Jamie Epps did not expect to spend a lot of her own money on school supplies when she decided to take a teaching job for the fall of 2023.

Her mother convinced her to teach as a source of income while Epps attended nursing school. A retired teacher herself, Eppsā€™ mom also gave her some advice.

ā€œShe told me I probably would have to buy classroom decorations with my money, like bulletin boards and posters,ā€ Epps said. ā€œBut that is not what happened.ā€

Epps was surprised when she first stepped into her Florida classroom and found there were no supplies available: no paper, no staplers, not even dry-erase markers. In the following months, she spent over $6,000 to stock basic supplies and materials to teach science.

Eppsā€™s experience on her first days as a teacher is an extreme but generally familiar version of what almost every American teacher goes through. The reported that 95% of public school teachers reported spending their own money to buy supplies for the classroom in the most recent data available ā€” without getting reimbursed.

Many teachers can in classroom expenses from their taxes, but they often spend way more than that. In a survey conducted by the crowdfunding platform DonorsChoose of 2,500 teachers who used the platform, educators reported .

Like Epps, most teachers spend most of their money on essential materials such as paper, pencils, and markers. Chalkbeat asked educators to share how much they and what they spend it on. More than 120 teachers across the country responded.

They reported spending anywhere from $65 to $6,000. Their purchases included items to make students more comfortable and learning more enjoyable. Many said they expected to spend more on students this year than last.

Below, some of these teachers share in their own words how and why they spend money out of their own pockets on their classrooms.

A comfortable place for students is teacherā€™s goal

Judy Hall is an English teacher at Barringer High School in Newark, New Jersey

Iā€™ve been teaching for 25 years and am used to spending my own money. Part of my expenses are resources for teaching: I subscribe to some newspapers since I use articles to teach English, and I buy books for my classroomā€™s library.

I also buy dƩcor items: It is important that the classroom is comfortable and cozy for the students and for myself, since I spend most of my day there. Many of my students are food insecure, so I try to keep snacks and protein bars with me. I also keep menstrual products, a sewing kit, a full body mirror, and first aid supplies.

Last year, I paid around $1,500, and I expect to spend the same amount this year. It is more than I was used to, mainly because the price of food has increased so much.

I like that kids feel like they can drop by for additional help. I am a very strict teacher. In my class, everyone has to follow the rules and do their work. Having this kind of homey experience helps build a stronger connection.

Students with disabilities need appropriate equipment

Ellen Brody-Kirmss is a special education teacher at Clara Barton High School, in Brooklyn, New York

I have been teaching for 19 years and, in the beginning, I spent much more money than I do now. I didnā€™t have lesson plans, or a curriculum, or even my own classroom. Because of that, I had to buy a rolling cart that I could bring from one place to another.

I am a special education teacher, and both my parents were, too. Back in their day, which is ancient history now, the materials that would help the students they were teaching werenā€™t available: They had to be inventive. I am part of that tradition.

This year, I am teaching a course to students with intellectual disabilities who are part of the [Academics, Career, and Essential Skills] Program. In high school, thereā€™s nothing in ready-made equipment appropriate for them, and each student has specific needs. I bought calculators, headphones, different writing instruments, and tools to help kids read. I got a lot of pictures and word games for students too, because they struggle with discourse. I expect to spend up to $800 from my own pocket this year.

Iā€™m trying to get the school to buy a particular online curriculum for math. If they donā€™t and itā€™s cheap enough, Iā€™ll buy it, but I donā€™t want to have to do that.

Teacher wants classroom to be ā€˜best place on Earthā€™

Mindy Gunderson is a first grade teacher at Hayden Canyon Charter in Hayden, Idaho

This year, I spent about $2,000 to get started. My biggest expense was in supplies for an independent workstation and classroom decorations. When kids finish their work, they can pick an activity from a chart where I list the independent workstations: There are building pieces, sensory boards, STEM toys, math manipulatives, and so on.

I donā€™t know if everybody agrees with me, but these items are essential to me. I wholeheartedly believe that learning takes place through play. So, in a first-grade classroom, I want to incorporate as much play as possible. Through this, kids also develop a sense of community because they get together to play, build things, and do work at the stations.

I want students to love coming to school. When I incorporate things they enjoy, they want to go to school and learn. Once that happens, I can teach them anything. And if that means I have to invest a little bit of my money, Iā€™m OK with that because I want the relationship and my classroom to be the best place on Earth.

ā€˜I donā€™t ever want to go back to teachingā€™

Jamie Epps is a science teacher at Hialeah Senior High School in Hialeah, Florida

On my first day as a teacher, I didnā€™t bring anything because I heard teachers are given a little starter pack. My mom, who had been a teacher for over 20 years, also told me that I would probably have to buy classroom decorations, like a bulletin board.

Thatā€™s not the situation I lived in when I walked into the classroom: there were no pencils, paper, or markers. I had to buy everything, from staplers to printer ink. Over the 2023-2024 school year, I spent over $6,000, including materials for science experiments. I bought a class pet, a rabbit, and a fish tank so that we could study marine science.

