‘We go out and we make it happen’

Teachers talk money they spent for supplies during shutdown

NEW HAVEN — When Gov. Ned Lamont ordered all schools closed in March to prevent the spread of the coronavirus — later extending it through the remainder of the academic year — teachers paid a price.

Teachers already were accustomed to paying for classroom supplies and materials before the start of a new school year. According to National Center for Education Statistics survey data from the 2011-12 school year, Connecticut teachers reported spending an average of $397 of their own money. According to an analysis of those numbers from the Economic Policy Institute think tank, the 2011-12 numbers are lower than a survey from 2015-16 that did not include statelevel data because of the impact the Great Recession had on discretionary spending.

While data is not yet available for 2020, teachers said that after spending money to prepare their classrooms for the 2019-20 school year, the abrupt closure of schools and transition to distance learning left them without materials and resources they needed to educate their students effectively.

“I was a little bit more cautious about my spending related to distance learning because the timeline kept changing,” said Metropolitan Business Academy English teacher Danielle La Pan.

New Haven in March initially prepared to close its schools for two weeks. Once it became apparent schools would not reopen, La Pan said the cost of materials had gone up.

She estimated that she spent about $100 of her own money on a small whiteboard and dry-erase markers, printer paper and noise-canceling headphones. She said she purchased the headphones because her husband also is a teacher and they could be teaching lessons at the same time, making it difficult to hear.

In her classroom, La Pan puts a strong emphasis on independent reading. She said many students left books in the class library, so there was no way to give them the reading materials she wanted them to have.

Susan Clark, who teaches first, second and third grades at Elm City Montessori School, said the adjustment was difficult for a school that follows the Montessori method, which promotes personal, individualized exploration of educational topics.

“We didn’t send the kids home with supplies. I hurriedly put together packets of worksheets I could come up with, and that’s all I could really come up with,” she said.

“The first thing I did a week in was I gathered

construction paper and lined paper and computer paper and pencils and rulers and reading materials and graph paper and put it all in manila envelopes and physically sent it to every kid’s home, which was quite expensive,” she said.

Additionally, she mailed students seeds for kidney beans to continue a planned botany lesson. “I think the lack of supplies was the thing we didn’t see,” Clark said.

Clark said mailing those packages was “quite expensive” because of their weight; after buying a $25 microphone to help with the audio quality of her video lessons after receiving feedback, she said she spent more than $200 to teach students during the school closure.

Additionally, she said she was able to receive from the school a computer that was advanced enough to handle multiple tasks during distance learning because she asked. Other teachers, she said, were attempting to run distance learning on smartphones because they weren’t sure what was expected of them.

“The push was to make sure students had tech and Wi-Fi, and it wasn’t always true that teachers had that. It was assumed teachers had that automatically,” she said.

Katie Smuckler, a sixthgrade teacher at Thomas Hooker School in Bridgeport, said she spent her own money to invest in a sufficient computer.

“The Chromebook I borrowed from my school wasn't sufficient for distance learning,” she said. “So I spent $800 on a new computer to eliminate sound and video glitches during lesson time.”

She said she also delivered materials that students left behind on the day schools closed on March 12. Many of her students have parents who are essential workers, she said, so transportation during school hours is difficult. Other teachers she knows personally delivered meals, work packets and digital devices to students, she said.

“Teachers purchased whiteboards, manipulatives (lesson materials) and projectors so that they could teach from home and make learning as engaging as possible,” Smuckler said. “I spent money on subscriptions to online educational programs to enrich my lessons.”

She said the school district provided teachers with some free resources for classroom instruction, but she invested her own money into enrichment, including a $120 program for social studies materials – something she pays for throughout the regular school year.

Other teachers said almost their entire way of teaching was upended by the abrupt shutdown, leaving them with few options to seek out alternatives without spending money.

“I teach music, and teaching music with online distance learning means I had to become creative. I found I needed extra software I didn’t have,” said Sheena Graham, a performing arts and choir teacher at Bridgeport’s Warren Harding High School and the Connecticut Teacher of the Year 2019.

Purchasing that software cost Graham $200, she said, which was necessary for her students. Students in her class use a computer program downloaded onto school devices for audio performance on Mac computers. However, the district’s use of Microsoft computers and software for distance learning left Graham seeking alternatives.

“I bought some supplies for my students to be able to do one of the projects I wanted them to do and did a drive-by. It took two days to deliver all the supplies,” she said.

“It’s hard to do hands-on things without hands-on things,” she said.

Fall 2020

Peter Yazbak, spokesman for the state Department of Education, asked whether the state has plans or programs to give individual teachers financial assistance for resources they acquire with their own money during distance learning, said funding the state will provide and administer is directly to districts, including Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds, Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Funds, and Coronavirus Relief Funds – “is meant to assist them with costs associated with responding to COVID-19, including supporting the delivery of remote learning.”

Yazbak said that, of the $111 million the state received in CARES Act ESSER funds, the Education Department is reserving $11 million for state-level activities that address these pre-K to twelfth-grade priorities: “access to devices; internet connectivity; online academic content; and social/emotional supports.”

“The balance of funds, $99 million, will be distributed to local districts who have a lot of flexibility in how they spend that funding,” Yazbak said. He said some of the types of eligible activities under ESSERF include: Planning for coordination between schools and families during longterm closures, including meals, access to high quality online learning, and ensuring other educational services can continue to be provided consistent with all applicable requirements.

Also, purchase of educational technology (including hardware, software, and connectivity) for students served by the LEA that aids in regular and substantive educational interactions between students and their classroom teachers, including assistive technology or adaptive equipment.