Teachers often have to crowdfund for classroom supplies. Some districts are banning the practice.
DonorsChoose and other crowdfunding sites are coming under scrutiny.
As public school budgets get tighter and teacher pay stagnates, a growing number of teachers are turning to crowdfunding sites to pay for everything from classroom supplies to field trips. More than 80 percent of schools across the country have at least one teacher that has used DonorsChoose, a popular crowdfunding site designed for teachers, according to the nonprofit’s own statistics.
The estimated average annual salary for K-12 teachers was just over $58,000 during the 2016-17 school year, according to data from the National Education Association. Ninety-four percent of teachers have used their own money to buy school supplies, according to a survey by the National Center for Education Statistics released last May. Thirty-six percent of the teachers polled spent between $251 and $500 each year, and educators in low-income schools reported spending more. It’s no surprise that teachers are turning to crowdfunding sites to fill the gap.
But some districts have reportedly begun prohibiting teachers from using crowdfunding sites for classroom expenses — which, in many cases, could force teachers to go back to spending their own money on necessary supplies.
Nashville’s crowdfunding ban
Nashville’s public school system recently made headlines for banning crowdfunding sites like DonorsChoose. But as Education Week noted, the district’s ban on crowdfunding services isn’t new: The Metro Nashville board of education’s fundraising policy, which was last updated in January 2018, bans individual staff members from using online fundraising platforms. Schools are allowed to use crowdfunding sites for school-wide fundraisers, but the district has to approve the projects.
The school board has several objections to teachers’ use of crowdfunding sites, the Education Week report shows. “The state Comptroller has indicated that such sites are problematic for school districts because of lack of adequate controls,” K. Dawn Rutledge, the district’s communication officer, told Education Week via email. In other words, administrators appear to be concerned that teachers can order products that don’t meet district standards — and that teachers can claim to be raising money for classroom supplies but instead keep it for themselves.
But DonorsChoose says its platform is designed to assuage all of these concerns — unlike other crowdfunding websites. “When a teacher comes on our site, they must be [accredited] with a school,” Chris Pearsall, the vice president of brand and communications at Donors Choose told me. Teachers write an essay explaining what supplies they need, “and then they actually go shopping on our site to select the products they want for their classroom.” Before the project is posted to the public, it gets vetted by a screener.
“When the project is funded, we purchase the materials the teachers requested and ship them CONTINUE READING: DonorsChoose fundraising: Some school districts banning crowdfunding - Vox