Hello! This post is a bit of a random rant, but I love art and school and children, and in the last number of years I've gained a new appreciation for open communication between boards and teachers. Have I been a shining example? Absolutely not, but that's what this is about. I want you to do better than I have done.
If you teach school or have ever taught school, you know as well as I do all the little things you buy: sticker charts, incentive prizes, coloring books, bulletin board borders, and more. Maybe you faithfully save your receipts and turn everything in. Maybe you don’t turn anything in. Practices vary. But I do think it’s important for there to be some clear communication on this issue. The particular item we want to look at today concerns the amount of money teachers spend on art supplies and how much of that cost is reimbursed.
I believe one of the first mistakes we, as teachers, make in communicating with our boards is simply in not asking for clear guidelines. Depending on how organized your school is, how large it is, or how long it has been in existence, the question of exactly what expenses are covered may or may not be a well-known fact. Take the time to ask your schoolboard for clear directives on this subject. They may need to discuss it in order to give you an answer, but communicating from the start can save both sides from building up resentment.
Maybe you’ve handed in receipts only to be met with a groan or a begrudging tone. I’m sorry. It doesn’t make it easy to communicate about expenditures. Maybe your receipts get lost and you can’t remember all the numbers. Or worse, you eventually decide that you won’t go through the pain of feeling like an unreasonable burden on the school, and you decide to pay for everything out of pocket. This is what I did. I’m not proud of it. Looking back, I can see that it was a disservice to the teachers who came after me and perhaps tried to hand in bills to the treasurer. There is enough wild variation among schools and teachers that we need to keep a little consistency where we can. I believe one place we could do a better job is in communicating about art expenditures.
To my fellow teachers: Imagine you are on the school board's side of the issue. If the previous teacher hasn't handed in receipts, the board has no way of knowing what has been spent on projects. Suddenly, a new teacher comes along and hands in expenses each month. The board may begin to feel they are being taken advantage of. Maybe they will talk to the new teacher and tell her she needs to hand in less, because "Miss Schmidt didn't spend this much. Make do with what's in the supply room!" They may also find the budget is not coming out as neatly as they had planned, due to the extra increase.
In 2023, I conducted a limited and informal survey of teachers across the conference using the poll option on WhatsApp. This project was started after a conversation with my school board chairman, wherein we decided it was possible that the men involved with our school systems didn’t fully appreciate the cost of our art periods. Not only do many men not spend a lot of time shopping at Hobby Lobby, they are a little out of the loop in regards to what kinds of crafts are being done across the conference. On the other hand, they probably have a better understanding of inflation than many of us teachers do. Following are the results of those surveys.
The first poll simply asked how much teachers estimated they spent per child per art period. Sometimes, I’m sure, participants spend more and sometimes less. One thing to consider is that while a large classroom can look like they spend a lot due to the volume of children, a small class can spend a lot as well because many supplies come in packs of ten, for example, while the teacher really only needs three or four. Also, teachers with smaller classes tend to spend more “because they can,” doing projects that are more expensive because they only have to buy supplies for a few students rather than a large group.
Fifty-eight teachers responded to the first poll. Slightly over half of the respondents (55%) estimated they spend $6 to $8 per week per student on art. The second greatest number of respondents (28%) believed they fell into the $3 to $5 per student per week range. Let's take a mid-range number, $5, and figure 30 art periods in the school year. The teacher is easily spending $150 per student per year. Supposing she has a class of 10 students, she is essentially giving a $1,500 gift to the school each year. Remember, this number is on the conservative side. Check out the graph below to see the rest of the data from this poll.
But we've all heard the jokes about teachers' wages. Surely all teachers, scrimping to get by, hand in their receipts, right? These results made me curious. With all the money teachers were spending on art, how much were they actually getting reimbursed? To satisfy my curiosity, I posted a second poll, again, not as professional as what you might hope, but probably as accurate a reading as you are likely to get for our parochial schools.
In this poll, the question was “How much art expense do you turn in to your school board?” The number of responses to this question was slightly lower than the first poll, at only 51. The answers were, in most cases, more evenly spread. Only one-fourth (25%) of teachers turn in every expense. On the opposite end of the spectrum, 20% of teachers don’t turn in any expenses. The remaining 55% turn in some of their expenses and pay for some themselves. The graph below provides a better look at the data.
So what is the take-away? Some teachers are doing a great job of communicating. I’m proud of you. Others, like myself, still need to learn a few skills.
To the schoolboard: Please make sure you have clear guidelines in place. Be specific about what you are willing to spend. Try your best not to grumble and groan at the expenditures that come your way. In a school of 30 children, it is quite possible each child is consuming $5 worth (a conservative number) of supplies each week, and possibly more—coming out to around $4,500 of art supplies per year. Your teachers might be handing in half of that cost. Please talk to them and find out. It's better for everyone to be on the same page and not have hidden expenses in the operation of your school.
To the teachers: Hand in your receipts. It is not your job to pay for supplies. If you do something extravagantly expensive once in a while and choose to pay for that yourself, that is a different story. Do find out the guidelines of your school and try to respect the budget that is in place. Not only is it not necessary to spend large sums of money on projects, but it also sets a standard the following teachers may not care to or be able to replicate.
The final word here is simply that I’m trying to bridge the gap of understanding. There are things teachers know and things schoolboards know, and that knowledge is best utilized when combined. Working together takes a lot of communication, even about the little things like how much we spend on art.
