost all her stuff, we found on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace for free and cleaned up. I like restoring furniture, and it gave me some to work on without having to keep it or find a home for it, so she hasn't spent much at all.
I felt this when the PTA did their annual giving campaign and admin pressured teachers to chip in too to show we're all 'team players'. They wanted us to willingly surrender, however little, some of our paycheck back to the school.
Of course, our incremental pay scale increases would help keep up with inflation, if the huuuuge bump in insurance premiums the same year didn't effectively mean that my $3k increase only amounted to an extra $50 a month after insurance...
Anything that is important will be budgeted for. Don't buy anything. Period.
I don't understand the teachers that spend money on their classrooms. If an admin ever says to decorate your room, the ONLY response should be "Sure! Where do you recommend I order from and what is our district account number"
Yep!
We were told to decorate our high school classrooms. The previous teacher who used my classroom left up border decorations, so I kept them.
Bam. Decorated. You want me to get fancier, give me the materials to do it.
Then just don't have them. It sucks hard, but it isn't your problem. Every time a kid needs a tissue, send then to the office. Pencil... Office. Paper... Office. Send a memo to all parents on back to school night. "The school does not provide paper, pens, etc. I'll be asking for monthly donations. For details on this policy, please speak with the principal. He/she is in the office right now for your questions/concerns"
Decades ago , one of my two-sessions a week preschooler kids was in charge of feeding her baby sister on the days mom was high. I never heard how that worked out.
I teach older elementary but also have children with similar (not the same) family lives.
I have a senior in HS that was the brother to one of my students who called CPS on his own mother because when he leaves in the fall there will be no one there to care for his 5 siblings.
I have a student with sickle cell who has a parent who sells their meds
I have a student with 11 siblings who doesn't know how to brush his hair so it just doesn't get done. (And if I do it, I get threatened with physical violence because I'm "not his mother")
I have a student who's mom got a new boyfriend and the dude didn't want kids so she dropped the student got dropped off at Dad's house and hasn't seen her since
But yeah... Sending home a note will get my classroom. Funded right?
Teaching in the suburbs has got to be a wild experience compared to what I do.
(DCFS doesn't do shit for most of these even when I call... I had one removal this year)
I get it. Asking for donations isn't going to happen everywhere. What's your school doing with all the federal poverty funds? They have more than enough money for classroom supplies.
My former district was a high poverty title 1 district. The elementary school teachers still asked for donations. Can't hurt to ask. Plus, it gets you a "parent communication" box to check.
We have a lot of what we need but not a ton of "extras". I don't have to worry about pencils or paper, but anything like construction paper, markers, any crafting supplies is out of pocket. School is a safe place for a lot of these kids and I'm not willing to refuse to do things that are fun because the school won't buy some things.
We buy clothes for kids, weekend food, hygiene products, etc. I prefer funds to go to those things.
The frustration isn't really even with the school or the other teachers. It's the parents. We use donors choose too which works out for some stuff but not for others.
The funds for the food, clothes, etc are often legally tied to specific revenue sources. Buying construction paper and the like would be a different budget line. The money is really there. If they don't spend it, they can roll funds into other general budget lines and then it becomes even more discretionary. They always tell you the money is there... But there's always money for the main office.
I decorate my classroom, but that’s because, mentally, I like to be in a pretty space. The other teachers in my hallway don’t and I don’t blame them one bit. I teach high school though, I think elementary school might have different expectations?
I also refused to buy anything for my classroom. If I do have tissues, they go behind my desk and a student needs to come up and asked me to get one. That generally cuts down on the number of students use it as a socialization activity.
I decorate my classroom because I spend 8+ hours a day there and I want it to look nice. I don't mind spending my own money on that because it would all come with me if I were to switch districts.
I bought my decorations purposely to not feel any guilt in taking them when I leave. Everything on my walls goes with me when I’m ready to leave this classroom for the next in another district.
Pens, pencils, highlighters, and erasers. My school supplies them, but Holy f*ck, they (HSers) just destroy them and leave the guts everywhere. I had a student field strip a highlighter in about 30 seconds bc he was bored and/ or mad about something.
I leave only about 6 of each for class use, and then I refill the tray about once a month. (I do set aside a few for my IEP/504 kids.)
No food allowed in my class - 1) they are messy as hell, 2) I teach construction, so food/drink are subject to contamination. Do you want to be eating/drinking sawdust or glue?
god same with the destruction cause they're bored! I had one kid who was very self conscious and anxious and wouldn't use any of the dozens of fidgets because according to his mom he didn't like to draw attention to himself but he would break all my pens and pencils I had on my desk to "fidget with." Mom didn't see a problem with that but begrudgingly sent a pack of pencils after my third complaint and I finally removed him from class. She completely enabled him and sent me over 50 emails this last week because he was trying to finish all the work he didn't do all year and expected me to hold his hand. I told admin I wasn't answering her anymore and left her on read for each one of them.
Kleenex. Why is it kids take literally half the box when all they need is one…maybe two.
I bought ten boxes at the start of the year, and they were gone by Christmas break. I hate having to be that guy who makes the comments about how many tissues they’re taking, so next year the boxes are for me.
I once had a parent complain because I wouldn't let their student use my good Kleenex and made them use the cheap shitty stuff the school paid for. The girl asked if she could use mine and I told her no. She went home and cried to Mommy. The parent thought I was being ridiculous. "It's just Kleenex!" I told her that if he daughter didn't want to use school provided Kleenex, she could bring a hanky from home, but she wasn't using any of my Puffs Plus that probably cost me what they pay me to sub on my prep.
Reply to the parent: it’s just MY Kleenex that I bought with my own money!
Imagine being so entitled that you expect the teacher to buy Kleenex for your kid
I take the discard toilet paper rolls when the maintenance staff thinks it's to small for the holder and tell the kids to use that. Since it's cheap toilet paper it's uncomfortable and not a desired thing to use.
I also have a program through the food bank that gives us items and can get a crazy amount of toilet paper through their program.
I don’t buy anything anymore. I never bought school supplies, but I would buy things as rewards.
I used to buy my students cookies or cupcakes for a reward, but got asked one too many times “We don’t even get a drink?”
Last year I tried to set up a competition to get my students to do their bellringers. I’d spend $40-$50 dollars a month to buy stuff and every time have a bunch of kids say “This is all we get?” And these are the “good kids”.
I’ll save what money I have.
Yes I tried that as well. Almost exact same idea. They got stickers and once they got 5 they could exchange them for a snack. It worked ok in HS. I told them if they asked for a sticker or began engaging in discussions about sticker rewards, they automatically don't get one. HS kids learned after a few days to just do the work and patiently wait for their reward.
In middle school? It turns into a madhouse. They feel entitled to stickers just for sitting down. They argue over why they get a sticker or why Johnny shouldn't. They stole stickers from each other. They want the reward *this instant* and can't wait for me to get to everyone who gets one. Kids asked how many stickers they needed 50× per week. They tried to negotiate what they can do for a sticker. It's *super* annoying. I tried to make rules about the system like I did with HS students, but they didn't listen and with their ridiculously short retention didn't remember.
I will not do it anymore. Kids feel entitled to rewards for showing up, even when they show up shouting "I have a huge dong!" as they enter.
I don't have time to explain or argue.
This goes along with what I heard over my announcements today at school. We have 5 days left and tomorrow is our scholarship and gpa awards ceremony. “Anyone with a 2.5-3.99 gpa will be given a gpa award “ in my mind I went “wtf? I got a 2.5 gpa when I was in high school and I never got any award only 3.5 and above when I was in highschool 2010-2014 got awards”
Why is everyone getting awards? Like the kids who are trying hard are being clumped with kids who barely get a c in class. Probably an electives class that is getting them the higher gpa and not core classes.
Oh I know. And you know what? It's ok to be a C student. Life has rewards for lots of types of achievements. In my HS days (mid 90s) some kids even worked really hard just for Cs. Or for me, I got good grades in language arts/humanities but worked hard for low Bs and Cs in STEM subjects. Now it seems like kids just turn work in for As and Bs, whether it's done well or not. It's not even reflection of what they learned or not.
Ditto to the tissues. I'll have kids bring some in for extra credit, but I can't justify that expense to myself anymore. When this last batch of markers runs out, that's it. Same for colored pencils. Fortunately the district gives us paper, notebooks, pens and pencils, but I'm done buying things for the class. Inflation is ridiculous.
Be careful about giving extra credit for supplies. I had a buddy who was almost fired for it. Parents complained that if you had money, you could buy a higher grade. (I think he gave way more extra credit points than most)
Yes, credit for anything not directly tied to standard achievement is grade inflation and violates most states teacher ethics standards and is a fire able offense
Tell that to the shitty 50% is the lowest grade you can put in the grade book policy. It’s already inflated in my opinion in my district so imma give them extra credit points when it’s allergy season and I’m low on Kleenex.
One could say that it’s impossible to maintain equity in an inherently inequitable system.
One could also say that we can be transparent with our students that the system is inequitable while also modeling a better way of doing things. Like… grades shouldn’t reflect a student’s access to goods.
I have a pack of colored pencils that also came with a small pencil sharpener. Someone lost the pencil sharpener so now no one gets to use my colored pencils.
My district (high wealth area) got a new finance director who decided one of the most effective cost cutting measures during covid was to stop supplying classroom tissues. We had to request in writing to get those little 40ct boxes. So I started buying my own and claiming it for my $200 tax deductible classroom expense.
The backlash on the tissue policy took 3 years to fix. I learned 2 months ago they are now providing full size boxes.
Granted, I never asked my kids to supply them. I hinted HEAVILY to the kid who used 5x a day, but he never figured it out. Ass.
I have noticed the number of classroom supply donations has plummeted in the past 3 years, and schools simply do not supply everything. In each email update about class, I ask that if parents have any extras, we could sure use donations during this very bad allergy and cold season. Out of 150 students, I received 1 small box of tissue. I simply stopped buying them after providing 5-6 boxes in the winter. This is an upper middle class area, not a school in an impoverished neighborhood. Everyone is so damned entitled anymore, and they actually believe WE should subsidize these items because they pay high taxes. Well, I pay those too.
Specials teachers at my school email grade level teams to get paper towels, tissues, and hand sanitizer. Not one teacher should pay out of pocket for those supplies unless there isn’t any school wide, at which point every classroom gets a roll of the school’s luxury brand toilet paper to use as tissue. I’m not supplying Puffs Plus so Aiyden can treat them like dollar bills at a strip club! Edit:spelling
One of the custodians at my high school saves the toilet paper rolls, when they get too small for the dispensers for me. I then put them in the classrooms I work in
I think I bought 4 things from Sam’s for roughly $60 total that lasted me up until the last 3 weeks. I even gave a couple boxes to a colleague across the hall because I had extras. Unfortunately I needed to buy a small thing of 4 tissues from Walmart to get me and my students the last few weeks, but I’ve still got 2 boxes left to start the school year and head into winter cold season.
I have a Sped room that’s part study hall, part credit recovery, part refuge for ED kids who can’t handle things at the moment. I started off buying snacks, but the sense of entitlement finally got to me, so no snacks from me. A few of my kids figured it out and they’re pissed at everyone else. I’m waiting to see if next year brings about a change - collecting data lol.
I’ve been that teacher before. I was hardline no this year. It’s the last week of school and they are still begging. If another kid pulls out a snack the vultures all come out. It’s ridiculous. Next year I’m considering contacting the parents of the *run across the room during guided instruction shouting for snacks kids* to let them know that the school provides breakfast. The only thing stopping me is that we’re title 1 and some kids are really food insecure. I don’t want them getting in trouble with embarrassed parents.
I hate that I can’t show kindness to one student without all the others putting their hands out.
I used to buy and keep snacks in my room but the minute I give one to a truly hungry kid, the others are suddenly starving
I’m in a title one school too and I struggled with the food thing too but our school provides 100% of our students with free lunch and free breakfast. If the kids think it’s gross, they must not be hungry enough.
I agree that it isn't our job to feed them out of our pocket, but don't brush off the problem with school lunch, especially if your school has a contract with a company that caters prisons like our school does. Shit is NASTY and legit makes people sick sometimes.
