A video of a teacher who says they were only allotted $50 to buy a year’s worth of art materials for their school went viral.
A user by the name of Hayley (@hcross93) shares her annual supply budget with the community, which comes to a grand total of $50, in a video that has received more than 2.5 million views.
Hayley explains further in a subsequent video that the funding in question was for a single school, where she spends around one-fourth of her working time. She claims that the remainder of her time is spent at another school, where she receives an annual budget of around $350, which she describes as a “great” amount.
Users who disagreed with this assessment said in the thread’s comments that even 350 dollars seemed like too small of an amount to appropriately prepare art materials for an entire school’s worth of pupils.
Hayley said in a comment that she is an educator at a Title 1 school that serves students from low-income families and that the amount of $350 has always been “a lot” for her. In the video, she thanked those viewers who volunteered to give to her classroom, but she graciously refused their offers.
A few people mentioned that Hayley may be able to deduct the cost of her painting materials from her taxable income.
Commenters continued to show their support for Hayley by pointing out what they saw as inconsistencies in the amount of money spent on art in comparison to other aspects of school life.
Still, quite a few of the readers said that they would be delighted to make a contribution to Hayley’s class. She expresses her gratitude for the act but clarifies that she did not upload the video in an effort to solicit monetary support for the cause. She only wanted to bring awareness to a challenge that a significant number of educators all throughout the country are confronting and, with any luck, motivating widespread reform.
