Back-to-school season hits different when you are a parent. The backpack, the shoes, the lunchbox, the haircut, the clothes that will be outgrown by November, and then the list. The dreaded, laminated, color-coded list of supplies that arrives before the school year even starts. Glue sticks. Colored pencils. Dry-erase markers. Folders. Rulers. Hand sanitizer. The list goes on and somehow gets longer every year.
Most parents grit their teeth and buy it all anyway. But one mom drew the line when she opened her son's grade report and found something that had absolutely nothing to do with his education.
Back-to-school time should have parents breathing a sigh of post-summer relief, but for many, it is a budget nightmare
Image credits: shanittanicole
One mom diligently bought all her son's supplies, only to find that the teacher expected much more of him
Shanitta Nicole's son was doing well in his new school. So when Nicole took a closer look at his grades and spotted a zero sitting among all those near-perfect scores, she did what any parent would do and went looking for an explanation. What she found stopped her in her tracks. The zero wasn't for a missed test or late homework; it was listed simply as "classroom supplies."
The teacher had been grading students on whether or not their parents had brought in supplies for the entire classroom, not just their own child. And Nicole's son had received a zero because she hadn't. "I'm like, hey — my student has an 83 in the class and everything else is 100s and 98s and he still has a zero for something called classroom supplies," she said in a video that quickly went viral.
"I don't feel like it's the parents' responsibility to supply your classroom. And I definitely don't think it's appropriate to assign a grade to students based off of whether or not they've supplied your class with supplies. That doesn't make any sense."
Image credits: shanittanicole
She was shocked when she saw her son had received a grade of zero for a 'school supplies' assignment that she was not aware of
Image credits: shanittanicole
Image credits: shanittanicole
The teacher expected every student to buy enough supplies for the whole class, or receive a failing grade
Nicole did not let it go. She emailed the teacher directly, and the grade was eventually reconciled, but what bothered her was that the response stopped there. No acknowledgement of the broader issue. No conversation about whether it was appropriate to tie a child's academic record to their parent's willingness or ability to stock a classroom. Just a quiet grade fix and nothing more.
So Nicole went further. "I emailed the principal because I just — I might be extra, but I just want to see what's going on," she said. "Why do I have to buy supplies for the classroom?" The principal's response was telling. They acknowledged that what the teacher was trying to accomplish "definitely wasn't appropriate," which is about as close to admitting wrongdoing as school administrators tend to get.
Image credits: shanittanicole
Once the mom got over the shock and bought the extra supplies, she still did not see her son's grade improve
Image credits: shanittanicole
Only after reaching out to the teacher did his grade get adjusted, but still no apology
According to a survey, the average American parent spends $701 per child per year on back-to-school items. That figure covers everything like clothing, basic supplies, class-specific materials, the works. And that is the national average, which means for parents in states like New York, Florida and California, the number is significantly worse. New York parents top the list at $1,123 per child annually, followed by Florida at $1,095.
So before a single lesson has been taught, before a single grade has been given, parents in some states are already out over a thousand dollars just getting their kid through the door. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, a teacher decided that what was really missing was a grade tied to whether mom and dad could also cover the classroom's glue sticks.
Image credits: user16215830 / Magnific (not the actual photo)
The mother escalated it further to the principal, who then finally admitted the teacher should not have tied a grade to the supply list
Before we fully villainize the teacher in this story, we might want to play devil's advocate. American teachers spend an average of $673 to $895 of their own personal money every year on classroom supplies and student needs. Because the budgets schools actually provide is often capped at around $200, it covers nowhere near what a functioning classroom requires.
Nearly 97% of educators in the United States are reaching into their personal finances to bridge the gap between what the school provides and what their students actually need. So this event did not happen in a vacuum. It happened in a system that has decided that the cost of education should be absorbed by the people who can't afford it.
Image credits: Wavebreak Media / Magnific (not the actual photo)
Image credits: freepik / Magnific (not the actual photo)
There is a quote that has been floating around education circles for decades, originally from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, that hits differently every time you read it: "It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and the air force has to hold a bake sale." It was funny when it was first said. It is considerably less funny now.
Public school funding in the United States is structurally broken in a way that makes situations like Shanitta Nicole's son's zero grade almost inevitable. Nearly 80% of all public school funding is immediately locked into fixed institutional costs like salaries, healthcare, pensions, capital support services, before a single pencil has been bought or a single classroom has been stocked. What is left over is rarely enough.
The result is a gap that somebody has to fill. And right now, that somebody is teachers and parents simultaneously, neither of whom signed up for it and neither of whom can sustainably keep doing it. Across the roughly 3.2 million public school teachers in the United States, educators collectively spend an estimated $3.35 billion of their own money every year just to keep their classrooms functional. Billion. With a B.
It's bad enough that people have to make GoFundMe campaigns for health care, now basic educational needs are driving people to beg, steal, and borrow for pencil money. And until the funding actually reaches the classrooms, the glue sticks will keep coming out of someone's pocket. The only question is whose.
Do you think the teacher handled the situation correctly? What would you have done? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Watch the original video here:
People in the comments were outraged and said that teachers need help, but they have no right to base a child's grade on the supplies their parents can provide