They’d always try to convince me that no one else would know, while half the class is watching and listening to see what I’ll say. If I ever caved I knew it would become “you gave one to James last period, so now you have to give me one.” after James swore he wouldn’t tell anyone. I just kept repeating that it isn’t my job to feed them: it’s the job of their family and the school cafeteria.
Or they pull out their lunch and eat it the class before lunch. You really can't wait 30 min to eat A lunch, you've only been in school for 1.5 hours.
Or they get back from lunch and you know they've eaten, but they feel they need to eat even more, and leave a mess
My least favorite is when they decided to steal my lunch. It may have just been a granola bar but that's what I had. Then not feessing up at all. Needless to say I was super unhappy at this and left a very bad report for that class in my subnotes. Word is they were caught a day or 2 later. The next time I was there they were better behaved. I'm sure they got it from multiple directions. (The sad part is if they were truly starving and had nothing then I probably would have shared. But the person that likely did it was neither A or B then add theft. Nope not going to happen even if I had it.)
That’s a good point. And I worry about my kids who might be food insecure. But my school provides good meals - no, really, I tend to get lunch there every day - and I can’t afford to keep feeding these kids.
I had friends in school that qualified for free lunch, but their dad was too proud to take a handout. So those friends just didn’t eat. We were also broke, so I got mine for free and they would disappear at lunch so they wouldn’t get offers to share my meager lunch. If the school ever contacted their home offering services, those friends were usually beaten for embarrassing the family. I’m sure this kind of thing still happens.
Damn, you’re really making me rethink things. In a good way, trust me.
My district doesn’t charge for meals. I know for a fact that some of my poor+proud kids get to eat because their families don’t have to fill out embarrassing paperwork.
I’m in a school now where all
our kids get free breakfast and lunch.
In the late 70s, when I was in school, I was on free lunch and we got a punch card at the beginning of the week and the cafeteria lady would punch it each time we got lunch. It was so embarrassing when others paid for their lunch daily. The kids whose parents paid by the week had a different colored punch card than us poor kids.
By the time I became a teacher, kids had a lunch number and gave it to the cashier so no one knew who was on free lunch and who wasn’t.
I was a teacher for 8 years. I probably spent about $10,000 in total for my classroom.
At the end of my second to last year, my director came in and observed my class for 15 minutes. I thought the lesson she observed (rotation stations for severely handicapped students) went exceptionally well. A week later I got an email from her saying nothing I bought for my lesson (or bought for use in my classroom in general) was board approved and so it was inappropriate for my students to use.
Shortly after that email, I packed everything I bought up and it's now sitting in my closet for my own kids to use (when they are old enough).
My last year, I had practically an empty classroom. The director came in and observed another lesson. It was rotation stations again, but the 'board approved' materials I had were all, essentially, worksheets. She sent an email saying my students weren't engaged and had little to do beyond the worksheets.
I quit.
I still would have forwarded them the same email from the previous case, and said that the materials being used were the board-approved ones, since the other materials you had were deemed inappropriate. Good on you for quitting though.
The only way for a district to see what they are really doing is for teachers to stop filling in the gaps and being a martyr. No one is going to fix the problem when teachers are hiding it with their own money and time. Ask other union professionals like cops and nurses how much they buy for their patients and how much free overtime they put in.
I've known nurses who used their own money to purchase stuff like denture tabs, denture paste, dental floss, hair ties, fans, cough drops (non-medicated, so we can give them without an order), etc because the hospital does not provide them. I've bought patients food using my own money. Had a guy with celiac who was admitted after the kitchen closed and all we had to offer was crackers and the standard hospital turkey sandwich. I bought him some stuff he could actually eat.
But yeah, management uses the same sort of manipulation tactics to bleed every last bit they can from their nursing staff. "If you really cared about the sick and vulnerable patients, you'd come in on your day off/come in early/stay late/pick up overtime."
Oh I have become eagle-eyed for floor pencils. If I see a pencil laying out anywhere I will pick it up. The hall, lunch area, fields, etc. The kids can use muddy pencils. If I don't have floor pencils to use they get a RoseArt crayon.
I leave 6 out. At the end of class, I expect 6 to be there. Different years, I've done different things, but my main 2 strategies are: 1) no one leaves until there are 6 pencils put back or 2) trade me an ID for a pencil. If they walk out without their ID, they get written up.
I stopped buying pencils a few months ago… a student asked why there were no pencils in the pencil box and I told him the truth. I’d spent over $50 on pencils this year and I didn’t want to buy any more.
Well, what does he do… digs around in his backpack and pulls out, I kid you not, at least 40 pencils!! All taken from me and his other teachers throughout the year! He refilled my pencil box and said he would stop taking them.
I guess he was asking for a pencil in the first place to add it to his collection? 😂
I was shocked that I didn’t have to buy tissue this year. Parents sent in about 25 boxes at the beginning of the year and my students didn’t waste it
When school ended on Friday, I had 4 boxes left.
I went through 4 boxes of tissues in 3 weeks. I have a box left that I haven’t opened yet. If students need to blow their nose, I have paper towels. I have a hand sanitizer that doesn’t smell pleasant, and that seemed to limit how often they use it.
The only thing I bought for my classroom was a $10 pencil sharpener, $5 worth of Dollar Store markers, and $4 worth of little Dollar Store bins to keep them in. And the only reason I bought those things were because I wanted some cheap shit markers right away and because I didn't like the provided pencil sharpener.
Other than that, I don't buy a damn thing for my classroom.
Either the school provides what we need for the kids to be educated or it clearly doesn't matter and so we go without. But I'm not going to PAY to work.
I don’t buy candy or food. (For context, I teach high school.) The first few years I tried to keep something stocked for those who really needed a snack to get them through (and for myself) but one the kids knew it was there they would ask and ask and ask, even if it had been weeks or months since I stocked any. Kids I’d never met would come to get a granola bar, or if you’d given it to them once they would just help themselves after.
Reward candy was the same; once I had it, it would be gone within a day or two - either because I used it or people would just help themselves. Candy is too expensive to be restocking once or twice a week.
I also used to buy tissues; nope. They can deal with the one-ply tissues the school buys or get some TP from the bathroom. I would buy the good kind of tissues that are infused with lotion and then would catch kids pulling out a wad of them to wipe up a spill on the ground or use as a plate for some takis they got from a friend. For a while I even put a roll of paper towels next to the tissues and they would still do the same thing. They can’t get it in their heads that tissues are not absorbent (and expensive).
I used to get some sort of birthday favors to give out, something small like a cool eraser or one of those monster finger puppets - just something fun with a sucker. Most kids would leave them behind, and it was a lot to track with so many students, especially since I don’t see them every day (block scheduling). It was more hassle than it was worth, ans enthusiasm was low for the time and money I spent.
One thing I do still buy is pencils, but I get the half golf pencils. Full size pencils got stolen often, and for some reason freshmen just enjoy breaking them. They’d snap them in half on the daily. They don’t for golf pencils, plus the ones I get off Amazon have full erasers and come sharpened in bulk. One box does me for the year with relatively consistent use.
I’m glad you’ve been spared the pencil-breaking gang, lol
I will say the upperclassmen don’t abuse pencils the same way; I have fewer underclassmen now and it’s obvious against the wear and tear on my supplies.
The worst kids that made me stop buying full size came through in 2022-2023, so we’ll see if they’re any better when I have them as seniors in 2025-2026
I'm contemplating not buying pencils next year. I'm sick of the blatant waste. Use it, break it, throw it away. Come back the next day and do it all over again.
Nope. That's ridiculous. My teachers never had pencils for us. It was our parents' responsibility to supply them and our responsibility to bring them.
I’ve been in my school for 6-ish years and never decorated. I decided to buy a few posters over the summer. Spent about $100.
One of my darling high school boys tore up all the posters I had on my back wall, right in front of my face. I wrote him up for destruction of property. Admin didn’t even meet either him about it. I followed up via email twice and received no response. The rest of the posters were taken down after a month of getting nowhere. The is also a 3-foot tall penis drawn on the fabric I bought to cover the bulletin board that had the torn posters on it.
Back to the bare walls of the government funded classroom.
Everything—they leave enough school supplies behind to keep for those without. My parents would have been so pissed if I was as careless with my supplies when I was in school. I got supplies in August, and that was it. Period.
I don’t buy anything for my kids. I offer extra credit incentives for them to bring in tissues. But they’re in middle school, the school sends out a supply list, and I’m in a well-off district. They know by now what they need in school, and if they don’t have it, they can ask a friend. I got sick of watching them make eye contact with me while snapping my pencils in half.
We’re not allowed to offer extra credit or any rewards (PBIS points) for tissues/hand sanitizer/etc, at my school.
Luckily I had very generous parents this year who sent in plenty of tissue
We can't either, so me and my team got the idea to have kids glue extra credit to the supplies. So when we study Shakespeare, we have them decorate a tissue box in Capulet and Montague colors. It's 1/2 extra credit for a blank box.
I had to keep hand sanitizer and tissues in a drawer of my desk and hand them out if a kid asked for them. High school. Otherwise they would waste them or use them as a reason to get up and bother someone on their way to them.
High school art. I stopped buying art supplies to teach my classes. It is become too expensive for me, especially with no pay raises the last two years. The kids don’t appreciate it anyway. So instead we did a lot of drawing. I will be working through my acquired stash of art supplies in the next five years until retirement.
Books. New law says we have to scan them all in. Got rid of my library a few years ago. Enjoy the school library, kids! I ain't scanning in every book and letting parents try to get rid of ones that feature characters of color. I never had sexually inappropriate books to begin with and it's insulting that they're going through this craziness under the guise of "protecting children." Your little hellions are watching porn on their phone, not getting it from my class library. I overhear their filthy lunch conversations and have to type word for word what they say in the referrals. The books were never the problem.
HS. I have stopped buying everything. Sometimes, I snag a roll of toilet paper from the employee restroom. It’s usually gone by the next day. I work in city where there is more than one billionaire, and yet I can’t get my school to give me tissues for my classroom.
Decorations. I have my AP Chemistry create anchor charts of the Regents Chemistry standards as their first week review activity and those become my posters.
Bandaids. The 9th graders managed to eat their way through 100 of them in 2 weeks and I refuse to buy anymore til next year. The upperclassmen I actually teach are sad but they understand this is why we can’t have nice things.
Food/snacks.
Tissues, sanitizers, clorox wipes, pencils.
This class, anything.
I was out for 2 weeks because my husband had major surgery. When I came back, so many things were destroyed. Blatantly destroyed, things I had for years. Things that held sentimental value. I took pictures and sent them to admin, but there was no response. I sent those to families and tallied up the cost of damages in the hundreds of dollars. I said that, as a result, I will not be purchasing anything for the class as they have used more than their fair share of my funds. We were by the book for the rest of the year.
The entitlement from students and parents was crazy. Like, I don't have to buy your kid a bday treat, or purchase things for a Valentine's Day party, or a Mother's Day craft. I don't. I am paid to teach content, and at this school, moral character. When a parent asked me how not doing these things strengthens their moral character, I told her they are learning actions have consequences, and just because you apologize doesnt make it right, and if you don't want to check your friends about their behavior and be a bystander then they can all get this consequence. they fucked around so they will find out for the rest of the year.
When kids were struggling and was like "I don't have a pencil" I said but I bet you ask ya mama for taking, so ask for a pencil. I did not replace my caddillac pencil sharpener. The only time I gave out pencils were for testing and I was petty af and numbered them and no one moved until I got them all back. And once testing was over they went away.
I don't buy anything for the classroom. I don't get billions in tax dollars to run the public education system, so if they can't afford it, neither can I.
Secondary, but have also worked in elementary with the same mentality.
Pencils. I would find 10+ on the floor at the end of the day and kids came in the next day complaining they don't have a pencil. I swear, they eat them
I teach sophomores
All of those things you mentioned are things my school provides for free to us. I’m surprised there are schools that expect you to purchase paper for the students. But to answer your question, mine is water bottles. My first year teaching, I thought “it’ll be nice to provide water bottles for the students” because I agree with them, fountain water sucks. First week of school, I bought like six cases of 40 something water bottles. Told the students that if they were thirsty and wanted one, they could just grab one. No joke, those water bottles were gone by the end of the week. And after each period, I would have like a dozen left behind that had maybe one or two sips from them. And these were 8th graders who should know better but alas. Needless, I cut that out right away lol they can bring their own water bottles now or use the fountain.
