#donorchoose

So a few years ago my wife was heavily into the TMNT fandom, and the 25 year anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was coming up at the San Diego Comic Con, so I said she could go. So we saved up and she went and had a wonderful time and met all her TMNT friends and fangirled for about 10 days. One of them is a school teacher.

I had heard 'stories' about the US public school system. That teachers are all hired and fired privately and that they don't get paid for school holidays. The wife also spoke to me a few weeks ago that her friend had to take ten Furlough days, something I had to google because I had never heard the term before, and it sounds like utter bullshit that an employer can pull that. Yesterday she sent me a link to her friend who was raising money for her classroom supplies through Donorchoose.

I proceeded to lose my mind.

The teachers have to put their own money into school supplies as well as 'take one for the team with furlough days, AND put up with crap wages and needing to get another job just to pull through the school breaks? Oh and get repeatedly abused by parents when their kids don't get 98 on a test.