FARMINGTON—In order to make the learning experience the best it can be, many teachers spend their own time and money outside of the classroom for extras to benefit their students. According to AdoptAClassroom.org, teachers spent an average of nearly $900 of their own money on classroom supplies during the 2024-2025 school year.

Western Governors University (WGU) started an initiative called Fund My Classroom to help teachers get the supplies they need. WGU recently awarded three educators in the Davis School District to receive equipment and supplies. The total value of the awards was almost $1,000.

“WGU recognized that teachers are often willing to spend their own money to support their students,” said Melissa Jensen, senior partner success manager at WGU. “That’s amazing but they shouldn’t have to. That shouldn’t be a problem right?”

Jensen said WGU wanted to come in and help ease that burden for them. “We have four different colleges and the K-12 college decided to create an initiative to help these teachers out on an annual basis which we titled Fund My Classroom. It’s a national initiative that we do.”

So all of WGU’s partnership managers across the nation are reaching out to their teachers in their school districts saying they want to help, she said. “We invite K-12 teachers from across the country to share their vision for their classrooms and tell us what tools that they need to bring those visions to life. Last year when we did it we received over 650 submissions nationwide.”

Out of those, teachers from Boulton Elementary, Meadowbrook Elementary and Creekside Elementary were selected. “It was extremely hard to choose,” said Jensen. “We only had a certain amount of budget that we could work with on who we could fund and we tried to fund enough teachers in each district in the nation that we could impact at least a little bit.”

“I teach essential elements,” said Katie Dallon, a teacher at Boulton Elementary. “I have grades four through sixth and a lot of my kids have a lot of sensory needs. So I asked for noise canceling headphones because I only had one pair and that was just not enough for my whole class.”

Dallon said she also asked for bungee chairs. “They kind of bounce when you sit on them so I asked for two of those. My students just use them in place of regular classroom chairs. They just give them some sensory input while they’re working and it’s really improved their ability to stay regulated while we’re working in class. It’s been very helpful.”

“I received this email from WGU,” said January Stevens, a Head Start teacher at Meadowbrook Elementary. “It said you could apply for this grant and receive whatever you wanted that would go into the classroom and it would all be STEM based. I thought ‘oh my gosh, this would be awesome. How wonderful would it be to be able to have more activities and programs available to my students that are all science based?’ So I applied.”

Most of the students come from difficult backgrounds, she said. “A child who is homeless is guaranteed a place in my class. Then it goes on from there. It could be a family with refugee status or their parents are incarcerated, foster kids, things like that.”

Kids usually come with trauma, said Stevens. “Unfortunately it’s because they were exposed to life circumstances that they should not be experiencing at such a young age. So we try to give them a head start in school by providing them a safe place, an opportunity to grow and learn and feel love.”

Stevens said she got a robot that the kids have to build. “Then they can program it to move and do certain things like pick up stuff or turn around. It’s just so incredibly awesome.”

The emphasis for the award was on STEM, she said. “So it’s science, technology, engineering and math. It’s all cutting edge stuff. I was so blessed that I was selected. Now my kids can explore science and by doing that it leads to more creativity and curiosity in them. I’m just laying the foundation for them.”