My building has filtered water and those motion activated bottle filling stations. I don’t provide water. Also, it’s been interesting to watch how the students who want to do well bring refillable bottles, and those who don’t use “can I get a drink of water?” as an excuse to just leave the classroom.
Paper, pencils, tissue...really anything that doesn't benefit me directly. Next year, I'm investing in Airheads and only distributing them to the table cluster with the highest test average.
😂😂😂 oh my! I’m not laughing at you! By all means, the “I’m not only a teacher but Wal-Mart too!!” Is definitely not a joke. You got tired 🤦🏾♀️ honey I was about to spazz out! I teach middle school so just imagine what I experienced - multiply that by 10! You are on point about the excuses to get up & move around the classroom - they would do just that! So what I did - I had to double down on class rules & routines. Raise your hand to do anything! Know the students- I knew who was being a jokester & who was serious. They would be so angry at me because I didn’t allow them to pop & lock all over the class & disrupt class. As if I cared - my students would tell other teachers “I do too much” because I stuck to my rules! If you don’t - they will have the entire class in an uproar. The sanitizer was provided by the school but tissue, paper towel, pencils & paper 😤 was a revolving door. I’ve never seen kids who never had supplies. Just come to school with nothing. I was like don’t you have parents or guardians somewhere? Who lets a child come to school unprepared. Not even the basic supplies. It’s this generation of parents- worse than the kids. So this coming year. We will have a supply list. Of course all parents won’t comply but for those who do - there will be an incentive. I’m putting the responsibility & accountability back where it belongs- with the parent & child! Gotta start somewhere- I refuse to just sit back & do nothing.
Also, depending on the area/district/community you teach in - has a lot to do with it. The administration has a lot to do with it too! Are they supportive! But for me & my classroom! I’m laying down the ground rules & I will not back down.
This is me too especially if it’s a rowdy class. I teach 7th grade and my last class of the day was the dream class. About 4 weeks into the school year, I realized they didn’t even need a seating chart!!
My other two classes???? I had to keep my thumb on them so hard bc of the dancing, the visiting, the detouring, the talking and fussing across the room.
Those kids liked to tell me I was “doing the most.”
I don’t buy good pencils for them anymore. 8th grade. It’s not worth the time and annoyance of forcing the kids who can’t remember a pencil to have to ask all of their friends for one, so I did buy a cheap box of those shitty little eraserless golf pencils. Hopefully they learn to bring their own if they want a legit good pencil.
I have a tissue box project each semester where I have kids decorate a tissue box- similar to a cereal box or poster project. Basically requirements for each side and the top. I didn’t do it this year, I still have tissue boxes from 2022-2023.
Hand sanitizer my students will provide because they use it regularly and I want them to. But I don’t buy it.
Loose leaf I hand out as needed, but we get it from the school supply closet- I don’t buy it. They gave kids supplies this year and anything they didn’t want I kept in my closet. So I had paper, notebooks, pens, pencils. Student knew if they needed something later, they’d be able to ask for it.
I always helped with locker clean outs and grabbed all the supplies kids were throwing away.
10th year of high school public school teaching. I don’t buy anything for my students.
I use to. I use to go out of my way to have extra pens, pencils, paper, Kleenex, and I was even the teacher that had a bag of candy to treat the kids with positive reinforcement. I also brought in a ton of my own books and even a lot of my D&D stuff because I had started a D&D club at a different school and found a lot of success with it.
They just stole and broke everything. Watching a kid rip my Monster Handbook in half because he was bored was solid breaking point. Pens in the ceiling. They also started breaking into my desk for the candy and anything else they could take. Walking into my classroom and seeing a student literally eating my lunch that I kept in my desk almost made me lose my job (my school has free lunch so it wasn’t like she couldn’t get food).
Congrats, you all get nothing fun now. These last couple of years have stolen all of the joy I use to get from this career.
Everything. When I started I would go all out so my students had good experiences.
A couple of soul sucking months later and transition to another city, I decided I would no longer be buying anything. 👍 saves me money I don’t have.
My school provides tissues, but I had to start putting them behind my desk. They have to ask my permission to go and use them. I teach 8th and 9th and yeah I was getting tired of them using that as an excuse to go visit all their friends. Sometimes I even do the whole "okay now you're going to go back and show me the RIGHT way to do it" which they hate but it gets the point across.
I refuse to buy pencils. REFUSE. You can have one I found on the floor or you can borrow from a friend. It's my job to provide you an education, it's not my job to provide your supplies.
I have decided not to purchase anymore candy/chips. I used them as rewards. But I have decided not to do that anymore. I could have purchased something nice for myself with the money I spent on that junk over the last few years. Plus, it's not healthy, and they eat enough junk food without me adding to it. I am not wasting money anymore.
Same for tissues. Parents donate a few boxes at the beginning of the year. This year I didn't buy more. They had to use the hard brown paper towels that the school supplies.
Sanitizer... I keep a bottle inside my desk for me. They are welcome to keep a bottle in their backpacks.
I stopped buying pencils back in February when it became like a weekly purchase. I teach 7th grade Language Arts. Find anything to write with or get a 0.
I have a pretty strong buy nothing policy, but it’s difficult in elementary when the teachers on your team are happy to spend money and you’re the only one not.
Constant useless gifts and prizes. I’m also the only one that’s a parent, and I try to tell them, that stuff is going straight to the trash. The kids don’t even appreciate it, nor do they notice or care if the teachers don’t buy gifts for them at Christmas/Valentines/End of year.
Middle school teacher. I stopped buying snacks beyond basic granola bars for emergencies. I used to buy chips and cookies as well for incentives, but kids would constantly beg me for it and make a big deal if one of their classmates earned it and they didn’t. Kids also ended up going into my snack drawer and stealing, so that was the last straw for me. Haven’t bought snacks since.
No food. I only give out golf pencils since my pencil sharpener was broken and I kept finding pencil erasers on thw floor and pencils (the brand I was giving out) without an eraser. Now, any school supplies that are given away were given to me by the city food bank or the district. I've dealt with too many immature middle schoolers. For tissue, I have toilet paper, and I still have a ton of government hand sanitizer from the pandemic.
Nothing. We learn to use and repuprose whatever is in the room. No dice? Guess we learn to make 3d shapes. If it gets interesting enough, parents start donating, and Admin tends to "find" stuff we can use.
I’m a 7th grade teacher and the only thing I really buy for my class anymore is candy so that’s a my choice item.
I have student helpers who plug in Chromebooks, pick up notebooks, move the trash cans to the front and sweep and straighten my desks at the end of the day. These are all things(except sweep and trash) I would have to do so I don’t mind buying candy for my helpers.
I have an Amazon wish list that I share and I won a drawing a few years ago and still have pencils left over from that.
My friends know if they clean out a closet and find school supplies, I’d love to have them.
I only buy what the school will reimburse me for, or things I want because they will make my life easier/ help me enjoy the endless hours in my room more.
I teach 5th in a pretty good school. I haven't had issues with kids stealing/destroying my personal stuff or anything. If I did, it would probably be school reimbursed only.
I don't buy anything. If the school really wants me to provide snacks or decorate (beyond some posters I found in a closet) or have tissues for students, they will buy it for me.
I used to buy this stuff my first year. I taught 7th graders. I bought paper, pencils, art supplies, posters, snacks, prizes, and even an anatomical skeleton. Every single one of those things eventually got destroyed or stolen. Basically every time I was out, I would find my candy and prizes missing. And there are only so many pencils I can find snapped on the floor before I snap. I haven't bought anything beyond the first year I taught unless it was for my personal use.
Luckily, my school is in an extremely poor district, one that because of that poverty, they do provide supplies to students and teachers and I occasionally get booster boxes. We will get asked to make supply orders every so often and we make sure we put it to good use.
MS: this year we decided that all of the students would just pay $ and the school would supply the binders/pencils......I kept running out of pencils and would find them broken on the floor. Next year, we have a supply list for guardians/parents to provide their own students with supplies. I am not giving out one single solitary pencil. Not. One.
Erasers. Elementary school, special areas class, multiple grade levels. When a new box of pencils are put out, those erasers are all gone within three days. They either pick the erasers off, unscrew the eraser off, or draw on the desk with the eraser top. I've literally never seen an eraser mark on a piece of paper. But everyone says they need an eraser. The answer is to cross out your mistake. These are the pencils I have, some kids have removed the eraser, and there are no erasers in my class now. It sounds petty until you've taught the entire school in only one week and they all want a pencil with an eraser but yet those don't even last a full week. I'd buy separate erasers, the pink block kind, but experience showed me kids will pick those apart too. It's ok to cross a mistake out.
A few weeks ago we had 4 boys (middle school) decide to play a game of "see how many times you can get a tissue before being caught" and they rotated getting up one at a time over and over. Caught on almost immediately but can't believe (actually, can believe) the level of disregard for the money that goes into things like that.
Pencils. I expect that my students use pencil for math assignments. But if they don’t have one they can borrow from a friend or grab one from my collection of “floor pencils” that I find left over in my classroom
We got an email this year. I do provide rewards but I charge my kids our incentive system for pbis. It’s working well. I also use it for bathroom passes. The kids complain but it cut down on the grabbing and theft. If you don’t earn it and “pay for it”, sorry it’s not yours and if you take it from me, enjoy the write up for theft. But what pissed me off is teachers wouldn’t use the reward system and then charge our students for things like water and snacks (mostly a $) which led to begging from my kids when I didn’t have those items and wrecking my system and leading to all of us being told we can’t do that next year.
After this past year I'm hesitant to buy anything extra for my class. My class went through an old fashioned pencil sharpener 2x's, and 3 electric ones within 6 weeks. They then lost or broke the few manual ones I had.
Colored pencils and markers disappeared faster than a pack of gum. Notebook paper - I've never seen it disappear so fast in my life and it wasn't for their note-taking because honestly no one took notes. "Borrowed" pencils were usually found broken and left on the floor or "hidden" in plants or bookcases. (Speaking of plants -they killed my tomato plant by overwatering it and destroyed other plants). I got rid of the plants and stopped lending supplies out...you need something ask 3 before me.
Since I was teaching science in a school w/o curriculum I supplemented my lessons with labs - so much of my money its ridiculous. Several students were so disrespectful to materials that it almost wasn't worth it. An exception- I used some school funds to purchase glass prisms. (I ordered 36 in total but only took out a dozen to use. Within 2 class periods I was down to 5 usable ones. Of course no one saw anything, no one admitted chipping them, or cracking them.) Sigh!
I asked admin in the beginning of the school year if I could charge a lab fee of $5 or less per semester to help defray costs. ( For my 140+ students)). By their reaction you would have thought I asked if I could have the devil himself come as a guest speaker.
It wasn't just my classroom. These kids were rough on everyone's supplies this year. We won't even talk about the stuff they'd do during lunch. Admin. did nothing. And it wasn't all the kids - just those who have to ruin it for everyone. And for those who want to know - the school is not in a low income area ...just a bunch of intitled kids who think everything is theirs.
I am not buying anything next year unless A.) I can use school funds on it
B.) I ask for donations of materials from the parents.
Oh and a huge thanks to the government lowering what teachers can deduct off their taxes...NOT A DARN THING! $200 PSHAW! These days that's
maybe pencils, glue sticks, paper, and tissues for maybe a month to 6 weeks
17 years, high school math. Don't spend your money. You work hard for your underpaid job. It's your money. When you spend your money to buy classroom extras, admin expects the rest of us to do the same. There is a budget for a reason. Use that.
And vote.
My last school I got the kids books, nice decor, fun games for extra time.
Now? nothing. they've ripped my books, thrown them. nope not doing that for ungratefull kids.
I buy Jolly Ranchers too. 8th graders will do ANYTHING for a blue Jolly Rancher, but it's gotta be the blue ones.
