I Spent $1,300 on Classroom Supplies this Year.

Posted by Bill Ferriter on Friday, 02/14/2014

Having spent the past four days snowed in and stir crazy, I decided to sit down and work on my taxes yesterday. In the process, I started digging through all of the receipts I've saved for items that I bought for my classroom.

Grand total for 2013: $1,300.

That number actually caught me by surprise simply because (1). I've made a systematic effort to buy LESS for my classroom this year simply because my family is broke and (2). I've had a TON of support from the parents of my students, who rally to the call anytime that I share a list of needed supplies with them.

Here are some highlights from my spending:

Most expensive purchases:  $159 for a subscription to Commoncraft -- a tool that makes engaging video production possible, $110 on plants for a lab on plant anatomy, and $84 on a Brother scanner for digitizing student work.

Most common purchases:  Materials for use in my science labs, including $84 on consumables like marshmallows and spaghetti,  $25 for magnets and $12.50 for Pyrex test tubes.

Most important purchases:  $105 for a new winter jacket and backpack for a student living in poverty, $100 worth of gift cards to a local grocery store to provide Thanksgiving meals for families living in poverty and $47 for a webcam to Skype a homebound student into our classroom.

Purchases that my students liked the best:  $135 for new books for my classroom bookshelf.

Cheapest purchase:  $4.13 for replacement light bulbs for flashlights used in our light lab.

Now, I know full well that some of these purchases aren't TOTALLY essential.  

My kids could have lived without a Commoncraft subscription and it's definitely not my responsibility to buy winter jackets and/or food for struggling students.  What's more, I could probably have gotten some of these items purchased by the school if I had gone through the proper paperwork channels months before I needed them.

But that doesn't change the fact that our schools are underfunded and our teachers -- no matter what horrible things underinformed legislators want to say about them -- are making up for that shortfall by pulling cash out of their own pockets.

Are we REALLY okay with that?