New bill could help teachers with school supplies

Georgia senators back plan to ease the financial strain.

Sporadic fundraisers and corporate announcements about donations to teachers’ classroom funds try to help, but they don’t get at the root of a problem bedeviling Georgia’s schools: lowpaid teachers having to dig into their own pockets to buy basic classroom supplies.

Now, state lawmakers are promoting a solution: a centralized online purchasing system that teachers could use for supplies.

Senate Bill 464, which passed the Senate 52-1 last week but hasn’t had a hearing in the House of Representatives, would task state

School Superintendent Richard Woods with selecting a vendor for the system.

In standard Legislature fashion, the Senate appended the bill with a major amendment, making it a mashup with another topic: literacy. If passed in current form, it would also require that state officials select a single free statewide literacy test that all schools would administer starting next fall.

Sen. Clint Dixon, R-Buford, and Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, held a news conference about the legislation Thursday at the Capitol. They and others spoke for around 20 minutes about the testing, without a word spared for teacher supplies. But Dixon, the bill’s chief sponsor, assured a reporter afterward that school supplies remained a priority.

Some teachers spend over $1,000 a year on supplies, he said. Gov. Brian Kemp’s regular pay raises have helped them, but they need more help, he said. “They don’t make enough money to be coming out of pocket.”

SB 464 doesn’t say how much money each teacher would get; that would be subject to whatever the Legislature chooses to allot to the program each year.

But the need for hundreds of dollars per teacher annually is well established. If they don’t buy paper, pencils, erasers and tissues, then their students often won’t have them. In July 2022, Kemp announced $125 grants to pay for classroom supplies, using his office’s portion of federal COVID19 relief funds. The governor noted that he helped his daughter, who is a teacher, pay for supplies the previous year.

A federal survey released in 2018 found that 94% of public school teachers reported spending an average of $478 a year on classroom supplies. And that was during the 2014-15 school year, well before the pandemic-related run-up in prices.

That report by the Institute of Education Sciences noted that teachers in high-poverty schools tended to spend more, with 9% digging at least $1,000 out of their own pockets annually.

That’s about what Gwinnett County middle school teacher Austin Allen estimates he’s spending. The eighth-grade math teacher at Five Forks Middle School bought motivational math posters to spruce up his otherwise-drab classroom at the start of the school year. Pencils, paper towels, tissues (the kids tear through a box every couple of days) and Jolly Ranchers (an admitted luxury item but a good motivator) bring the tab to about $100 a month, he said.

Though schools often issue supply lists to students’ families, not everyone can afford their own supplies.

Allen is adding granola bars to his shopping cart after a seemingly hungry student asked for the unopened Pop-Tart on his desk, which he readily volunteered.

Just over half the students at Five Forks qualify for the federal free and reduced-price meal program for breakfasts and lunches. But Allen worries about the rest of their day.

“You just never know when they go home,” he said, “because school doesn’t provide dinner.”

Metro Atlanta school districts do set aside some funding for school supplies.

Atlanta Public Schools said it provides money to schools through a formula that includes funding for supplies. Many principals use their school budgets to develop a system for teachers to request supplies. The DeKalb County School District said money goes annually to schools for items including supplies. Principals help determine how the funds are spent.

Fulton County Schools spokesman Brian Noyes said it provides each school with a per-pupil amount that principals budget toward local needs, including supplies.

“Any additional funding the state can provide to support our local classrooms is welcomed,” he said.