As the back-to-school season approaches, a family with deep ties to El Paso County's public school system is speaking out about a financial reality many educators face quietly each year: the cost of stocking a classroom increasingly comes out of a teacher's own pocket.

A former northern El Paso County school district teacher spent roughly 15 years in the classroom before taking an international teaching position, and over the course of that career, the amount of personal money spent on classroom supplies steadily increased, according to her husband, who shared the family's experience with KOAA News5.

According to the National Education Association, educators on average spend anywhere between $500 and $900 of their own money on school supplies. An Adopt a Teacher survey for the 2024–25 school year found similar results, estimating the average teacher spent $895 out of pocket on school supplies.

For this family, the numbers sometimes climbed even higher. "There was one year it exceeded over $1,000 that she was buying supplies and replenishing supplies," the husband stated. Those expenses continued throughout the school year as basic items disappeared or students arrived without the materials they needed. The teacher did her best to supply those items because, as her husband put it, "the kids would need those basic tools to be able to be present in their education" — and without them, "it's a distraction."

The husband described what he sees as a widening gap between perception and reality: "I think it starts off as there is the time and money that the teachers want to dedicate, and that has morphed into an expectation by the community," he explained, adding that there is "a very, very large moat between the reality of what teachers give in their own money and time and what parents think and what parents expect."

When the teacher began her career more than two decades ago, spending a few hundred dollars each school year felt manageable, but over time parents increasingly expected teachers to cover costs themselves when schools lacked funding. While some parents occasionally donated money to classroom funds, those contributions became less common, and the family ultimately decided to absorb the costs themselves because they were financially able to do so.

The husband said backpack drives and other community donation efforts help ease the burden for both families and teachers. He said such efforts send an important message that a child's education should not depend on a family's financial situation — that "our kids shouldn't be robbed of their education because of dollars... dollars that aren't available."

While parent organizations often raise money for classroom needs, the husband said the responsibility should not rest solely on families: "That shouldn't be incumbent upon the parents. That should be our government system driving that better than we do."

This Saturday, members of Les Schwab Tire will be at a Back to School Bash to distribute community-donated goods; military and veteran families will receive priority access from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., followed by an open session for the broader southeast Colorado Springs community at the YMCA from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.

Whether local school districts or state officials will respond to the broader policy questions raised about classroom funding responsibility remains to be seen.