Kristen Beinecke’s bright classroom in Union, Missouri, is ready for the new school year. Students will find a cozy nook for reading, space to create, and plenty of room to play while learning. There’s even a class pet, Timothy the Turtle.
“It's a happy place to be. You feel safe. You feel secure. You feel good when you're here,” Beinecke said. “And that just opens up the brain to soaking up all of the knowledge that the children need to get.”
Beinecke is a 24-year veteran of kindergarten classrooms who has worked at schools in Missouri, Maryland and Indiana. Over her more than two decades of teaching, she said she has spent thousands of dollars on supplies for her classroom and the students themselves.
“A lot of my spending definitely comes from building my classroom into a warm and wholesome place to be,” Beinecke, 47, said. “That is kind of the first step to student engagement: Making them feel like they are secure and comfortable in their classroom.”
According to the National Education Association, the nation’s leading teachers union, districts simply aren’t supplying everything their students need to be “engaged, comfortable, and ready to learn.” In 2023, the NEA reported that many teachers spent between $500 and $750 of their own money on school supplies each year. According to the NEA, inflation has increased prices for school supplies by almost 24%.
Beinecke said her school district is lucky because the community in Union donates a wide range of supplies to keep classrooms stocked and provide students with the tools and materials they need.
“People do stuff-the-bus events. Businesses are collecting school supplies. And then they donate that to the schools in our area,” Beinecke said. “We're very blessed to have that.”
In a 2022 detailed report on solving the nation’s educator shortage, the NEA said relying on communities for donations is not sustainable. The paper reads in part:
“State and district funding must be increased so that educators no longer need to rely on parent organizations, DonorsChoose appeals, fundraisers, and their own paychecks to provide students with basic supplies.”
Surveys conducted by a variety of organizations between 2018 and 2024 show that more than 90% of teachers reach into their own pockets to purchase classroom necessities.
Despite her community’s support, Beinecke is one of them.
The shopping list
Before a new academic year starts, schools provide lists of supplies that families should purchase for the new school year. The list for kindergarteners in Union includes a backpack, headphones, crayons and scissors. Based on Target and Walmart prices, the items add up to about $112, which is comparable to other lists the Midwest Newsroom reviewed for the same grade.
Beinecke said not all parents can afford to buy everything.
“I think when that happens the teachers do provide it. It's in our makeup. It's who we are,” she said.
In contrast to the NEA’s data on how much teachers are spending, a 2024 survey of 2,500 teachers in 50 states conducted by Richfield Research Group for CouponBirds showed that Missouri teachers spend an average of $1,300 of their own money on school supplies each year, the fifth-highest amount in the country. Nationwide, the average is about $900, according to the 2024 research, with elementary school teachers like Beinecke spending the most.
In fact, in the study for CouponBirds, 41% of elementary school teachers reported spending their own money on supplies, compared to 23% of middle school teachers and 35% of high school teachers.
Supplies teachers buy by category:
- Consumable products (e.g., pencils, paper, glue): 97%
- Classroom decor: 76%
- Educational aids (e.g., books and games): 67%
- Snacks: 44%
- Cleaning supplies: 36%
First Aid supplies: 31%
Source: Richfield Research Group for CouponBirds
Beinecke said some years she has spent more than $1,000 on supplies.
“Teachers do sacrifice a lot of their own money and their time,” she said. “But I think the core of it is they want to give the best learning environment to their students.”
School supply math
Dena Johnston, executive director of the Lawrence Schools Foundation in Kansas, said she has seen the impact of higher prices on school supplies.
Many families are still trying to recover from lost income due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she said, making budgets even tighter.
Johnston herself spent about $100 on supplies for her child heading into the 2024-25 academic year. Families with more than one child have to come up with hundreds of dollars to buy everything on back-to-school lists.
“That adds up really quickly,” Johnston said. “All of our schools do a great job, as well as our teachers and classrooms, to try to fulfill those needs throughout the school year. But the need is still there.”
Johnston said she’s heard arguments from Lawrence community members that families and teachers should not bear the burden of spending their own money on school and classroom supplies.
“This is something that the schools should be providing. This is something the district should be providing. This is something the state should be providing,” Johnston said.
Education budgets are growing in Kansas and other states, but not enough to keep pace with demand for higher teacher salaries, new and updated facilities and other needs. Allocation for school supplies varies from state to state and can be hard to narrow down. For example, Kansas combines “textbooks and student materials” as one category.
As Johnston has heard, there is a common perception among educators and communities that these items are not budget priorities.
“State funding is not there. It's not available,” she said. “And it's nationwide. It's not just a Lawrence, Kansas, thing.”
Missouri’s spending on public education has grown as a dollar amount, but it’s shrunk in proportion to state spending over the past 20 years. In 2024, Iowa lawmakers passed a budget that includes $1 billion for education, a 3.6 percent increase in funding from 2023. House Democrats said that the increase does not keep up with inflation.
Beinecke said it’s often new teachers who pay the most out of pocket for supplies because their classrooms are blank slates. She said her school and others provide basics like furniture and teaching tools, but most teachers want to optimize learning spaces.
According to the NEA, Missouri has the second lowest average starting salary for teachers in the nation at about $37,000 per year. Iowa and Nebraska’s starting teacher salaries are slightly higher. Educators starting out in Kansas and Illinois earn just over $40,000 a year.
Adjusted for inflation, on average, teachers are making 5% less than they did 10 years ago, according to the NEA.