I don't mind spending my own money on candy, though, because it has tended to pay off for me. Ask a really good question? Candy! Help out a classmate after you've finished your own work? Candy! Honestly it makes my job easier to do haha
I buy as little as possible (2nd grade). I did buy suckers for Valentines Day & a fun pencil for Christmas.
I also bought little fidget toys & any kid that made their growth or close to it on a test got a fidget.
My school supplies both tissues and hand sanitizer (in a wall-mounted dispenser) and I have one class where I will literally take the hand sanitizer off the wall and hide it because they can’t handle having it. Middle school.
I had to hide my sanitizer. My kids would get a giant glob in their hand and then slap each other in the neck screaming “JIZZ ATTACK”. It was disgusting.
I teach 8th grade ELA. I’m not done buying them per se, but the tissue boxes being spent quickly is a massive issue. On late February I bought on Amazon a giant box of 18 boxes of tissues, each box comes with 66 tissues.
Students were basically using 1-1.5 boxes in a single week. I got tired of the waste (grabbing 4, 5 or 6 tissues at a time whether it was truly needed or not). I left them without tissues if they spent the box before the week was over several times. Nothing work to get them to understand and be measured with their use.
At the start of May I put one more box out. I wrote on all sides with Sharpie: “Last box of tissue. Once this is over that’s it; no more tissues.” The box is still there and it still has tissues. Tomorrow is the last day for students. They continue to use it, but somehow now they know how to be measured with it.
Also, pencils. I no longer give them out for free. You need a pencil? Bring it from home or get it from a classmate? No one has one? Fine, here’s one from me but I need something in exchange for it: your phone, your AirPods, one shoe. Something that you know you want back before you leave my classroom. The item stays on my desk (or behind it) until you return my (or a) pencil back to me. It’s funny how, students magically do have pencils on them or can get one from a friend.
I have seen kids walk up to the sanitizer and practically bathe in it. Like, put it all over their face and neck and arms.
I am done on the tissues. I keep some for myself. The district doesn't provide it so I take a roll of toilet paper right out of the restroom and they use that. I've also taken piles of napkins from various events in the teacher's lounge or office whenever they leave out food or something.
I notice the excuse to roam the room for sanitizer so I just hid it. They have to ask, and not interrupt teaching for it.
If they don't have a pencil and we're out, I give them a crayon. I have loads of the crappy RoseArt ones left by a previous teacher.
I have no shame when it comes to raiding supply closets. Whenever I get a chance to be in one alone or with another trusted colleague, I find so much hoarded crap and it makes me angry. Brand new staplers, folders, boxes of highlighters to the ceiling...
I use free shit or gifts as decor, so my room has wacky random shit in it. I like it fine.
Now, I *used* to spend a lot, but now? Nope. Not a cent.
I buy nothing for my students other than treats for end of the semester parties. If the school or parents won't provide it, the kids don't need it. Why would it fall on an underpaid govt employee that gets no credit and nothing but blame? Don't be a martyr.
My high schoolers will grab like 3 tissues at once to blow their nose. The box barely lasts a week. Admin would only provide one so after that box was gone I asked the custodian for a roll of toilet paper. And found out kids would only take it if they needed it
I have never bought anything and I never will. I made that decision while being a student teacher and seeing my mentor keep losing books from her library that she had bought or gotten grants for.
I know kids like you if you have food, but I’m not there for popularity points.
I don't provide snacks and I am don't allow them to leave the room until they take their trash with them. They scream about bugs, but their habits attract them.
Middle School teacher for 24 years. This upcoming school year I plan on buying one thing - a bunch of composition notebooks 📓 when they go on sale. I’m a math teacher and I want them to have their own interactive notebook. But I beg and bribe them for a week and then I trade a composition notebook for a spiral notebook or something else. And then for the 2-3 per classroom who won’t every get one, I give them one. I also tell all the parents who come to open house how much they need one.
I have a science classroom, so I have wall dispensers with paper towels. If they wasted all my tissues and a kid wants to blow their nose, they gotta use those. A lot of them realize that it ain't worth it (I keep a personal box of tissues just for me tho 😋)
In Ms and Hs we had to provide our own paper for everything. If you didn't have any then ask a friend. It was a whole binder we had to have to keep everything. What's with the change?
For reference I teach in elementary so it's completely different. I didn't realize in Ms and hs the kids didn't provide their own supplies anymore.
Pencils. I teach 5th graders and bought a 500 pack of pencils in March and they’re already all gone. I’m so tired of students disrespecting materials I buy for the class.
I ask for tissue and sanitizer donations! Then when it's wasted it's not my $.
I used to have 2 comfy lounge chairs previous years but kids now are so rude and disrespectful (fighting over them, completely ignoring me when I give directions, going for the chairs instead of waiting until independent work time, leaving food it them) that I took them home.
Also no more group tables, they sit in 2 rows facing the front. I used to love putting the little 2 person tables in group of 4 or 6, but kids just talk the whole class and do nothing so now it's boring rows and they actually get work done now.
I'm a parent reading this thread and it's bringing home my kids' teachers' reactions when I brought in art supplies (packs of chenille sticks, origami paper, sheets of little encouragement stickers - I'd spend $20 per class in 100 yen stores when I went to Japan, a couple of times a year). The kindy teacher looked like she might cry the first time I brought things in, and tried to reimburse me.
We lived in a reasonably affluent area, it broke my heart how poorly funded public schools were and it's only gotten worse.
Im an art teacher. I only get thing if I find them for. ridiculously low price at a thrift store or bin store on the cheapest day. I managed to get two 50k loom bracelets kit for $3 and only bring them out on special occasions. I have lots of posca markers and only have taken them out 2 times. I have a check out system in place. Most of my materials are recycled materials bc lots of stuff ends up in the trash.
Not a teacher but a parent, and I am happy to put tissues and hand sanitizer in my kid's backpack or send art supplies to donate. (Public middle school in a large city - and I know this thread is for teachers so I want to thank you all for the work you do!)
I used to allow food in my classroom (I teach upperclassmen, and mostly advanced courses) but then there was an issue with a kid using a cabinet as a trash can, so now no food (which technically is district rules anyway, but so many people ignore it). I’ve never provided food though, except very occasionally dumdums as prizes.
I never buy tissues, and I started my sanitizer when Covid hit, but kids waste it, like using multiple pumps at a time or several times a class period, so I’m done with that. I’m in a lab so I have sinks and soap and paper towels anyway, so they can use that if they really need to clean their hands.
I don’t usually buy any kind of fun things or prizes either. Lots of my coworkers buy stickers or treasure box stuff (even though we teach high schoolers). The most I buy is a bag of dum-dums (it’s pretty cheap for a big bag and they’re free of the major allergens).
I won’t buy school supplies either. The school provides a box of pencils, and I scoop up any I find in the hallway. But when we’re out, we’re out. I don’t let them use my personal pencils. I do save my children’s binders and plastic folders, as well any school supplies my students don’t want at the end of the year, and offer them to students the following year if they don’t have a folder or something.
I buy absolutely nothing for my classroom, with my own money. Middle school.
Back around 2001 our home ec teacher had each of us pay her 10 cents for our homework folders and I thought it was really silly at the time, but now I understand. Students will just trash the materials you buy them, might as well make them pay the dime for the folder. Teachers shouldn't have to pay out of pocket for this shit.
Our school nearly had teachers fired over this. The teachers used it to fund a party at the end of the year for the kids. (The kids had no idea). They did it for years, then someone got pissed and reported one of the teachers. I think it was 5 cents for a blank sheet 10 cents for a copy of a handout. The district wrote up all involved, and nearly fired one of the teachers for the scheme. The next year teachers got in trouble for not providing extra copies when kids lost their work.... This was a decade ago, long before my time. But it is still talked about, especially when a new teacher says "I ought to charge for the third pencil".... The kids know they don't have to do anything or buy anything so they spend their money on takis which they manage to crumple up and leave on the floor.
We aren’t supposed to take money from students without reporting it to the office. Heh At least in my district
Same in mine, but when I had self-contained classes, most of the parents didn’t have vehicles to go buy school supplies, so I let them know I was happy to provide the supplies for $5. Most took me up on it. I did the same when I tutored after school, though in that circumstance, the parents were just too busy or didn’t care. When they needed to work on projects, I’d buy the supplies and they’d reimburse me. 🤷🏻♀️
Sameeeee anything I buy gets destroyed anyways .
Correct. If I am meant to have it, the school district would provide it.
I proudly have rocked a government funded classroom for two years. I will not provide anything for my kids. I teach 3rd.
I buy things that make my \*personal\* life more comfortable. That's it. I have my own kids to feed and put through college.
Twice a year I throw a pizza party for my class that does best in attempt and behavior. Totals about $50. But all classes know it's a competition, so if they don't win...tough titties. F this don't snitch shit. If you know who is making cow or pig noises, tell me. You get a candy bar. And if your class meets my expectations better than the others? Pizza.
Love this; I also give candy to students who can find my missing chargers that get pilfered weekly. I began the year with seven, ended it with three.
If you were handing out candy for chargers in my school you would have started the year with seven and ended with thirty nine and the other teachers would be pissed.
That’s totally where I thought this story was going.
That's hysterical 🤣 never even thought of that
Snitches get Snickers
Same. With the exception of one or two pizza parties.
HS SOC/ELA: I write “sanitizer, tissues, pens, pencils, and notebooks are the responsibility of the student” DIRECTLY into the syllabus. The same syllabus both parents and the kid sign at the beginning of the year. Ditto for zero/late policy and locations of all expected work (it’s all posted in Classroom at the beginning of the year), in the event the kid/parent says “I have no idea what I was supposed to do.” Whenever I get pushback, I send them a scan of their signature. EDIT clarity
Send them a scan of their signature? Cold. I like it
Thank you! That reminds me: A parent once said “You’re gonna give (student) a zero for only plagiarizing TWICE?! That’s cold.” Without missing a beat, I said “ Twice. In a single semester. Welcome to the freezer. Next time bring a jacket.” ISYN My student teacher’s eyes almost popped out of her skull.
BOSS
Learned the hard way to do this. I have had some brutal parents and learned the art of CYA. At the BOY, I take pics of the classroom and explain the basic procedures. I take pics of the turn in basket. I explicitly state the behavior policy. I have students and parents sign, and keep copies on file. I email all this out as well. And put it in GC. I also have template responses I use in response to "I didn't know." Whenever a parent pushes back on a consequence for behavior or academics, I reference that document. I teach elementary.
This is the way
This is so savage and genius. Taking notes!
I ask for two things. Bring two pencils. They won't/can't even do that. Most of my funds go to just writing utensils.
That's exactly how last year went for me. Now, I have them turn in their phone/wallet/headphones in order to borrow pens/pencils. Works like a charm!
yup! i take their backpacks for pencils and chargers. guess who was the only teacher in my grade to not lose chargers anymore? 👉😎👈
Literally everything. Saying too much would dox myself, but my district has recently made it crystal clear how little they value teachers, and the things we provide. So, fuck them, if they won't pay for it, my students won't get it. Lower elementary.
Sadly, I think teachers nationwide can say this about their district. They don’t value education and educators and then complain that kids are stupid. Weird!
There are a few gems out there! Our school recognizes that supplies should be supplied by school. My school secretary heard I had spent my own money on some supplies and she was quick to remind me it wasn’t necessary and reminded me of a few different paths I could take to get what I needed (office, PTA funds, principal’s fund, etc).
My district just tried to introduce an informal policy dictating that anything a teacher's personal friends and family personally buy for them for their classrooms from personal Amazon Classroom Wishlists be considered school donations that the school gets to keep and hand out and not the personal property of the teacher which... obviously didn't go over well and I'm pretty sure also isn't legal. Their rationale was that when teachers (who are affiliated with a specific school) share classroom wishlists or requests for supplies to friends on social media, "the public" is gonna get confused and think they're making an official donation to the school rather than the individual teacher who made the list, so to cut down on confusion, teachers should just treat these gifts as official donations to the school anyway. So basically, they don't wanna supply teachers themselves but they don't wanna look like they're neglecting their educators so instead thought, **"hey why don't we just politely ask to requisition the stuff the teachers' friends and family buy them instead? Genius!!"** They got so much pushback on that so fast that they had to send out a half-hearted backtrack email like an hour later saying like, "fine you can keep your stuff but we're asking you add a disclaimer saying that the stuff is going to you and not the school 😒"
Sounds like we’re in the same district :(
Yepppppoo
Everything. I fully believe I shouldn’t have to buy stuff for a job. We are already underpaid as it is.
