‘So instead of $30, I’m spending $150 for paper towels’: Science teacher uses school funds to buy price-gouged supplies to make admin think twice about giving teachers purchasing autonomy

If admin wants their teachers to buy exclusively from the education catalog, they had better prepare for some price-gouged, district-approved supplies. 

Teachers are down in the trenches every day with their students, getting their hands dirty and cleaning up the messes of 25-40 unruly kids. This is most true for science teachers, who love the idea of a baking soda volcano until the day comes when their classroom smells like vinegar, kids are screaming, and there's food dye sludge all over the lab desks. Oh, the joys of teaching young minds!

Via u/DhanushkaSG

No matter how you slice up a science teacher's educational budget for the school year, you're going to come away with a lot of cleaning supply expenses. This seemed self-explanatory to the experienced science teacher in this next story, and after decades of teaching messy little kids how to make planet dioramas and colorful chemical reactions, they knew that a healthy supply of paper towels was a necessity. Being the frugal teacher that they were, they scoured the internet and local grocery stores for the lowest price, keeping costs down for the pencil-pushers over in admin, but when the bean-counters discovered that teachers were making purchases outside of their district-approved, corpo-coded catalog, they insisted that they place their orders according to code. 

Okay, a roll of paper towels costs $1 on Amazon, but through the catalog, it's $15. Of course, the price and the value of the item don't change the demand, so teachers continued to blow through their supply of clean-up materials. Before the semester was over, the admin's wallet was hurting so badly that it made them start considering that the teachers were actually right this time. 

Sometimes, abiding by the book can get you in a financial bind, especially when it disregards the frugal logic of buying from the cheapest seller… Even if that seller is technically out-of-bounds. 

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  • Science teacher doing an experiment with the kids in his class.
    via Tima Miroshnichenko

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Kids are going to make a mess, it's what they do. They don't mean to be messy little goblins, it just turns out that fun things (especially in the science classroom) are the noisiest, most colorful, and the messiest. Alas, if it involves fire, food dye, or a little helium explosion, you better believe the kids are actually going to be paying attention to that lesson. And spending $15 on clean-up supplies wasn't going to change these teachers' passion for their students. Keep those minds sharp, clean up your messes, and practice logic even outside of the classroom. That's what the science department head in this next story would do…

  • Only buy from educational suppliers? Sounds good.

    Former teacher science department head here. We were told to use our budget only using specific science catalogs. We could not order off Amazon, or other websites, or even go to the grocery store. Granted, the
    via MimsyGoat
  • science budget is higher than in other core subjects, but that's because we use a lot of stuff and we have to clean a lot of things. So, we asked if we could buy some inexpensive stuff off Amazon
    via MimsyGoat
  • and other websites, and even possibly go to the grocery store to get things for a reasonable price. We were told absolutely not, we needed to have a proper paper trail, and that would be
    via MimsyGoat
  • done through only two specific science catalogues. OK, so we need paper towels. These are eighth grade students, so we need a lot of paper towels. In the grocery store, they may be a dollar,
    via MimsyGoat
  • but in the science catalog, they're about 4 to 5 dollars. I need 30 of them. So instead of $30, I'm spending $150. For paper towels. When that went through it raised quite a ruckus and suddenly we have a grocery store budget. And access to Amazon.
    via MimsyGoat
  • Two students working on a messy science experiment in class.
    via DhanushkaSG

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • mauri3205 I know it shouldn't be encouraged for teachers to spend their own money but I have so much respect for the profession as a whole and for teachers like you who go over and above for their kids. Especially teachers in STEM who are exactly what's needed in these days of skepticism (not from the US but still see it). You have our collective thanks.
    via mauri3205
  • Empty Science classroom
    via Elisabeta Dirjan

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
     

  • KawaiiUmiushi Oh god. I had the same conversation about my science classroom back in 2012. A multimeter was $7 on Amazon and the same one was $16 through NASCO.... And me with a yearly budget of $250. What a croc. I ended up spending my own money... Sorry to hear of your troubles. If you're buying STEM/ EdTech stuff I might recommend directly contacting companies instead of going through catalogues. You can often times get better pricing or even free samples.
    via KawaiiUmiushi
  • OP MimsyGoat I'm retired so now I just enjoy my family
    via MimsyGoat
  • Guilty_Objective4602 Our district did the opposite one year and required teachers to buy all their supplies through Amazon. So teachers were trying to find certain specialized educational math, science, reading, social studies, intervention, special area, adaptive PE, assistive technology, ESE, and PT, OT, and SLP therapy products, etc. through Amazon, which was equally a bust.
    via MimsyGoat
  • OP MimsyGoat Maybe input from actual teachers could be a standard practice....
    via MimsyGoat
  • Lilly_5 They should get you a Sam's/Costco /BJs club card then they can track the spending and you can buy in bulk.
    via Lilly_5
  • BrobdingnagLilliput > I ended up spending my own money... Former teacher here. Spending your own money on classroom supplied is enabling, co- dependent behavior. It contributes to the culture of financial waste, fraud, and abuse. It establishes a norm that communities should expect teachers to contribute part of their already-meager salary back to the district. Those financial expectations help drive teachers out of education. "But if I don't buy things, the students will go without." Sure. You
    via BrobdingnagLilliput
  • cspinelive This is my gripe with donorschoose.org projects. I'm like, let me just buy it for you for half the price.
    via cspinelive
  • 3xlduck bureaucratic red tape. it's also an expensive guardrail to prevent abuse/fraud. you can thank past fraudsters on why you can't have nice things.
    via 3xlduck
  • FoggyGoodwin A tad off topic: I taught special ed. I bought a bunch of workbooks and plastic sheets and washable markers so they weren't consumed by one student. I wanted to buy a math machine to teach basic facts, a device that would offer say twenty simple addition problems that students keyed in answers. The students basically had stolen most of what the previous teacher bought, so they wouldn't let me buy it. The World of Work teacher used his funds and placed it in my classroom; it was stil
    via FoggyGoodwin
  • Raised By Books NTV I've gone through this before and there ARE legitimate reasons for these policies overall. But! In action, you get your type of situation and so they have to decide about having more burden on the front end or the back end. Sometimes, like your situation it works out that the compliance part needs to be deprioritized for the budget. Or they can communicate to have you use your judgement.
    via Raised By Books NTV
  • 123cong123 When my son was a new teacher, he was given a purchase card, but was told to confirm purchases with admin. He bought cheerios, paper bowls and plastic forks. Admin raised an eyebrow. He explained class game learning evolution and mutation, using 'bird nests' and feeding babies with variable tined fork 'beaks'. Admin said, "You're good. You no longer need prior approvals." Lol
    via 123cong123

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