Teacher uses the web to fund classroom expenses
Clinton Bourgeois
Story Created:
Oct 9, 2012 at 5:52 PM EDT
Story Updated:
Oct 10, 2012 at 9:47 AM EDT
Creekside Elementary teacher, Erin Smith, and her second grade class read from brand new books Tuesday.
In a day when budgets are tight and it seems that the first thing to get cut is educational funding, Smith found a way to enhance her classes learning without putting a strain on herself or the school system.
Growing up as the child of two teachers, it was just natural that this was the job for her.
Smith said she used to frequent library fairs and yard sales to add books to her classroom library.
"While that was easy to do, you spend a lot of money out of pocket," she said.
So she went to the web. After an engine search looking for funding or grants to buy books, Smith came across donorschoose.org.
"It popped up, I got on there and did some research," she said.
The site allows teachers to build a project, asking for donations for anything from pencils to computers.
"You go on and put what you need and why your class needs it," said Smith.
Once up, Smith watched as donations flowed in from family, friends, even complete strangers.
"It allows your class to benefit from other strangers passing kindness on."
The students displayed their gratitude towards that kindness when the books arrived.
"I brought them in and they were like, 'what's in the box, what's in the box?',"said Smith. "I said it's books, we got new books. So they all cheered and they all wanted to hold them."
Now, every student has books like "Superfudge" and "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day".
Smith's newest project is to get two computers for her classroom to access educational websites to extend learning through technology.
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