None of our money spent on the classroom. None of our hours outside of our contracts. That’s the only way this job is sustainable.
That’s right! If the school called the textbook company and they needed “just five more” licenses for a textbook at even six bucks a seat, Do you think the book company is just gonna say oh sure, no charge? No. Everything above and beyond what is agreed to now needs a new quote. That’s life. If I hire a carpenter to rebuild my deck and gee, while you’re here, would you mind repairing a broken window crank? If they do it, it’s gonna be more than your quoted price. That’s life.
In my heart I believe this but then I find myself buying ingredients for toddler safe play-doh cause they love it and space themed decorations cause my kids all want to be astronauts after I crushed space week. I teach two year olds and go so far beyond what is expected and don’t even get a retirement plan. But I genuinely adore the kids and they are little sponges and will learn as fast as I can teach them so it’s worth it to me. My biggest lesson I talk about 30 times a day is empathy/how to be kind and I hope that makes the jobs of their k-12 teachers easier in the future!
Oh my god, you are amazing! Pls come work at my son’s school and I will buy all the supplies that you need 😁
Girl make an Amazon wish list for parents to buy that stuff. All parents want sensory play and as a twos teacher you are seen as nothing short of a savior by most parents. Toddlers are savage and we parents know it.
Pre-k teachers lay the foundation for learning and grade school. Thank you so much from a high school teacher. I appreciate what you’re doing. I know those babies just love you so much.
At my daughter’s preschool, they have classroom volunteers who make Play-Doh every month at home and they use a different color every month based on whether they are learning !! The teacher also often asks us to give her materials that have to do with what they are learning, and then she returns them at the end of the unit
I believe this too. If I buy stuff for my classroom, it’s for ME - decorations that I want, mostly.
This is how my friend is. She always manages to con me into helping set up her room and move furniture (custodial preapproved), and she's got a very nicely decorated room, but it's definitely for her. "I have to be in here a lot, so it's going to be a space I like." Occasionally, she does get a negative comment about the mellow color scheme from parents, but she's all ready with several studies showing mellow colors and less clutter actually help kids focus. It seems to work, because (as far as she knows) no parent has gone to admin about it. Almost all her stuff, we found on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace for free and cleaned up. I like restoring furniture, and it gave me some to work on without having to keep it or find a home for it, so she hasn't spent much at all.
I felt this when the PTA did their annual giving campaign and admin pressured teachers to chip in too to show we're all 'team players'. They wanted us to willingly surrender, however little, some of our paycheck back to the school. Of course, our incremental pay scale increases would help keep up with inflation, if the huuuuge bump in insurance premiums the same year didn't effectively mean that my $3k increase only amounted to an extra $50 a month after insurance...
Anything that is important will be budgeted for. Don't buy anything. Period. I don't understand the teachers that spend money on their classrooms. If an admin ever says to decorate your room, the ONLY response should be "Sure! Where do you recommend I order from and what is our district account number"
Yep! We were told to decorate our high school classrooms. The previous teacher who used my classroom left up border decorations, so I kept them. Bam. Decorated. You want me to get fancier, give me the materials to do it.
Admin/my school doesn't provide any tissues, paper, pencils/pens, expo markers, etc. it sucks
Then just don't have them. It sucks hard, but it isn't your problem. Every time a kid needs a tissue, send then to the office. Pencil... Office. Paper... Office. Send a memo to all parents on back to school night. "The school does not provide paper, pens, etc. I'll be asking for monthly donations. For details on this policy, please speak with the principal. He/she is in the office right now for your questions/concerns"
Decades ago , one of my two-sessions a week preschooler kids was in charge of feeding her baby sister on the days mom was high. I never heard how that worked out.
I teach older elementary but also have children with similar (not the same) family lives. I have a senior in HS that was the brother to one of my students who called CPS on his own mother because when he leaves in the fall there will be no one there to care for his 5 siblings. I have a student with sickle cell who has a parent who sells their meds I have a student with 11 siblings who doesn't know how to brush his hair so it just doesn't get done. (And if I do it, I get threatened with physical violence because I'm "not his mother") I have a student who's mom got a new boyfriend and the dude didn't want kids so she dropped the student got dropped off at Dad's house and hasn't seen her since But yeah... Sending home a note will get my classroom. Funded right? Teaching in the suburbs has got to be a wild experience compared to what I do. (DCFS doesn't do shit for most of these even when I call... I had one removal this year)
I get it. Asking for donations isn't going to happen everywhere. What's your school doing with all the federal poverty funds? They have more than enough money for classroom supplies. My former district was a high poverty title 1 district. The elementary school teachers still asked for donations. Can't hurt to ask. Plus, it gets you a "parent communication" box to check.
We have a lot of what we need but not a ton of "extras". I don't have to worry about pencils or paper, but anything like construction paper, markers, any crafting supplies is out of pocket. School is a safe place for a lot of these kids and I'm not willing to refuse to do things that are fun because the school won't buy some things. We buy clothes for kids, weekend food, hygiene products, etc. I prefer funds to go to those things. The frustration isn't really even with the school or the other teachers. It's the parents. We use donors choose too which works out for some stuff but not for others.
The funds for the food, clothes, etc are often legally tied to specific revenue sources. Buying construction paper and the like would be a different budget line. The money is really there. If they don't spend it, they can roll funds into other general budget lines and then it becomes even more discretionary. They always tell you the money is there... But there's always money for the main office.
Donations can also work (or at least help) if even 25% of families donate. Won’t fully supply your classroom, but might get you started.
I decorate my classroom, but that’s because, mentally, I like to be in a pretty space. The other teachers in my hallway don’t and I don’t blame them one bit. I teach high school though, I think elementary school might have different expectations? I also refused to buy anything for my classroom. If I do have tissues, they go behind my desk and a student needs to come up and asked me to get one. That generally cuts down on the number of students use it as a socialization activity.
I decorate my classroom because I spend 8+ hours a day there and I want it to look nice. I don't mind spending my own money on that because it would all come with me if I were to switch districts.
I bought my decorations purposely to not feel any guilt in taking them when I leave. Everything on my walls goes with me when I’m ready to leave this classroom for the next in another district.
Pens, pencils, highlighters, and erasers. My school supplies them, but Holy f*ck, they (HSers) just destroy them and leave the guts everywhere. I had a student field strip a highlighter in about 30 seconds bc he was bored and/ or mad about something. I leave only about 6 of each for class use, and then I refill the tray about once a month. (I do set aside a few for my IEP/504 kids.) No food allowed in my class - 1) they are messy as hell, 2) I teach construction, so food/drink are subject to contamination. Do you want to be eating/drinking sawdust or glue?
god same with the destruction cause they're bored! I had one kid who was very self conscious and anxious and wouldn't use any of the dozens of fidgets because according to his mom he didn't like to draw attention to himself but he would break all my pens and pencils I had on my desk to "fidget with." Mom didn't see a problem with that but begrudgingly sent a pack of pencils after my third complaint and I finally removed him from class. She completely enabled him and sent me over 50 emails this last week because he was trying to finish all the work he didn't do all year and expected me to hold his hand. I told admin I wasn't answering her anymore and left her on read for each one of them.
Kleenex. Why is it kids take literally half the box when all they need is one…maybe two. I bought ten boxes at the start of the year, and they were gone by Christmas break. I hate having to be that guy who makes the comments about how many tissues they’re taking, so next year the boxes are for me.
I once had a parent complain because I wouldn't let their student use my good Kleenex and made them use the cheap shitty stuff the school paid for. The girl asked if she could use mine and I told her no. She went home and cried to Mommy. The parent thought I was being ridiculous. "It's just Kleenex!" I told her that if he daughter didn't want to use school provided Kleenex, she could bring a hanky from home, but she wasn't using any of my Puffs Plus that probably cost me what they pay me to sub on my prep.
Reply to the parent: it’s just MY Kleenex that I bought with my own money! Imagine being so entitled that you expect the teacher to buy Kleenex for your kid
I keep a box of the good stuff in my desk drawer. The peasants get that trash the school supplies from the nurse.
I always had a sink with paper towels in my room. I told kids to go ahead and grab a paper towel.
I take the discard toilet paper rolls when the maintenance staff thinks it's to small for the holder and tell the kids to use that. Since it's cheap toilet paper it's uncomfortable and not a desired thing to use. I also have a program through the food bank that gives us items and can get a crazy amount of toilet paper through their program.
I don’t buy anything anymore. I never bought school supplies, but I would buy things as rewards. I used to buy my students cookies or cupcakes for a reward, but got asked one too many times “We don’t even get a drink?” Last year I tried to set up a competition to get my students to do their bellringers. I’d spend $40-$50 dollars a month to buy stuff and every time have a bunch of kids say “This is all we get?” And these are the “good kids”. I’ll save what money I have.
Yes I tried that as well. Almost exact same idea. They got stickers and once they got 5 they could exchange them for a snack. It worked ok in HS. I told them if they asked for a sticker or began engaging in discussions about sticker rewards, they automatically don't get one. HS kids learned after a few days to just do the work and patiently wait for their reward. In middle school? It turns into a madhouse. They feel entitled to stickers just for sitting down. They argue over why they get a sticker or why Johnny shouldn't. They stole stickers from each other. They want the reward *this instant* and can't wait for me to get to everyone who gets one. Kids asked how many stickers they needed 50× per week. They tried to negotiate what they can do for a sticker. It's *super* annoying. I tried to make rules about the system like I did with HS students, but they didn't listen and with their ridiculously short retention didn't remember. I will not do it anymore. Kids feel entitled to rewards for showing up, even when they show up shouting "I have a huge dong!" as they enter. I don't have time to explain or argue.
This goes along with what I heard over my announcements today at school. We have 5 days left and tomorrow is our scholarship and gpa awards ceremony. “Anyone with a 2.5-3.99 gpa will be given a gpa award “ in my mind I went “wtf? I got a 2.5 gpa when I was in high school and I never got any award only 3.5 and above when I was in highschool 2010-2014 got awards” Why is everyone getting awards? Like the kids who are trying hard are being clumped with kids who barely get a c in class. Probably an electives class that is getting them the higher gpa and not core classes.
Oh I know. And you know what? It's ok to be a C student. Life has rewards for lots of types of achievements. In my HS days (mid 90s) some kids even worked really hard just for Cs. Or for me, I got good grades in language arts/humanities but worked hard for low Bs and Cs in STEM subjects. Now it seems like kids just turn work in for As and Bs, whether it's done well or not. It's not even reflection of what they learned or not.
Ditto to the tissues. I'll have kids bring some in for extra credit, but I can't justify that expense to myself anymore. When this last batch of markers runs out, that's it. Same for colored pencils. Fortunately the district gives us paper, notebooks, pens and pencils, but I'm done buying things for the class. Inflation is ridiculous.
Be careful about giving extra credit for supplies. I had a buddy who was almost fired for it. Parents complained that if you had money, you could buy a higher grade. (I think he gave way more extra credit points than most)
Yes, credit for anything not directly tied to standard achievement is grade inflation and violates most states teacher ethics standards and is a fire able offense
Tell that to the shitty 50% is the lowest grade you can put in the grade book policy. It’s already inflated in my opinion in my district so imma give them extra credit points when it’s allergy season and I’m low on Kleenex.
One could say that it’s impossible to maintain equity in an inherently inequitable system. One could also say that we can be transparent with our students that the system is inequitable while also modeling a better way of doing things. Like… grades shouldn’t reflect a student’s access to goods.
It is shockingly inequitable.
I have a pack of colored pencils that also came with a small pencil sharpener. Someone lost the pencil sharpener so now no one gets to use my colored pencils.