Solutions and stopgaps
As back-to-school season got into full swing in early August, supplies stacked up in the Lawrence, Kansas, municipal court building.
For the second year running, the court staff collected backpacks, markers, folders and notebooks from residents seeking to reduce their fines through the city’s School Supplies For Fines program.
Here’s an example of how it works: A resident who owes $50 in parking fines spends their own money on $15 worth of school supplies from an approved list. They bring the supplies and receipts to the court, where an employee logs the details and records the fine as paid. In other words, the resident has resolved a $50 fine for $15.
Judge Chris Kopecky said he saw courts around Kansas implementing similar programs. In Lawrence, the new school supplies go into a storage room until mid-August, when the school district picks up the bounty.
“So we're just gathering these school supplies here and kind of using this extra way to get the school supplies for them,” Kopecky said. “And we let each school who knows the families the best, distribute them to each family.”
The Lawrence program applies to fines of $50 or less for what Kopecky described as “minor” infractions. It’s a one-time deal, so no one can buy piles of supplies to wipe out hundreds of dollars in fines. Olathe and Shawnee both have similar programs.
“It's been really positive,” Kopecky said. “It's been fun to see it kind of grow and build. And you know, it's kind of exciting. And we really do feel like we're helping out the community and that makes all the difference in the world.”
Johnston said the foundation jumped at the opportunity to partner with Kopecky and his staff.
“It’s the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that we need as a community,” she said.
Like similar bodies across the country, the Lawrence Schools Foundation exists to find financial support for schools where state funding falls short. According to the National School Foundation Association, foundations took on even more importance around 2008, “when more than half of the country’s school systems experienced permanent cuts to local and state funding.”
“Where the budgets don't always meet, that's kind of where we come into play,” said Johnston, who’s worked for the Lawrence Schools Foundation for more than nine years.
“When I first started I feel like the sole purpose of the foundation was just to kind of refill classrooms midyear,” she said. “Now it’s the shoes, the haircuts. People need mattresses because kids don’t have anything to sleep on.”
A niche industry has emerged as another channel for connecting schools and students with supplies. The Midwest Newsroom identified organizations across Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska that exist just to make sure students have access to the supplies on back-to-school lists and teachers can adequately equip their classrooms.
For example, The Teacher Store in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, delivers school supplies throughout the eastern part of the state. In early August, it partnered with a credit union and a minor league baseball team to host a school supply drive.
SHARE Omaha, an umbrella group of non-profit organizations in Nebraska, coordinates Shop for Good, which allows anyone to donate money or buy goods to donate from wish lists. The program expects to help 6,500 students get school supplies this year.
Scraps KC, an organization that advocates for reusing goods, runs the Teacher Resource Center to provide free school supplies to eligible teachers “to level the educational playing field for students in Kansas City.”
There are national groups that do similar work. Back 2 School America partners with community organizations around the country to distribute kits to teachers. The kits are large boxes filled with more than 500 school supplies for their classrooms.
In Lawrence, the School Supplies for Fines program will distribute more than a thousand supply-stuffed backpacks across all grade levels for the new school year.
“This is a community thing. And that's something that we strive for at the foundation,” Johnston said. “We tell people, ‘If you have a why, we'll help you find a way.’”
Beinecke said as long as there are teachers in classrooms, they will find resources or use their own.
“We’re kind of willing to do what it takes.”
Selected resources by state:
Iowa
The Teacher Store - Cedar Rapids. The organization distributes supplies to schools throughout eastern Iowa.
West Des Moines Human Services - Des Moines. The School Supply Drive provides school supplies to students living in income-eligible households based on their specific school supply list.
Ankeny Community School District - Ankeny
Backpack Blitz provides backpacks and school supplies for pre-K to 12th grade students who attend Ankeny schools and to home-schooled students.
John R. Grubb YMCA - Des Moines. Back 2 School Bash hosts more than 1,000 K-12 students who receive school supplies.
Kansas
KVC Kansas - Olathe. The Back-to-School Drive collects backpacks, pens, pencils, calculators, binders and more for children in foster care.
Olathe Public Schools Foundation - Olathe. Backpack & School Supplies Drive fills over 2,500 backpacks with school supplies.
United Way of Kaw Valley Back2School Drive for Douglas County meets the school supply needs of students and teachers in the county.
Missouri
KidSmart - Maryland Heights. Push for Pencils/ Push for Change is the largest back-to-school supply drive in Missouri.
C.A.C.T.U.S. - Sedalia. This nonprofit organization acquires and distributes school supplies to students who need them throughout Pettis County.
Leftovers, etc. - Chesterfield. The donation drive for new school supplies runs year-round.
ScrapsKC - Kansas City. The Teacher Resource Center provides free school supplies to eligible teachers.
Love Fund for Children - Kansas City. This School Supply Drive sends 8,000 K-12 students back to school with supplies.
Nebraska
Share Omaha - Omaha. The Back to School Drive 2024 works through the Shop for Good online program to meet the school supply needs of about 6,500 students.
Visionary Youth - Lincoln The Annual VY Free Haircut and Backpack Event offers free haircuts, backpacks, school supplies, undergarments, personal hygiene items and shoe vouchers.
Black Men United and Nebraska For Us - Omaha. This group hosts a backpack and food drive.
Isa Luzarraga contributed to this report.
This story comes from the Midwest Newsroom, an investigative journalism collaboration that includes Iowa Public Radio, KCUR, Nebraska Public Media, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR.
Do you have a tip or question for us? Email midwestnewsroom@kcur.org.
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