Every year, administrators must balance a complicated budget–a task made more difficult by cuts and delayed federal allocations. This has created an atmosphere of uncertainty around school funding, and teachers have stepped up to fill the gaps.
Through community-funded fundraisers, teachers have raised more than $28,000, which has been distributed across 41 projects in 21 classrooms, providing basic school supplies, books and technology.
To comply with school policy, this type of fundraising must go through a district approval process.
“[This policy ensures that] fundraising is transparent and that all donations directly benefit students as intended,” said Director of Communications Reine Hanna.
Liability and safety concerns also factor into the approval process. While the administration values teacher initiative, said Hanna, many practical considerations are necessary to remain compliant with board policy.
A teacher, speaking anonymously to avoid repercussions, worked with their department to address a problem: heavy, decades-old chairs made group work difficult for students.
“My students deserve to learn in a space that can keep up with modern times,” said the teacher on a fundraising website called DonorsChoose.
Furniture and other resources provide some of the most impactful improvements to students’ learning environments, particularly when it comes to classroom engagement.
“My freshman history class had big tables and chairs we could move around, making it really easy to work together,” said sophomore Lola Mullenix. “We also used a lot of materials for interesting art projects.”
Almost all of those materials were used in a class taught by Alexander Serrano, a history teacher, who paid for the art project supplies himself.
The majority of these fundraising projects, the anonymous teacher said, focus on literacy. Their goal is to “get current, up-to-date literature that offers mirrors for students.”
In 2022, another teacher posted a fundraiser on DonorsChoose for their classroom aimed at providing a literacy library for their students. The goal was met, providing almost $600 for a library adding a wide variety of genres to the shelves.
The funds allowed the second teacher’s students to read stories with characters they could connect with and, according to the second teacher, to “experience choice and joy while reading at school.”
The ETHS Foundation, while funding many school-wide projects, also frequently contributes to individual teachers. On the DonorsChoose website, former teachers, school alumni and other community members have made contributions directly to teachers’ projects.
The first teacher sees this type of fundraising as one of the only ways to address a problem they expect to keep growing.
“Federal funding has only gotten tighter,” said this teacher. “With potential funding cuts to the Department of Education, or even its possible disbandment, programs like this may be our only option.”