My school supplies tissues for all the classrooms. It is so much better than trying to collect and store them during back to school
My district (high wealth area) got a new finance director who decided one of the most effective cost cutting measures during covid was to stop supplying classroom tissues. We had to request in writing to get those little 40ct boxes. So I started buying my own and claiming it for my $200 tax deductible classroom expense. The backlash on the tissue policy took 3 years to fix. I learned 2 months ago they are now providing full size boxes. Granted, I never asked my kids to supply them. I hinted HEAVILY to the kid who used 5x a day, but he never figured it out. Ass.
I have noticed the number of classroom supply donations has plummeted in the past 3 years, and schools simply do not supply everything. In each email update about class, I ask that if parents have any extras, we could sure use donations during this very bad allergy and cold season. Out of 150 students, I received 1 small box of tissue. I simply stopped buying them after providing 5-6 boxes in the winter. This is an upper middle class area, not a school in an impoverished neighborhood. Everyone is so damned entitled anymore, and they actually believe WE should subsidize these items because they pay high taxes. Well, I pay those too.
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Specials teachers at my school email grade level teams to get paper towels, tissues, and hand sanitizer. Not one teacher should pay out of pocket for those supplies unless there isn’t any school wide, at which point every classroom gets a roll of the school’s luxury brand toilet paper to use as tissue. I’m not supplying Puffs Plus so Aiyden can treat them like dollar bills at a strip club! Edit:spelling
One of the custodians at my high school saves the toilet paper rolls, when they get too small for the dispensers for me. I then put them in the classrooms I work in
I think I bought 4 things from Sam’s for roughly $60 total that lasted me up until the last 3 weeks. I even gave a couple boxes to a colleague across the hall because I had extras. Unfortunately I needed to buy a small thing of 4 tissues from Walmart to get me and my students the last few weeks, but I’ve still got 2 boxes left to start the school year and head into winter cold season.
I have a Sped room that’s part study hall, part credit recovery, part refuge for ED kids who can’t handle things at the moment. I started off buying snacks, but the sense of entitlement finally got to me, so no snacks from me. A few of my kids figured it out and they’re pissed at everyone else. I’m waiting to see if next year brings about a change - collecting data lol.
I’ve been that teacher before. I was hardline no this year. It’s the last week of school and they are still begging. If another kid pulls out a snack the vultures all come out. It’s ridiculous. Next year I’m considering contacting the parents of the *run across the room during guided instruction shouting for snacks kids* to let them know that the school provides breakfast. The only thing stopping me is that we’re title 1 and some kids are really food insecure. I don’t want them getting in trouble with embarrassed parents.
I hate that I can’t show kindness to one student without all the others putting their hands out. I used to buy and keep snacks in my room but the minute I give one to a truly hungry kid, the others are suddenly starving
And then they will ask every day for the rest of the year; angry with you that you won’t give them another.
I’m in a title one school too and I struggled with the food thing too but our school provides 100% of our students with free lunch and free breakfast. If the kids think it’s gross, they must not be hungry enough.
I agree that it isn't our job to feed them out of our pocket, but don't brush off the problem with school lunch, especially if your school has a contract with a company that caters prisons like our school does. Shit is NASTY and legit makes people sick sometimes.
They’d always try to convince me that no one else would know, while half the class is watching and listening to see what I’ll say. If I ever caved I knew it would become “you gave one to James last period, so now you have to give me one.” after James swore he wouldn’t tell anyone. I just kept repeating that it isn’t my job to feed them: it’s the job of their family and the school cafeteria.
Or they pull out their lunch and eat it the class before lunch. You really can't wait 30 min to eat A lunch, you've only been in school for 1.5 hours. Or they get back from lunch and you know they've eaten, but they feel they need to eat even more, and leave a mess My least favorite is when they decided to steal my lunch. It may have just been a granola bar but that's what I had. Then not feessing up at all. Needless to say I was super unhappy at this and left a very bad report for that class in my subnotes. Word is they were caught a day or 2 later. The next time I was there they were better behaved. I'm sure they got it from multiple directions. (The sad part is if they were truly starving and had nothing then I probably would have shared. But the person that likely did it was neither A or B then add theft. Nope not going to happen even if I had it.)
That’s a good point. And I worry about my kids who might be food insecure. But my school provides good meals - no, really, I tend to get lunch there every day - and I can’t afford to keep feeding these kids.
I had friends in school that qualified for free lunch, but their dad was too proud to take a handout. So those friends just didn’t eat. We were also broke, so I got mine for free and they would disappear at lunch so they wouldn’t get offers to share my meager lunch. If the school ever contacted their home offering services, those friends were usually beaten for embarrassing the family. I’m sure this kind of thing still happens.
Damn, you’re really making me rethink things. In a good way, trust me. My district doesn’t charge for meals. I know for a fact that some of my poor+proud kids get to eat because their families don’t have to fill out embarrassing paperwork.
I’m in a school now where all our kids get free breakfast and lunch. In the late 70s, when I was in school, I was on free lunch and we got a punch card at the beginning of the week and the cafeteria lady would punch it each time we got lunch. It was so embarrassing when others paid for their lunch daily. The kids whose parents paid by the week had a different colored punch card than us poor kids. By the time I became a teacher, kids had a lunch number and gave it to the cashier so no one knew who was on free lunch and who wasn’t.
I was a teacher for 8 years. I probably spent about $10,000 in total for my classroom. At the end of my second to last year, my director came in and observed my class for 15 minutes. I thought the lesson she observed (rotation stations for severely handicapped students) went exceptionally well. A week later I got an email from her saying nothing I bought for my lesson (or bought for use in my classroom in general) was board approved and so it was inappropriate for my students to use. Shortly after that email, I packed everything I bought up and it's now sitting in my closet for my own kids to use (when they are old enough). My last year, I had practically an empty classroom. The director came in and observed another lesson. It was rotation stations again, but the 'board approved' materials I had were all, essentially, worksheets. She sent an email saying my students weren't engaged and had little to do beyond the worksheets. I quit.
Did you send the second person a copy of the first email?
It was the same person.
I still would have forwarded them the same email from the previous case, and said that the materials being used were the board-approved ones, since the other materials you had were deemed inappropriate. Good on you for quitting though.
The only way for a district to see what they are really doing is for teachers to stop filling in the gaps and being a martyr. No one is going to fix the problem when teachers are hiding it with their own money and time. Ask other union professionals like cops and nurses how much they buy for their patients and how much free overtime they put in.
I know a lot of nurses very strongly pressured to put in free overtime in for-profit hospital environments.
I've known nurses who used their own money to purchase stuff like denture tabs, denture paste, dental floss, hair ties, fans, cough drops (non-medicated, so we can give them without an order), etc because the hospital does not provide them. I've bought patients food using my own money. Had a guy with celiac who was admitted after the kitchen closed and all we had to offer was crackers and the standard hospital turkey sandwich. I bought him some stuff he could actually eat. But yeah, management uses the same sort of manipulation tactics to bleed every last bit they can from their nursing staff. "If you really cared about the sick and vulnerable patients, you'd come in on your day off/come in early/stay late/pick up overtime."
i have 400 pencils in a drawer i cant give them because they just leave them on the floor.
Oh I have become eagle-eyed for floor pencils. If I see a pencil laying out anywhere I will pick it up. The hall, lunch area, fields, etc. The kids can use muddy pencils. If I don't have floor pencils to use they get a RoseArt crayon.
I leave 6 out. At the end of class, I expect 6 to be there. Different years, I've done different things, but my main 2 strategies are: 1) no one leaves until there are 6 pencils put back or 2) trade me an ID for a pencil. If they walk out without their ID, they get written up.
I stopped buying pencils a few months ago… a student asked why there were no pencils in the pencil box and I told him the truth. I’d spent over $50 on pencils this year and I didn’t want to buy any more. Well, what does he do… digs around in his backpack and pulls out, I kid you not, at least 40 pencils!! All taken from me and his other teachers throughout the year! He refilled my pencil box and said he would stop taking them. I guess he was asking for a pencil in the first place to add it to his collection? 😂
Thanks all for the comments. I'm glad I'm not alone on the tissue thing. I felt like petty Betty over here before realizing I'm not the only one lol
I was shocked that I didn’t have to buy tissue this year. Parents sent in about 25 boxes at the beginning of the year and my students didn’t waste it When school ended on Friday, I had 4 boxes left.
I went through 4 boxes of tissues in 3 weeks. I have a box left that I haven’t opened yet. If students need to blow their nose, I have paper towels. I have a hand sanitizer that doesn’t smell pleasant, and that seemed to limit how often they use it.
They are definitely just an excuse to stand up for the more obnoxious young men.
Everything. Elementary. Don't make enough and they don't respect it anyways.
The only thing I bought for my classroom was a $10 pencil sharpener, $5 worth of Dollar Store markers, and $4 worth of little Dollar Store bins to keep them in. And the only reason I bought those things were because I wanted some cheap shit markers right away and because I didn't like the provided pencil sharpener. Other than that, I don't buy a damn thing for my classroom. Either the school provides what we need for the kids to be educated or it clearly doesn't matter and so we go without. But I'm not going to PAY to work.
I don’t buy candy or food. (For context, I teach high school.) The first few years I tried to keep something stocked for those who really needed a snack to get them through (and for myself) but one the kids knew it was there they would ask and ask and ask, even if it had been weeks or months since I stocked any. Kids I’d never met would come to get a granola bar, or if you’d given it to them once they would just help themselves after. Reward candy was the same; once I had it, it would be gone within a day or two - either because I used it or people would just help themselves. Candy is too expensive to be restocking once or twice a week. I also used to buy tissues; nope. They can deal with the one-ply tissues the school buys or get some TP from the bathroom. I would buy the good kind of tissues that are infused with lotion and then would catch kids pulling out a wad of them to wipe up a spill on the ground or use as a plate for some takis they got from a friend. For a while I even put a roll of paper towels next to the tissues and they would still do the same thing. They can’t get it in their heads that tissues are not absorbent (and expensive). I used to get some sort of birthday favors to give out, something small like a cool eraser or one of those monster finger puppets - just something fun with a sucker. Most kids would leave them behind, and it was a lot to track with so many students, especially since I don’t see them every day (block scheduling). It was more hassle than it was worth, ans enthusiasm was low for the time and money I spent. One thing I do still buy is pencils, but I get the half golf pencils. Full size pencils got stolen often, and for some reason freshmen just enjoy breaking them. They’d snap them in half on the daily. They don’t for golf pencils, plus the ones I get off Amazon have full erasers and come sharpened in bulk. One box does me for the year with relatively consistent use.
I bought the full sized pencils on sale last year and had the shop teacher cut the whole box in half. I still have over half of those pencils left…
I’m glad you’ve been spared the pencil-breaking gang, lol I will say the upperclassmen don’t abuse pencils the same way; I have fewer underclassmen now and it’s obvious against the wear and tear on my supplies. The worst kids that made me stop buying full size came through in 2022-2023, so we’ll see if they’re any better when I have them as seniors in 2025-2026
I'm contemplating not buying pencils next year. I'm sick of the blatant waste. Use it, break it, throw it away. Come back the next day and do it all over again. Nope. That's ridiculous. My teachers never had pencils for us. It was our parents' responsibility to supply them and our responsibility to bring them.
I’ve been in my school for 6-ish years and never decorated. I decided to buy a few posters over the summer. Spent about $100. One of my darling high school boys tore up all the posters I had on my back wall, right in front of my face. I wrote him up for destruction of property. Admin didn’t even meet either him about it. I followed up via email twice and received no response. The rest of the posters were taken down after a month of getting nowhere. The is also a 3-foot tall penis drawn on the fabric I bought to cover the bulletin board that had the torn posters on it. Back to the bare walls of the government funded classroom.
Everything—they leave enough school supplies behind to keep for those without. My parents would have been so pissed if I was as careless with my supplies when I was in school. I got supplies in August, and that was it. Period.
I don’t buy anything for my kids. I offer extra credit incentives for them to bring in tissues. But they’re in middle school, the school sends out a supply list, and I’m in a well-off district. They know by now what they need in school, and if they don’t have it, they can ask a friend. I got sick of watching them make eye contact with me while snapping my pencils in half.
