Your kid’s high school teacher likely spends hundreds of dollars on class supplies

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The average teacher spends $530 out of pocket to set up their classroom and maintain class supplies throughout the year.
High school teachers rarely send home lists of classroom wants and needs. That doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty they need.
I came up with a list of what almost every classroom needs, based on my experience as a high school teacher. You may be surprised to find out that simple items like pencils and tissues are in short supply.

When I was in elementary school, I remember my parents buying tissues, cough drops, and other supplies for my teachers every year. My mom was your typical class parent, chaperoning field trips and going to PTA meetings. As I got older, teachers stopped asking for help, but it’s a little-known fact that high school teachers actually need help stocking their classrooms. I know — I was one. In my six years as a high school teacher, I never had a parent buy a single supply for my classroom.

Teacher salaries aren’t glamorous, and when you add in the cost of setting up a classroom and maintaining supplies, their take-home salary shrinks even more. In a recent survey, Scholastic found that the average teacher spends $530 of their own money on their classroom every year.

People are often shocked to find that simple supplies like pencils aren’t always provided by the school, and if pencils aren’t provided, you can forget about tissues and hand sanitizer. Of course each school is different — some provide any supply you can think of, some provide a select few, and some provide next to none.

Given that almost every teacher spends at least some of their own money, I’ve come up with a list of school supplies that all classrooms can use. The supplies on this list are extremely inexpensive, but they add up when high school teachers are providing for 100-plus students. Pitching in a box of tissues or a few pencils might not seem like much, but it means a lot and really helps.

For every product on this list, you might want to check with the school to see if it’s already provided. On the other hand, just the simple gesture of helping a teacher out makes them feel supported, so if you can spare $2 on a bottle of hand sanitizer, it definitely won’t go unused.

Here are some inexpensive products you can buy to help stock a high school classroom:

Tissues

Walmart

Kleenex Ultra Soft Facial Tissues (4 Boxes), $5.97, at Walmart

Classrooms go through tissues quickly, especially in the winter. Think of how many your kids go through when they’re home sick, and imagine how much faster they disappear with a whole bunch of sniffly teenagers during cold season. Tissues were never provided for my classroom. Occasionally I bought them, but the cost added up quickly. I always felt bad turning students away when they asked for tissues — their only other option being toilet paper or paper towels from the bathroom. With close to 100 students shuffling in and out of my classroom every day, I could have easily spent $100 just on tissues in one school year.

Hand sanitizer

Walmart

Equate Hand Sanitizer With Aloe, $1.98, at Walmart

I managed to get very few colds and flu during my time as a teacher. I owe this in large part to hand sanitizer. Consequently, this is also one way to prevent the use of so many tissues. Students in my classroom used the hand sanitizer daily. Bonus: It’s also useful for removing pen and marker stains from desks.

Cleaning wipes

Walmart

Clorox Disinfecting Wipes (Value Pack of 4), $12.98, at Walmart

If you think it’s only elementary school classrooms that need to be wiped down constantly, think again. Things get spilled throughout the day, and many classrooms only get a quick sweep by the custodians after school. If teachers want desks, counters, and other surfaces cleaned, it’s often up to them. These wipes are a big help in science and art classrooms where things can get really messy.

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