I'll just go buy it with my own money.

The school year begins and suddenly you realize you need tons of extra supplies your school doesn’t already own. So you make the trip to your local Walmart or teacher store in hopes of finding some deals. While you are there, you find 25 different items in addition to the ones on your list you forgot to think about. Plus you add some extra school supplies to your cart for the students who will forget, can’t afford or loose within the first week of school. You walk out, head down as you just put almost $250 on your credit card. As you are walking to your car, you sink even lower as you think of the parties, motivational items, snacks and other miscellaneous items you will have to purchase throughout the year. But you raise your head back up as you remember, you are a teacher, it is part of the job, and it will make your student’s lives a little easier. Sound familiar? Should “are you willing to spend money out of your own pocket” be included on a teaching application? Or is it something that is common knowledge you gain as a college student?
How much DO teachers spend out of pocket? In a journal article posted by Questia several schools were studied to poll how much money teachers spend out of pocket. Minnesota schools were on the radar. K-12 teachers spent approximately $492 of their own money on their classrooms/students. Add it all up and Minnesota teachers spend almost 23 million dollars each year out of pocket.
In an article written by John Fitzgerald, posted on the Minnesota 2020 website, he states teachers in 2005 had a starting salary of $29,907 their first year of teaching. He also stated how new teachers are the ones who are spending the most out of pocket due to the fact veteran teachers have had years of purchases carrying over. One thing Fitzgerald found teachers spend their own money on, is filling gaps in state curriculum. One example given was a teacher who was short 2 books and went out and purchased them herself. As a teacher, I would do the same thing. But why? Why wouldn’t it be possible for the district or state to provide 2 more books? Is it too time consuming? Is it really going to put a huge crunch on the budget?
After adding up how much money I have spent in my classroom over my 3 years and complaining about it, I have to say I finally have all my family members trained what to keep their eyes open for at garage sales, auction sales, or even stuff people are giving away. I started looking for more numbers to see if Minnesota teachers were at the high or low end of out of pocket expenditures. I came across one website reporting on Los Angeles teachers and their out of pocket expenditures. I was astounded to find teachers are spending over $1,000 each year from their pocket. One kindergarten teacher spends between $3,000 and $5,000 each year on her classroom.
Do we have any help? According to current law, you can deduct up to $250 of education supplies on your taxes to help with some of the expense. You need to be considered an eligible educator and the supplies are ones that are not reimbursed from your school.
But if on average teachers are spending around $500 for their classroom and only getting to deduct $250, what happens with the rest of the money? Will we ever think we have enough to get what we need?