When Alison Cañar started teaching, she spent several hundred dollars of her own money to buy books and school supplies for her students. When she could no longer afford to do that after a few years, she spent months applying for grants.
When she quit her job this spring, it was because she felt she no longer had the funds or the time needed to supplement her classroom expenses.
“I was just in a deficit and drained,” she said. “It got very overwhelming.”
Cañar shared her experience Tuesday, with the new school year starting across the state, as part of the campaign launch for the Our Schools Now compromise that will appear on the November ballot as Question 1, which is a non-binding.