We’re not allowed to offer extra credit or any rewards (PBIS points) for tissues/hand sanitizer/etc, at my school. Luckily I had very generous parents this year who sent in plenty of tissue
We can't either, so me and my team got the idea to have kids glue extra credit to the supplies. So when we study Shakespeare, we have them decorate a tissue box in Capulet and Montague colors. It's 1/2 extra credit for a blank box.
I had to keep hand sanitizer and tissues in a drawer of my desk and hand them out if a kid asked for them. High school. Otherwise they would waste them or use them as a reason to get up and bother someone on their way to them.
We had kids huffing sanitizer, so ours had to be kept in a drawer.
High school art. I stopped buying art supplies to teach my classes. It is become too expensive for me, especially with no pay raises the last two years. The kids don’t appreciate it anyway. So instead we did a lot of drawing. I will be working through my acquired stash of art supplies in the next five years until retirement.
Books. New law says we have to scan them all in. Got rid of my library a few years ago. Enjoy the school library, kids! I ain't scanning in every book and letting parents try to get rid of ones that feature characters of color. I never had sexually inappropriate books to begin with and it's insulting that they're going through this craziness under the guise of "protecting children." Your little hellions are watching porn on their phone, not getting it from my class library. I overhear their filthy lunch conversations and have to type word for word what they say in the referrals. The books were never the problem.
I tried to be nice and buy some snacks for my afternoon classes. Everything was gone in 10 minutes. I did this ONE time.
I don't now, nor have I ever used my money for any classroom supplies of any kind.
HS. I have stopped buying everything. Sometimes, I snag a roll of toilet paper from the employee restroom. It’s usually gone by the next day. I work in city where there is more than one billionaire, and yet I can’t get my school to give me tissues for my classroom.
Food. I’m all for kids being fed, but I’m totally creeped out by the fingers in Cheeto dust, the licking, and all the touching.
Decorations. I have my AP Chemistry create anchor charts of the Regents Chemistry standards as their first week review activity and those become my posters.
I provide a little pen altar that all their floor offerings go to.
Bandaids. The 9th graders managed to eat their way through 100 of them in 2 weeks and I refuse to buy anymore til next year. The upperclassmen I actually teach are sad but they understand this is why we can’t have nice things.
I’m single and my future comes first. I need to save for it and not waste money on kids who won’t even say thank you.
Food/snacks. Tissues, sanitizers, clorox wipes, pencils. This class, anything. I was out for 2 weeks because my husband had major surgery. When I came back, so many things were destroyed. Blatantly destroyed, things I had for years. Things that held sentimental value. I took pictures and sent them to admin, but there was no response. I sent those to families and tallied up the cost of damages in the hundreds of dollars. I said that, as a result, I will not be purchasing anything for the class as they have used more than their fair share of my funds. We were by the book for the rest of the year. The entitlement from students and parents was crazy. Like, I don't have to buy your kid a bday treat, or purchase things for a Valentine's Day party, or a Mother's Day craft. I don't. I am paid to teach content, and at this school, moral character. When a parent asked me how not doing these things strengthens their moral character, I told her they are learning actions have consequences, and just because you apologize doesnt make it right, and if you don't want to check your friends about their behavior and be a bystander then they can all get this consequence. they fucked around so they will find out for the rest of the year. When kids were struggling and was like "I don't have a pencil" I said but I bet you ask ya mama for taking, so ask for a pencil. I did not replace my caddillac pencil sharpener. The only time I gave out pencils were for testing and I was petty af and numbered them and no one moved until I got them all back. And once testing was over they went away.
I don't buy anything for the classroom. I don't get billions in tax dollars to run the public education system, so if they can't afford it, neither can I. Secondary, but have also worked in elementary with the same mentality.
Pencils. I would find 10+ on the floor at the end of the day and kids came in the next day complaining they don't have a pencil. I swear, they eat them I teach sophomores
All of those things you mentioned are things my school provides for free to us. I’m surprised there are schools that expect you to purchase paper for the students. But to answer your question, mine is water bottles. My first year teaching, I thought “it’ll be nice to provide water bottles for the students” because I agree with them, fountain water sucks. First week of school, I bought like six cases of 40 something water bottles. Told the students that if they were thirsty and wanted one, they could just grab one. No joke, those water bottles were gone by the end of the week. And after each period, I would have like a dozen left behind that had maybe one or two sips from them. And these were 8th graders who should know better but alas. Needless, I cut that out right away lol they can bring their own water bottles now or use the fountain.
My building has filtered water and those motion activated bottle filling stations. I don’t provide water. Also, it’s been interesting to watch how the students who want to do well bring refillable bottles, and those who don’t use “can I get a drink of water?” as an excuse to just leave the classroom.
Paper, pencils, tissue...really anything that doesn't benefit me directly. Next year, I'm investing in Airheads and only distributing them to the table cluster with the highest test average.
😂😂😂 oh my! I’m not laughing at you! By all means, the “I’m not only a teacher but Wal-Mart too!!” Is definitely not a joke. You got tired 🤦🏾♀️ honey I was about to spazz out! I teach middle school so just imagine what I experienced - multiply that by 10! You are on point about the excuses to get up & move around the classroom - they would do just that! So what I did - I had to double down on class rules & routines. Raise your hand to do anything! Know the students- I knew who was being a jokester & who was serious. They would be so angry at me because I didn’t allow them to pop & lock all over the class & disrupt class. As if I cared - my students would tell other teachers “I do too much” because I stuck to my rules! If you don’t - they will have the entire class in an uproar. The sanitizer was provided by the school but tissue, paper towel, pencils & paper 😤 was a revolving door. I’ve never seen kids who never had supplies. Just come to school with nothing. I was like don’t you have parents or guardians somewhere? Who lets a child come to school unprepared. Not even the basic supplies. It’s this generation of parents- worse than the kids. So this coming year. We will have a supply list. Of course all parents won’t comply but for those who do - there will be an incentive. I’m putting the responsibility & accountability back where it belongs- with the parent & child! Gotta start somewhere- I refuse to just sit back & do nothing. Also, depending on the area/district/community you teach in - has a lot to do with it. The administration has a lot to do with it too! Are they supportive! But for me & my classroom! I’m laying down the ground rules & I will not back down.
This is me too especially if it’s a rowdy class. I teach 7th grade and my last class of the day was the dream class. About 4 weeks into the school year, I realized they didn’t even need a seating chart!! My other two classes???? I had to keep my thumb on them so hard bc of the dancing, the visiting, the detouring, the talking and fussing across the room. Those kids liked to tell me I was “doing the most.”
I love when they tell me that bc I tell them absolutely I am and I'm petty enough to do even more.
I don’t buy good pencils for them anymore. 8th grade. It’s not worth the time and annoyance of forcing the kids who can’t remember a pencil to have to ask all of their friends for one, so I did buy a cheap box of those shitty little eraserless golf pencils. Hopefully they learn to bring their own if they want a legit good pencil.
I have a tissue box project each semester where I have kids decorate a tissue box- similar to a cereal box or poster project. Basically requirements for each side and the top. I didn’t do it this year, I still have tissue boxes from 2022-2023. Hand sanitizer my students will provide because they use it regularly and I want them to. But I don’t buy it. Loose leaf I hand out as needed, but we get it from the school supply closet- I don’t buy it. They gave kids supplies this year and anything they didn’t want I kept in my closet. So I had paper, notebooks, pens, pencils. Student knew if they needed something later, they’d be able to ask for it. I always helped with locker clean outs and grabbed all the supplies kids were throwing away.
If the district doesn’t provide it it’s not necessary.
> tissues Fuck that. Just ask the custodian to leave a roll of TP.
10th year of high school public school teaching. I don’t buy anything for my students. I use to. I use to go out of my way to have extra pens, pencils, paper, Kleenex, and I was even the teacher that had a bag of candy to treat the kids with positive reinforcement. I also brought in a ton of my own books and even a lot of my D&D stuff because I had started a D&D club at a different school and found a lot of success with it. They just stole and broke everything. Watching a kid rip my Monster Handbook in half because he was bored was solid breaking point. Pens in the ceiling. They also started breaking into my desk for the candy and anything else they could take. Walking into my classroom and seeing a student literally eating my lunch that I kept in my desk almost made me lose my job (my school has free lunch so it wasn’t like she couldn’t get food). Congrats, you all get nothing fun now. These last couple of years have stolen all of the joy I use to get from this career.
I stopped buying tissues and snacks for my students (HS).
Everything. When I started I would go all out so my students had good experiences. A couple of soul sucking months later and transition to another city, I decided I would no longer be buying anything. 👍 saves me money I don’t have.
My school provides tissues, but I had to start putting them behind my desk. They have to ask my permission to go and use them. I teach 8th and 9th and yeah I was getting tired of them using that as an excuse to go visit all their friends. Sometimes I even do the whole "okay now you're going to go back and show me the RIGHT way to do it" which they hate but it gets the point across. I refuse to buy pencils. REFUSE. You can have one I found on the floor or you can borrow from a friend. It's my job to provide you an education, it's not my job to provide your supplies.
I have decided not to purchase anymore candy/chips. I used them as rewards. But I have decided not to do that anymore. I could have purchased something nice for myself with the money I spent on that junk over the last few years. Plus, it's not healthy, and they eat enough junk food without me adding to it. I am not wasting money anymore. Same for tissues. Parents donate a few boxes at the beginning of the year. This year I didn't buy more. They had to use the hard brown paper towels that the school supplies. Sanitizer... I keep a bottle inside my desk for me. They are welcome to keep a bottle in their backpacks.
I stopped buying pencils back in February when it became like a weekly purchase. I teach 7th grade Language Arts. Find anything to write with or get a 0.
I have a pretty strong buy nothing policy, but it’s difficult in elementary when the teachers on your team are happy to spend money and you’re the only one not. Constant useless gifts and prizes. I’m also the only one that’s a parent, and I try to tell them, that stuff is going straight to the trash. The kids don’t even appreciate it, nor do they notice or care if the teachers don’t buy gifts for them at Christmas/Valentines/End of year.
Middle school teacher. I stopped buying snacks beyond basic granola bars for emergencies. I used to buy chips and cookies as well for incentives, but kids would constantly beg me for it and make a big deal if one of their classmates earned it and they didn’t. Kids also ended up going into my snack drawer and stealing, so that was the last straw for me. Haven’t bought snacks since.
I don't and never will buy tissues for my kids. I just get a huge roll of tissue paper from my custodian and they slowly work through that.
No food. I only give out golf pencils since my pencil sharpener was broken and I kept finding pencil erasers on thw floor and pencils (the brand I was giving out) without an eraser. Now, any school supplies that are given away were given to me by the city food bank or the district. I've dealt with too many immature middle schoolers. For tissue, I have toilet paper, and I still have a ton of government hand sanitizer from the pandemic.
Nothing. We learn to use and repuprose whatever is in the room. No dice? Guess we learn to make 3d shapes. If it gets interesting enough, parents start donating, and Admin tends to "find" stuff we can use.
Anything that can't be used at home.
I’m a 7th grade teacher and the only thing I really buy for my class anymore is candy so that’s a my choice item. I have student helpers who plug in Chromebooks, pick up notebooks, move the trash cans to the front and sweep and straighten my desks at the end of the day. These are all things(except sweep and trash) I would have to do so I don’t mind buying candy for my helpers. I have an Amazon wish list that I share and I won a drawing a few years ago and still have pencils left over from that. My friends know if they clean out a closet and find school supplies, I’d love to have them.
I only buy what the school will reimburse me for, or things I want because they will make my life easier/ help me enjoy the endless hours in my room more. I teach 5th in a pretty good school. I haven't had issues with kids stealing/destroying my personal stuff or anything. If I did, it would probably be school reimbursed only.
Buy absolutely nothing after I went through 200 pencils in one year. - HS
I don't buy anything. If the school really wants me to provide snacks or decorate (beyond some posters I found in a closet) or have tissues for students, they will buy it for me. I used to buy this stuff my first year. I taught 7th graders. I bought paper, pencils, art supplies, posters, snacks, prizes, and even an anatomical skeleton. Every single one of those things eventually got destroyed or stolen. Basically every time I was out, I would find my candy and prizes missing. And there are only so many pencils I can find snapped on the floor before I snap. I haven't bought anything beyond the first year I taught unless it was for my personal use. Luckily, my school is in an extremely poor district, one that because of that poverty, they do provide supplies to students and teachers and I occasionally get booster boxes. We will get asked to make supply orders every so often and we make sure we put it to good use.
