{"id":112496,"date":"2026-01-10T00:11:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T00:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/112496\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T00:11:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T00:11:06","slug":"first-year-teachers-struggle-with-supplies-the-famuan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/112496\/","title":{"rendered":"First-year teachers struggle with supplies \u2013 The FAMUAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Desks in a FAMU DRS classroom. (Venecia Easter\/FAMUAN)<\/p>\n

Across\u00a0K-12 schools in\u00a0Tallahassee\u00a0and\u00a0throughout the state of Florida, many new teachers enter the classroom eager to teach but find themselves facing obstacles with shortages of school supplies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A survey conducted by\u00a0AdoptAClassroom.org<\/a>\u00a0found that in the 2024-2025 academic school year, $905 is the average\u00a0amount\u00a0teachers spent\u00a0on\u00a0school supplies. Many first-year teachers in the district are forced to spend their own money to buy basic supplies for students, on top of adjusting to the classroom. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many experienced\u00a0educators\u00a0step in to help the newer teachers, often donating extra supplies or sharing resources they have collected over the years. Even with these efforts, teachers say there are rarely enough to sustain an entire classroom for the school year. New teachers often find themselves scrambling to provide the supplies or stretching limited supplies as far as possible, while still trying to provide their students with the materials they need to learn and succeed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With limited income, many teachers say that paying out of pocket for supplies adds another\u00a0<\/p>\n

financial burden to\u00a0their\u00a0personal lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched my mom constantly trying to scrape together money for classroom resources, and it would upset me,\u201d said Lauren Wright,\u00a0a previous\u00a0language arts teacher from\u00a0Raa\u00a0Middle School. \u201cI\u2019m like we need this at home,\u00a0and it\u00a0takes away from your own home.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Michelle Gayle,\u00a0deputy\u00a0superintendent of\u00a0Leon County\u00a0Schools,shares\u00a0that\u00a0the district is working to\u00a0maintain\u00a0open communication with teachers about the need for\u00a0additional\u00a0funds for classroom supplies. The school board continues to advocate for teachers to ensure they have\u00a0materials for the classroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want teachers to be able to have what they need,\u201d Gayle\u00a0said. \u201cWe\u00a0want to,\u00a0as building level administrators and or district administrators, be able to listen to teachers about what they need.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0First-year teachers receive a stipend to help the cost of classroom supplies, but many argue the amount falls short. In some cases, the funding is issued as a reimbursement, leaving teachers to cover the expenses until later in the school year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew that it wasn\u2019t going to cover the money that I had to put into my classroom,\u201d said\u00a0\u00a0 Shaelyn Jenkins, second-grade teacher at Florida A&M University Developmental Research School. \u201cI was upset finding out that we weren\u2019t going to get the money until the middle of the year.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Desks in a FAMU DRS classroom. (Venecia Easter\/FAMUAN) Across\u00a0K-12 schools in\u00a0Tallahassee\u00a0and\u00a0throughout the state of Florida, many new teachers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":{"0":"post-112496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tallahassee","8":"tag-tallahassee","9":"tag-tallahassee-headlines","10":"tag-tallahassee-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}