Hello. D19 got her Bio & Spanish degrees in May’23. She then found a program to get her Masters and become a certified teacher this past May. She will be teaching at a HS in Memphis that is extremely low income. It is the school where she did her student teaching. She has fell in love with the school and just wants to help the kids.
She basically has no budget to get her classroom up and running. Suggestions?
Thanks.
My son did this and made a wishlist and posted it on his social media - many people - including some of his past teachers - were so happy to purchase an item for his classroom/kids.
Good luck to her!
Post on your social media. Folks who know you and her will happily help out.
She did. Neither myself nor her have a big social media presence. My wife has zero. We also don’t have a big family.
My local “Buy Nothing” group is very active with teachers. They post what they are looking for, and folks are happy to jump in with “I will have boxes of school supplies on my driveway at 5 pm Wednesday, just come pick up”. And then retiring teachers and others post “I have 5 cartons of new arts and crafts supplies for any new teachers who need”.
For furniture, rugs, bookcases, etc. our local dump maintains a curated second hand housewares “store” (everything is free). It’s near the dump and supervised by city employees so the stuff is generally clean and in nice condition.
She should check out if these things are available where she lives…
Here are some websites that teachers can use to create and share wish lists:
A free, not-for-profit tool that allows teachers, towns, and parent-teacher organizations to share wish lists with parents, businesses, and other potential donors. Wish lists can be found by city and state or at random.
Teachers can use this tool to create and share wish lists with parents, and can add or remove items throughout the year. Teachers can also receive email notifications when parents pledge to donate an item, and lists are automatically updated with each pledge. Wish lists can be shared with parents via email, social media, the school website, or a parent app. To find a school’s wish list, users can go to TeacherLists.com and click Find a List, then search by ZIP code or state.
A free platform operated by Really Good Stuff, LLC that allows teachers, educators, and education organizations to post wish lists. Wish lists can be kept private, and 100% of donations go to the items on the list. Contributors can also purchase products and
In my previous community, local churches partnered with the schools to donate supplies. Your D could see about making those connections if they doesn’t already exist.
This is the site that I’ve seen local teachers use:
Teacher Sign-up | DonorsChoose
It’s also the one that Stephen Cobert used when he “flash funded” every classroom request in South Carolina, back in 2016, so it’s been widely used for quite a while.
If her school allows folks to bring these in, this is a good idea. BUT my school did not allow rugs or things like bookcases. Bookcases were provided by the school. And no rugs were allowed from outside the school.
Will your daughter be in the same classroom all the time? Some HS teachers are not. She should visit that classroom asap and see what’s there. And look around. High school classrooms tend to have less “stuff” in them.
The Dollar Stores are a good place for smaller school supplies…things like pads of paper, pens, highlighters, pencils. I worked in a wealthy district and still keep things like this on hand…because kids needed them.
I would suggest she look for some sales on Puffs or Kleenex. The stuff the school issues is like sandpaper.
She can create a wish list on Amazon as well as some of the places suggested upstream.
If her high school sends out a list of supplies students need, check that and look for smaller things (like the ones I listed above) to have on hand for kids who need replacements.
I thought there was a wishlist originally posted??? Maybe OP took it down.
Agree with @thumper1 about HS classrooms being a little more sparse. If she is going to be in the same room all the time wall art can be nice to have. My S hung up a lot of college pennants in his urban middle school classroom for conversation and also to motivate for education/trade beyond high school. He taught math and assigned projects on poster board that became “art” in the classroom. If she’s teaching Spanish maps or posters of Spanish speaking countries would be cool.
But I also get trying to gather “extra” supplies - classroom rewards, extra basics like pencils, spiral notebooks, etc. Also keep in eye out in like October when places like grocery stores and Target start to clear out leftover school supplies and highly discount them!
Outside links for fundraising, services, businesses, etc… are not permitted on CC.
I did not realize that. But I guess if my D19 was actually Amazon her link would be OK. 
(Hope this doesn’t violate ToS) There’s an organization called Adopt A Classroom that helped my school, teachers write letters outlining what supplies they need and what they hope to achieve with said supplies.
Your daughter should have others teaching at the school…and she should be able to see or talk to someone. In my experience, high school teachers have less of the fluff than lower grades. But having replacement supplies so kids can have what they need in class is always a good idea.
I took it down on her behalf. ToS prohibits soliciting.
A lot will depend upon whether she gets her own classroom. When a friend was the newest math teacher at a high school, she rotated classrooms. They did give her a cart to go from room to room.
Another option for teacher wishlists: the classroom wishlist project – smitten kitchen
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