MS: this year we decided that all of the students would just pay $ and the school would supply the binders/pencils......I kept running out of pencils and would find them broken on the floor. Next year, we have a supply list for guardians/parents to provide their own students with supplies. I am not giving out one single solitary pencil. Not. One.
Erasers. Elementary school, special areas class, multiple grade levels. When a new box of pencils are put out, those erasers are all gone within three days. They either pick the erasers off, unscrew the eraser off, or draw on the desk with the eraser top. I've literally never seen an eraser mark on a piece of paper. But everyone says they need an eraser. The answer is to cross out your mistake. These are the pencils I have, some kids have removed the eraser, and there are no erasers in my class now. It sounds petty until you've taught the entire school in only one week and they all want a pencil with an eraser but yet those don't even last a full week. I'd buy separate erasers, the pink block kind, but experience showed me kids will pick those apart too. It's ok to cross a mistake out.
A few weeks ago we had 4 boys (middle school) decide to play a game of "see how many times you can get a tissue before being caught" and they rotated getting up one at a time over and over. Caught on almost immediately but can't believe (actually, can believe) the level of disregard for the money that goes into things like that.
Pencils. I expect that my students use pencil for math assignments. But if they don’t have one they can borrow from a friend or grab one from my collection of “floor pencils” that I find left over in my classroom
We got an email this year. I do provide rewards but I charge my kids our incentive system for pbis. It’s working well. I also use it for bathroom passes. The kids complain but it cut down on the grabbing and theft. If you don’t earn it and “pay for it”, sorry it’s not yours and if you take it from me, enjoy the write up for theft. But what pissed me off is teachers wouldn’t use the reward system and then charge our students for things like water and snacks (mostly a $) which led to begging from my kids when I didn’t have those items and wrecking my system and leading to all of us being told we can’t do that next year.
After this past year I'm hesitant to buy anything extra for my class. My class went through an old fashioned pencil sharpener 2x's, and 3 electric ones within 6 weeks. They then lost or broke the few manual ones I had. Colored pencils and markers disappeared faster than a pack of gum. Notebook paper - I've never seen it disappear so fast in my life and it wasn't for their note-taking because honestly no one took notes. "Borrowed" pencils were usually found broken and left on the floor or "hidden" in plants or bookcases. (Speaking of plants -they killed my tomato plant by overwatering it and destroyed other plants). I got rid of the plants and stopped lending supplies out...you need something ask 3 before me. Since I was teaching science in a school w/o curriculum I supplemented my lessons with labs - so much of my money its ridiculous. Several students were so disrespectful to materials that it almost wasn't worth it. An exception- I used some school funds to purchase glass prisms. (I ordered 36 in total but only took out a dozen to use. Within 2 class periods I was down to 5 usable ones. Of course no one saw anything, no one admitted chipping them, or cracking them.) Sigh! I asked admin in the beginning of the school year if I could charge a lab fee of $5 or less per semester to help defray costs. ( For my 140+ students)). By their reaction you would have thought I asked if I could have the devil himself come as a guest speaker. It wasn't just my classroom. These kids were rough on everyone's supplies this year. We won't even talk about the stuff they'd do during lunch. Admin. did nothing. And it wasn't all the kids - just those who have to ruin it for everyone. And for those who want to know - the school is not in a low income area ...just a bunch of intitled kids who think everything is theirs. I am not buying anything next year unless A.) I can use school funds on it B.) I ask for donations of materials from the parents. Oh and a huge thanks to the government lowering what teachers can deduct off their taxes...NOT A DARN THING! $200 PSHAW! These days that's maybe pencils, glue sticks, paper, and tissues for maybe a month to 6 weeks
I think I’m done with projects. The results are usually a very terrible quality and then it’s miserable to force myself to grade such crud.
snacks. i'm poor and paid hourly. feed your own damn kids for once.
17 years, high school math. Don't spend your money. You work hard for your underpaid job. It's your money. When you spend your money to buy classroom extras, admin expects the rest of us to do the same. There is a budget for a reason. Use that. And vote.
My last school I got the kids books, nice decor, fun games for extra time. Now? nothing. they've ripped my books, thrown them. nope not doing that for ungratefull kids.
I bought a bag of Jolly Ranchers this year… that’s it. I only gave away about half… My school provides everything my students need.
I buy Jolly Ranchers too. 8th graders will do ANYTHING for a blue Jolly Rancher, but it's gotta be the blue ones. I don't mind spending my own money on candy, though, because it has tended to pay off for me. Ask a really good question? Candy! Help out a classmate after you've finished your own work? Candy! Honestly it makes my job easier to do haha
I throw my leftover Jolly Ranchers, like they do at a parade, on the last day of school. Let them fight…
Meter sticks and rulers.
I buy as little as possible (2nd grade). I did buy suckers for Valentines Day & a fun pencil for Christmas. I also bought little fidget toys & any kid that made their growth or close to it on a test got a fidget.
Pencils, paper, books, notebooks, kleenex and everything else
I only buy jolly ranchers for the students and my own supplies like the scissors and flair pens I like.
My school supplies both tissues and hand sanitizer (in a wall-mounted dispenser) and I have one class where I will literally take the hand sanitizer off the wall and hide it because they can’t handle having it. Middle school.
I had to hide my sanitizer. My kids would get a giant glob in their hand and then slap each other in the neck screaming “JIZZ ATTACK”. It was disgusting.
I used to provide pencils and paper, but this year I ran through a semester's worth of pencils in a couple of weeks. So no more pencils.
I teach 8th grade ELA. I’m not done buying them per se, but the tissue boxes being spent quickly is a massive issue. On late February I bought on Amazon a giant box of 18 boxes of tissues, each box comes with 66 tissues. Students were basically using 1-1.5 boxes in a single week. I got tired of the waste (grabbing 4, 5 or 6 tissues at a time whether it was truly needed or not). I left them without tissues if they spent the box before the week was over several times. Nothing work to get them to understand and be measured with their use. At the start of May I put one more box out. I wrote on all sides with Sharpie: “Last box of tissue. Once this is over that’s it; no more tissues.” The box is still there and it still has tissues. Tomorrow is the last day for students. They continue to use it, but somehow now they know how to be measured with it. Also, pencils. I no longer give them out for free. You need a pencil? Bring it from home or get it from a classmate? No one has one? Fine, here’s one from me but I need something in exchange for it: your phone, your AirPods, one shoe. Something that you know you want back before you leave my classroom. The item stays on my desk (or behind it) until you return my (or a) pencil back to me. It’s funny how, students magically do have pencils on them or can get one from a friend.
I have seen kids walk up to the sanitizer and practically bathe in it. Like, put it all over their face and neck and arms. I am done on the tissues. I keep some for myself. The district doesn't provide it so I take a roll of toilet paper right out of the restroom and they use that. I've also taken piles of napkins from various events in the teacher's lounge or office whenever they leave out food or something. I notice the excuse to roam the room for sanitizer so I just hid it. They have to ask, and not interrupt teaching for it. If they don't have a pencil and we're out, I give them a crayon. I have loads of the crappy RoseArt ones left by a previous teacher. I have no shame when it comes to raiding supply closets. Whenever I get a chance to be in one alone or with another trusted colleague, I find so much hoarded crap and it makes me angry. Brand new staplers, folders, boxes of highlighters to the ceiling... I use free shit or gifts as decor, so my room has wacky random shit in it. I like it fine. Now, I *used* to spend a lot, but now? Nope. Not a cent.
I buy nothing for my students other than treats for end of the semester parties. If the school or parents won't provide it, the kids don't need it. Why would it fall on an underpaid govt employee that gets no credit and nothing but blame? Don't be a martyr.
My high schoolers will grab like 3 tissues at once to blow their nose. The box barely lasts a week. Admin would only provide one so after that box was gone I asked the custodian for a roll of toilet paper. And found out kids would only take it if they needed it
I have never bought anything and I never will. I made that decision while being a student teacher and seeing my mentor keep losing books from her library that she had bought or gotten grants for. I know kids like you if you have food, but I’m not there for popularity points.
One time I bought roach spray with my classroom money bc no one would come out for a work order. They made me pay it back lol
I don't provide snacks and I am don't allow them to leave the room until they take their trash with them. They scream about bugs, but their habits attract them.
Everything. My school district supplies all school supplies. I just have to ask and it magically shows up in my box the next day.
Middle School teacher for 24 years. This upcoming school year I plan on buying one thing - a bunch of composition notebooks 📓 when they go on sale. I’m a math teacher and I want them to have their own interactive notebook. But I beg and bribe them for a week and then I trade a composition notebook for a spiral notebook or something else. And then for the 2-3 per classroom who won’t every get one, I give them one. I also tell all the parents who come to open house how much they need one.
I have a science classroom, so I have wall dispensers with paper towels. If they wasted all my tissues and a kid wants to blow their nose, they gotta use those. A lot of them realize that it ain't worth it (I keep a personal box of tissues just for me tho 😋)
In Ms and Hs we had to provide our own paper for everything. If you didn't have any then ask a friend. It was a whole binder we had to have to keep everything. What's with the change? For reference I teach in elementary so it's completely different. I didn't realize in Ms and hs the kids didn't provide their own supplies anymore.
Pencils. I teach 5th graders and bought a 500 pack of pencils in March and they’re already all gone. I’m so tired of students disrespecting materials I buy for the class.
I ask for tissue and sanitizer donations! Then when it's wasted it's not my $. I used to have 2 comfy lounge chairs previous years but kids now are so rude and disrespectful (fighting over them, completely ignoring me when I give directions, going for the chairs instead of waiting until independent work time, leaving food it them) that I took them home. Also no more group tables, they sit in 2 rows facing the front. I used to love putting the little 2 person tables in group of 4 or 6, but kids just talk the whole class and do nothing so now it's boring rows and they actually get work done now.
I'm a parent reading this thread and it's bringing home my kids' teachers' reactions when I brought in art supplies (packs of chenille sticks, origami paper, sheets of little encouragement stickers - I'd spend $20 per class in 100 yen stores when I went to Japan, a couple of times a year). The kindy teacher looked like she might cry the first time I brought things in, and tried to reimburse me. We lived in a reasonably affluent area, it broke my heart how poorly funded public schools were and it's only gotten worse.
Im an art teacher. I only get thing if I find them for. ridiculously low price at a thrift store or bin store on the cheapest day. I managed to get two 50k loom bracelets kit for $3 and only bring them out on special occasions. I have lots of posca markers and only have taken them out 2 times. I have a check out system in place. Most of my materials are recycled materials bc lots of stuff ends up in the trash.
Not a teacher but a parent, and I am happy to put tissues and hand sanitizer in my kid's backpack or send art supplies to donate. (Public middle school in a large city - and I know this thread is for teachers so I want to thank you all for the work you do!)
I stopped buying anything for my classroom a long time ago.
I used to allow food in my classroom (I teach upperclassmen, and mostly advanced courses) but then there was an issue with a kid using a cabinet as a trash can, so now no food (which technically is district rules anyway, but so many people ignore it). I’ve never provided food though, except very occasionally dumdums as prizes. I never buy tissues, and I started my sanitizer when Covid hit, but kids waste it, like using multiple pumps at a time or several times a class period, so I’m done with that. I’m in a lab so I have sinks and soap and paper towels anyway, so they can use that if they really need to clean their hands. I don’t usually buy any kind of fun things or prizes either. Lots of my coworkers buy stickers or treasure box stuff (even though we teach high schoolers). The most I buy is a bag of dum-dums (it’s pretty cheap for a big bag and they’re free of the major allergens). I won’t buy school supplies either. The school provides a box of pencils, and I scoop up any I find in the hallway. But when we’re out, we’re out. I don’t let them use my personal pencils. I do save my children’s binders and plastic folders, as well any school supplies my students don’t want at the end of the year, and offer them to students the following year if they don’t have a folder or something.