This year, the district provided a little kit with a dry-erase marker, some hall passes, and a package of post-its. I am finishing nursing school, and I donā€™t ever want to go back to teaching after this experience.

Teacher salary raises headed back into classroom costs

Polly Franklin is a Spanish teacher at Lowell Senior High School in Lowell, Indiana

As a Spanish teacher, most of what I spend out of my own money goes to subscriptions to technology that give my students the best chance of learning and save me an abundance of time. These subscriptions can add up ā€” I spent about $300 last year and am thinking Iā€™ll spend closer to $500 this school year.

Thereā€™s a lot on the Internet for Spanish educators, but I donā€™t have time to sift through all the materials in the world to find ones appropriate to my class. The ones I pay for on my own include , a website [specifically] for Spanish teachers, that gives me games and authentic songs and lyrics to bring into my classroom.

Like all teachers, my time outside of school is stretched thin during the school year. I am a full-time caretaker of a family member and Iā€™m getting a masterā€™s degree. Even though I spend my own money reluctantly, I know itā€™s worth it for the kidsā€™ enjoyment of lessons and also for my own sanity. It is sad to me that, for a lot of us, any small salary raise we get seems to just go right back into the classroom.

Classroom supplies take priority over helping student clubs

Ceretta Morris is a Language Arts and social studies teacher at John D. Shoop Academy in Chicago

This year has been particularly challenging. In the past, I taught only one grade level; now, I teach three. This has led to me needing a wider variety of materials and resources. I teach four classes of 25 kids daily, so I buy a lot of stuff. I ordered a box of 500 pre-sharpened pencils, heavy-duty pencil sharpeners, folders, and boxes of copy paper.

Iā€™m the queen of taking advantage of all available donations: Donor Choose, AdoptAClassroom, GoFundMe ā€¦ I do all of those, but I still spent about $600 out of my pocket. I also tried to put some of the material in a supply list, but getting middle school parents to shop for school supplies is hard.

If I didnā€™t have to spend money on essential supplies, I would love to support the funding for our school clubs. I co-sponsor our schoolā€™s Junior , which [gathers] high achieving students to perform services to the community, and I see how much funding they still need.

Wellington Soares is Chalkbeatā€™s national education reporting intern based in New York City. Contact Wellington at wsoares@chalkbeat.org.

Caroline Bauman is Chalkbeatā€™s deputy managing editor for engagement.

This story was originally published on Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

As the brother of a recent graduate from the University of Wyomingā€™s College of Education, Rep. Landon Brown (R-Cheyenne) has seen firsthand how lagging teacher salaries in Wyoming affect the stateā€™s pool of educators. 

ā€œThe offer that he received from Arizona was $22,000 more a year than what he was offered for any school district here in the state of Wyoming, including Cheyenne, where his home was,ā€ Brown told his colleagues on the Joint Education Committee Thursday. 

ā€œHe picked up and moved to the state of Arizona, where heā€™s going to pay income tax, because he can make $22,000 more a year,ā€ he continued. 

In the face of such anecdotes, as well as empirical evidence that Wyoming is , the Joint Education Committee recommended an 8.5% ā€œexternal cost adjustment,ā€ or temporary increase in funding, for teacher and other school staff salaries for the 2025-26 school year. The body voted 11-1 to recommend the increase.

The recommendation, which also includes shifts in funding for school materials and utilities, would increase funding by approximately $66.4 million in total. That would bring the funding in alignment with Wyomingā€™s ā€œevidence-based model.ā€ That funding model was implemented after the Wyoming Supreme Court in 1995 declared the stateā€™s K-12 school finance system unconstitutional for failing to ā€œprovide for the establishment and maintenance of a complete and uniform system of public instruction.ā€ The new formula relies on consultants using complex economic data to periodically define appropriate funding levels instead of elected officials. 

The pay bump still has hurdles to clear. The Appropriations Committee will make its own recommendation on the matter to Gov. Mark Gordon by Nov. 1. 

But the Education Committeeā€™s decision could represent a response to critics who say Wyoming has lost its ability to recruit and retain quality educators because it hasnā€™t kept up with the high relative pay it once offered. 

Background 

Wyoming periodically ā€œrecalibratesā€ how much the state is willing to spend on education and how the funds should be split ā€” a complicated undertaking done with the help of consultants. The next recalibration is scheduled for 2025.

During the non-recalibration years, lawmakers decide whether inflation and cost models demand an external cost adjustment to appropriately fund staff, supplies and utilities. Any changes are then reflected in Wyomingā€™s Educational Block Grant Funding, a spending measure approved by the Legislature.

The committeeā€™s discussion last week honed in on pay for teachers and other school staff. 

In 2010, teaching salaries in Wyoming were about 25% higher than salaries in adjacent states, according to a  by economics researcher Christiana Stoddard. But over the next decade, the stateā€™s average teacher wage didnā€™t increase much, going from $59,268 in 2012 to $60,650 in 2020, the report states. 

