Sand Mountain Reporter

Nothing is more important than the education of our children. And when there are not enough supplies to go around and teachers have to ration what items they do have, we need to take another look at school funding.

Talking recently with area teachers about their supply budgets – or more appropriately the lack thereof – was a real eye-opening experience.

In Crossville alone, the number of low-income families already strains the schools’ and teachers’ budgets. Teachers there already buy many of their own supplies in addition to providing students with lunches and snacks when they have nothing else.

Some school systems have been able to provide some much needed funding for the teachers, however small an amount it is.

Other school systems, however, have been forced to ask for help from a wide variety of sources, including churches.

Stacey Sanders, a first-grade teacher at Crossville Elementary, said it best. “How did we get into the position where we need paper, one of the bare basics, to be donated? We are stretched to the limit,” she said.

While Crossville’s situation is neither the direst nor an exception to the rule, it is a sign of the times. Teachers and students need our help.

The easiest way to help is by shopping locally. Sales tax revenue goes back to our schools to provide textbooks, teachers’ salaries and various supplies for our students. Particularly at this time of year, take a moment to make plans to buy as many holiday presents and decorations as possible at local stores.

Make shopping local a habit you cultivate year round. Remember the children and their needs.

Sen. Lowell Barron gave every Crossville teacher a $50 Wal-Mart gift card to be used for supplies. The grateful teachers made the best use possible of those cards, but it’s just a drop in the bucket compared to the past $500 per teacher allotment.

We all need to make the effort to shop locally and support our schools in any way possible. Buying a roll of wrapping paper or a tub of cookie dough from school PTO members may not seem like much, but it all adds up in the end.

Think of the children and how their creativity and learning may be hindered without the basic supplies.

Elizabeth Summers is education reporter for The Sand Mountain Reporter. She can be contacted at education(at)sandmountainreporter.com.

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Serving Albertville and the Sand Mountain region

Publisher: Ben Shurett

1603 Progress Drive
Albertville, Alabama 35950

Tel: 256-840-3000 | Email

A Southern Newspapers publication.