It happens every year in many school districts, the superintendent hosts a welcome back “convocation” or luncheon for staff where they go over goals, eat, and get inspired from hearing from a speaker.
“It can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $18,000 for a one-hour keynote address,” said Lisa Stanley, superintendent of North Texas Collegiate Academy.
It’s a lot of money just to hear someone give a speech. Stanley said it needs to stop and she realized it at the last school year.
“I overheard a conversation in May between two teachers who were talking about taking out a credit card payment or a short-term loan to fund their classroom,” she said.
She invited staff for the usual speech, but this year Little Elm’s mayor did the honor free of charge and his words were short and sweet.
“Your superintendent Dr. Stanley is taking you shopping today,” said Little Elm Mayor Curtis Cornelious.
There were shocked faces, as Dr. Stanley took to the stage and explained her desire to remove weight from her staff’s shoulders.
“Today I can remove the anchor of having to spend your own money in the classroom,” she said.
Outside a red carpet was rolled out, chartered busses were waiting and shopping lists were in their heads.
During the short drive to Walmart partnerships formed between groups of teachers to share supplies and maximize the $150 each teacher received.
Kay Icani and her kids were back to school shopping when all the teachers, dressed for a formal lunch, swarmed in and started grabbing up all the supplies they could muster.
“It was so quiet and it got really loud,” said Icani. “I’m so happy for them, honestly look how happy they are.”
Shoppers kept smiling knowing from politics to the pandemic there’s so much on the shoulders of our teachers.
“This is my 30th year in education, and I’ve never seen the level of stress on educators we’ve had the last few years,” said Stanley.
It’s powerful to realize how little it took to make their day. Rachel Bracey teaches kindergarten.
“To have a new set of crayons at the beginning of the year and then maybe another set is going to be a huge blessing,” said Bracey.
Dr. Stanley promised this wasn’t going to be a one-time thing for her school.
“It should not be such a unique and unusual situation for a school district to provide the teachers with the money to set up their classrooms,” said Stanley.
She challenges North Texans to share the story and tell school leaders about it so they too can stop with the big fancy lunches and speeches and redirect that money to make a shopping day for staff a normal part of back to school.