#ClearTheList trending on Twitter
AZ teachers seek help with school supplies
A trending hashtag as students and teachers head back to school is bringing attention to one of Arizona's education funding challenges.
Teachers in Arizona and around the country are tweeting #ClearTheList with a link to Amazon wish lists of school supplies.
Texas teacher Courtney Jones founded Support a Teacher on July 1 and started the hashtag on Tuesday.
"With the lack of appropriate funding in our country for teachers and schools in general, I decided to take it into my own hands to change the way we valued our teachers, schools, and students," she said.
She's excited that #ClearTheList trended so quickly. She said Support a Teacher has a working document of over 8,000 teachers and counting for any donor who would like to help a teacher. People can reach out to the organization through Twitter or Instagram at the handle @support_a_teach.
Dozens of Arizona teachers have posted their wish lists online already.
Several other organizations offer similar programs to connect teachers and donors, including Donors Choose.
"Teachers spend an average of $500 or more a year on their classrooms," said Ashley Dalmaine with Donors Choose.
More than 1,200 Arizona teachers are currently signed up on the site.
They're seeking help buying things like wiggle seats for students who have trouble sitting still, books for the school library, new headphones for computers and new classroom carpeting.
"Over the years, we've had over 10,000 teachers from Arizona use the site, and they've raised over $15 million," Dalmaine said.
One of those teachers was Kelli Travis, who teaches second grade at McDowell Mountain Elementary School in Fountain Hills. She said Donors Choose helped when she needed a large resource or a more expensive item.
"Sadly, in Arizona, as well as many other states in the U.S., education is not funded appropriately," Travis said. "This leaves teachers scrambling to find resources that are needed to run a classroom and to adequately teach to the high standard that our children deserve and is laid out by federal and state government."
Travis added that, in her experience, this often adds a financial burden on to teachers.
"Being able to have donations made to my classroom and receiving items on my wish list means my students have more tools and opportunities to succeed," she said.
Dalmaine said Donors Choose lets teachers go beyond the traditional route of asking for help from parents or the local PTA.
"It's just a way for teachers to ... actually get support from people in different states, complete strangers, you know, corporations, everyone that's contributing to our site," she said.
Ben Adam, a news production freelancer and real estate business owner based in New York City, launched the Classroom Giving website last year to help Arizona teachers in need after seeing Arizona teacher Elisabeth Milich post her paycheck online.
Travis has an Amazon wish list through Classroom Giving, but nothing’s been ordered as of yet.
“I spend a great deal of my personal money ensuring my classroom and students have items to enrich the learning environment and tools that are accessible to the children," she said. "I just don't have all the personal funds I need to make all my wishes come true."
Her wish list is full of books.
“I want to give them a variety of texts to read to get them ‘hooked’ on literature,” Travis said.
“I decided to do a wish list because I am a single mom and the teacher salaries are low. I am in a small district so our pay is somewhat less than the larger districts.”
Alexandria Osteen is a special education teacher at Dorothy Stinson Elementary School in Safford. She found Classroom Giving while she was searching online for ways to help her students.
"I've spent a lot of money out of pocket," she said. "Last year, I spent $2,000, easily, on my kids."
Osteen has been teaching special education for seven years. When she transferred classrooms, she had difficulty adjusting to the lack of school supplies.
"There were a lot of things I needed in my classroom I knew couldn't be provided due to the cut in my funds," she said.
She said sometimes it's hard to ask for donations, even though she's constantly running out of items like tissues and antibacterial products. Currently she's writing a grant proposal she hopes will provide money for Google Chromebooks.
Tanielle Kazmierczak is hopeful donors will contribute to her Amazon list. She works with sixth- and eighth-grade students at Circle Cross Ranch K-8 STEM Academy in San Tan Valley.
"I think one of the biggest problems right now is that while teachers did get the 20 percent pay raise, people don’t realize that schools are very underfunded," Kazmierczak said.
She's been teaching for 24 years and said before the Great Recession, her school gave her $300 to spend on classroom supplies. This year, she said, the district gave her $75.
"I am a single mom of three on a teacher’s salary and struggle to purchase the materials for my own children to take to school, let alone supply the materials that my students need," she said.
Phoenix-based Sabrina Dahlberg tweeted out her Amazon wish list Wednesday using the #supportateacher hashtag. She said it consisted of items she wants for her seventh-grade English classroom, but doesn’t necessarily need. She said her district provides all of the basic essentials — for which she feels very lucky.
“As far as the hashtag goes, I just started tweeting about it, so I don’t know if that will get picked up, but I do feel blessed for what I have been gifted so far,” she said. “I was surprised how many fellow teachers bought off my list versus their own. I think it’s because we feel better and earn more joy through gifting one another rather than spending money on ourselves.”
Some of the items on her list include more contemporary books and Bluetooth microphones for making poetry fun.
“Many teachers (who are) a part of the Support a Teacher group hopped on and instantly started gifting,” Dahlberg said. “We truly have built a little community, and it has been great seeing someone post their gifts and realizing that one of them is what I had purchased for them!”