NYC teachers forced to rely on crowdfunding to offset hundreds of dollars of out-of-pocket costs

Teachers are putting on their thinking caps — and going hat-in-hand to raise money for basic supplies.Big Apple teachers are shelling out hundreds if not thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket classroom costs for the new school year — a burden that has become so crushing that educators are even turning to crowdfunding to raise cash, the Post has learned.“It’s frustrating, especially because I have my own kid and my own family to support,” said Franshesca Chaterpaul, an upper elementary teacher at Bed Stuy’s Brighter Choice Community School.“If I don’t do donations, I don’t know where I’m going to get things from because I certainly can’t ask my school because we’re really tight on money.I have that burden, along with my colleagues, to figure it out for our kids because we know that they deserve just as much as anybody else.”Community crowdsourcing resources like GoFundMe and DonorsChoose have slowly become lifelines for New York City teachers — with some campaigns raising upwards of $1,000 per classroom for necessities like printer ink and paper and even the printer itself.Chaterpaul used the latter organization a number of times throughout her decade-long teaching career, using community aid to bridge the gap between what teachers cannot afford and what the city Department of Education leaves behind.

“Our school is short in technology.I had last year a class of almost 18 children, and only six laptops were provided by the school, so I needed to figure out a way to get donations so that every child had a device,” Chaterpaul said.

For the start of the 2024-25 academic year, Chaterpaul has already skimmed around $100 off her paycheck to stock her classroom with supplies, decorations and learning tools.The United Federation of Teachers has a reimbursement fund that runs up to $235 — but the total only covers a fraction of what Chaterpaul expects to spend throughout the next nine months.Educators carved an average of $853.90 out of th...