I’ve also seen US teachers spending hundreds of dollars out of their own pockets to stock classrooms.
I spent a lot of time in European schools and I’ve never heard of teachers having to stock their own classrooms or fundraise for things like playgrounds, etc.
My partner is a teacher and we spend around $200 a month just on snacks for their classroom (snacks have to be individually packaged, and there’s 36 kids per class, so that’s 72 snacks a day, Because the kids have a morning snack and an afternoon snack.) Even with donors, choose PTA and other groups. We just know that there’s a certain amount of our income each month that’s going to go too supporting her classroom. It sucks but we have accepted it, because by us not doing that the kids are just going to suffer.
It sounds like you’re enabling the problem by continuing to spend the money.
I know that you probably get a tax deduction for it, but stories like these are still just crazy to me. These things should be taken care of by the school district, not the individual teachers. Wow.