COLUMBIA, Md. — Lindsey Collier stood in the middle of the room and surveyed the bare white walls.
She spent the summer procuring all the items for her new workspace and had just finished lugging the last box in from her packed car. It was time to get to work. Collier had to transform the boring, unwelcoming space into a warm, tropical oasis — after all, it would be home to a class of Howard County Maryland’s newest first graders.
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Unlike other jobs, where an empty desk, a new laptop and necessary supplies are waiting or can be easily requested, teachers are often expected to provide nearly all necessary materials to make their workspace functional. The longstanding practice is growing ever more difficult, compounded by dwindling school budgets, inflation and the rising cost of materials due to tariffs and the war in Iran.
Though Collier is entering her 11th year of teaching, this will be her first at this Howard County public school. Over the years, the 37-year-old has taught kindergarten, first and second grades, which has helped her build a baseline classroom material collection. Still, she said, a new job and new school means starting from scratch.
Collier estimates she spent about $2,000 this summer to make her classroom functional and fun for both her and her class.
“It’s almost programmed into my brain. I don’t know that I’ve ever spent $500 on a single thing for myself,” said Collier, who is also a mom to an 18-month-old boy. “I would cringe! I look at the price tags of everything. But I’ll spend it on my kids without thinking.”
A typical school supply list has increased in price by nearly 8% over the past year, according to an analysis from Groundwork Collaborative and The Century Foundation. The analysis used weekly retail transaction data on millions of products from about 50,000 retailers.
Notebooks are about $1 more expensive than last year, index cards nearly 75 cents more and tissues are 50 cents higher.
Crowdsourcing the classroom
Nearly half of parents said in a July survey that they plan to take on debt to afford back-to-school shopping and about the same amount said they are cutting back on other household expenses to make room for back-to-school shopping, according to a Deloitte survey.
“While parents may be asked to get some supplies for their child, we know that teachers buy a lot on top of that and that many teachers are in the position of getting extra supplies for their classroom,” said Elizabeth Pancotti, vice president of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, an economic policy think tank and advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
Collier said teachers are usually split into groups and given a small stipend of between $200 to $300 for the year to use on supplies like paper, markers and sticky notes. She estimates she’ll be reimbursed anywhere between about $65 to $100 this year. Collier, who has worked in two other school districts in different states, said sometimes she receives more, sometimes it’s less. The Howard County Public School System did not respond to Straight Arrow’s request for comment.
When Collier showed up to her classroom for the first time in mid-August, she was greeted by a teacher’s desk, student desks and an alphabet rug. That’s it.
At least her school would provide pencils, markers and pens when the school year begins.
Collier creates an Amazon wishlist each year and circulates it among family and friends, who help out. She’s grateful for it. But still, she said, it’s unrealistic to rely on crowdsourcing every classroom item.
Making a dollar dance
More than a decade in, she knows how to get creative. She found two shelving units on Facebook marketplace for $100 each, and new rugs for the cozy reading corner at around $100. Wiggle stools and squishy chairs for about $150 will provide some options for seating — she’s found over the years they especially help kids who are neurodivergent or prone to fidgeting. She spent another $100 on a white board film to put over the chalkboard she was given.
“Can you imagine listening to the screeching of chalk everyday as 7-year-olds try to write on the board?” she asked.
She supplies all of the books for her classroom library, too, providing materials for kids to read during down time, as the curriculum expects. She spent about $75 on 20 storage bins and said she can’t even begin to estimate how much money she’s spent on books through the years.
Her biggest expense was a handful of games she’ll use to help teach math. It came with a sticker price of over $500 but Collier said, at least it’s built to last.
Besides, she said, if she hadn’t invested in it, she would have spent the time making her own game, cutting out the pieces and putting them into zip-top baggies. Inevitably, she would repeat the process when kids lost or ruined the paper pieces.
Her “splurge,” she said, was the $100 light-up palm tree. It wasn’t necessary for the room but it helped tie the theme together. She knew the kids would love it. Plus, Collier said, she thought it was cute and nevertheless, she would be spending most of her time in the room. Doesn’t she deserve to like it, too? At least she convinced her brothers to buy that one.
She tries to vary the theme of her classroom each year to keep it fresh and fun. But also, with each passing year, the ante is upped thanks to social media and inspiration from other teachers.
Global supply chains, local impact
Many typical back-to-school items — like pens, folders and notebooks — are being disproportionately impacted by a “perfect storm” of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and rising oil costs, alongside supply chain interruptions, Pancotti told Straight Arrow.
Folders, pens and nearly everything in between contain plastic, which is derived from petroleum.
“I don’t think any person in America hasn’t felt the pinch of the affordability crisis in the past three or four years,” Pancotti said. “But over the past 18 months, that strain has become even worse.”
Collier said even if she wasn’t at a brand new school, she’d still anticipate spending hundreds of dollars.
She has an over-the-door shoe hanger that serves as the class “store.” Each sleeve is marked with a different numerical amount and stuffed with a reward like temporary tattoos, fidgets and squishy balls. She uses it throughout the year both as a reward system with class money and to help teach students lessons from their curriculum — like that five $1 bills and one $5 bill are the same amount.
Collier has to replenish the store throughout the year. And it’s on her dime.
This year, she’s also trying something new, after being inspired by another teacher: Desk pets.
Each week, the kids will work toward earning a small animal that sits on the corner of their desk, enclosed in a half-circle container — almost like a cupcake tin. On Fridays they can play with them.
The desk pets, too, came out of her own pocket.
While she says she has subconsciously been watching her spending leading up to the start of school, creating a safe, dynamic classroom is something she wouldn’t change for the world.
“Elementary school is so vivid for most people,” she said. “I could tell you every single one of my teachers. It’s a reminder to me too that 15 years from now, I hope my kids look back and remember my class and how much fun we had.”
Round out your reading
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- Why did the Feds seize the ’largest Martian meteorite on Earth’?
- Photos and video show exactly where and when Trump visited Ground Zero after 9/11.