Today, Wyoming still exceeds many Western states for teacher pay, but its edge has slipped. Itā€™s ranked No. 26 in the nation for its average teacher salary of  $61,979, 

Teacher pay in surrounding states is creeping up, Stoddard told the committee Thursday, including in Utah, which now surpasses Wyoming. Teaching wages have also fallen relative to salaries in other comparable occupations in the state, she said. 

ā€œCost pressures matter because they affect the quality of teachers, and we know that teacher quality makes an enormous difference in terms of student outcomes,ā€ Stoddard said. Many Wyoming school districts, she said, have opted to hire fewer personnel at a higher pay to remain competitive. 

Stoddard noted another concerning trend: ā€œa pretty sharp drop in the number of bachelorā€™s degrees from the University of Wyoming who are graduating in teaching.ā€ UW has been a major source of new teachers to Wyoming schools.

In an effort to sustain teaching levels, districts are coming up with creative solutions. Wyoming reported 190 teachers using emergency or provisional credentials and four teachers working outside their licensed subject area for the 2021-22 school year, according to a Learning Policy Institute  on the state of the teacher workforce. 

Keeping constitutional 

After listening to reports on the state of school funding Thursday, Sen. Chris Rothfuss (D-Laramie) made a motion to recommend an external cost adjustment that includes the 8.5% increase for both professional and non-professional staff. 

The total $66.4-million difference in the funding that adjustment would represent is ā€œnot an arbitrary number,ā€ Rothfuss said. 

Instead, itā€™s the figure legislative staff identified to ensure Wyoming follows its constitutional mandates, he said. ā€œIt is the amount that it takes to make a constitutional, statutory model equivalent to the evidence-based model.ā€ 

Sheridan County School District 1 Business Manager Jeremy Smith encouraged the 8.5% recommendation. The conversation leading to it, he said, had a consistent theme: high teaching salaries can attract quality candidates even when they have alternate employment opportunities. 

One only has to look at the University of Wyoming graduation data to see that Wyomingites are being dissuaded from the profession, Smith said. He also pointed to a 2022 survey conducted by the University of Wyomingā€™s College of Education and the Wyoming Education Association that found 65% of Wyomingā€™s teachers would quit if they could. 

ā€œTeachers arenā€™t very satisfied in their profession right now for a whole host of reasons, but one is certainly salary,ā€ Smith said. ā€œYouā€™ve got to give the ECA, itā€™s got to be substantial and substantive in order to turn the ship around.ā€

Sen. Charles Scott (R-Casper) was the sole lawmaker to protest, calling the adjustment ā€œout of line.ā€ 

Rep. Brown of Cheyenne, meanwhile, spoke in support of it, saying that failing to sustain external cost adjustments has already proven to be unwise. 

ā€œWeā€™re not funding our school districts with the valuable resources they need to teach these kids,ā€ he said before the committee passed the recommendation. 

Kate Dias, president of the largest teachers union in the state, the Connecticut Education Association, this week recalled a time in her teaching career when she bought Barbie dolls to make a lesson more engaging.

One of her colleagues, she said, used Play-Doh to help create calculus models. 

For both projects, the money to purchase those supplies came out of the teachersā€™ pocket, Dias said.

According to a survey from the , teachers spend an average of  a year on supplies, which sometimes includes toys for innovative ideas, but also purchases of everyday items for the classroom like notebooks and markers.

This week, state Department of Education officials announced a new $4 million investment that aims to give thousands of educators the opportunity to  and have the supplies paid for by the state.

ā€œConnecticut is home to excellent educators, and they deserve to be celebrated,ā€ Charlene Russell Tucker, the stateā€™s education commissioner, said at a press conference on Thursday at Highcrest Elementary School in Wethersfield. ā€œTeachers work enthusiastically on behalf of our students every single day, fostering classroom environments where students are encouraged to be curious and take risks, and where student learning, growth, and well-being is always at the forefront. This investment emphasizes how important our educators are and how deeply we value the work they do on behalf of our stateā€™s students.ā€ 

The Connecticut Educator Support Funds Initiative launched this week in partnership with , a website that allows teachers to crowdfund for classroom supplies and resources. 

Eligible projects must prioritize ā€œlearning acceleration, academic renewal, and student enrichment,ā€ or ā€œsocial, emotional, and mental health of students and school staff,ā€ the education department said.

Pre-K through 12th grade public school teachers can apply for up to $1,000 worth of funding per project they propose. Funding will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis and eligible projects are expected to be funded within a week of posting the request.

ā€œWe know that additional funds allow us to think and do things differently and in some cases, just enhances an opportunity weā€™ve seen and forecast in our classrooms,ā€ Dias said. ā€œThese opportunities allow us to say ā€˜Listen, we want everyone to have access. We donā€™t want it to be based on what your teacher can afford to do. We want everyone everywhere to have opportunities to engage and do things differently.’ ā€

Most of the existing posts on the DonorsChoose website are requesting money for classroom supplies including dry-erase markers, notebooks, pencils and water bottles. 

Other requests include scooter-boards for physical education classes in Danbury, T-shirts and snacks for a student yoga club in Bridgeport and headphones for state testing in Hartford.

This was originally published in .