Charlotte teachers scrambling for money to buy “Starbucks-style” classroom furniture

What’s in? Classrooms replete with couches, comfy chairs, pillows, stools and bouncy balls. Call it “Starbucks-style” seating.

“Take a look when you go to any cafe with different seating options. Some adults like to work while sitting on a comfy couch, or a traditional chair and table,” an eighth-grade teacher at Kennedy Middle wrote in a pitch for funding.

“We as teachers must adapt right along with our students in our classrooms.”

The problem is, these are the only real options that Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools issues to its teachers.

These photos, provided by CMS, illustrate the “standard” furniture available to classrooms.

That’s left teachers across the school district scrambling to find ways to pay for all the funky seating.

In Charlotte’s more affluent schools, teachers have leaned on their PTAs to provide money for the flexible seating arrangements. Parent-teacher organizations have spent thousands of dollars outfitting classrooms with new furniture.

In low-income schools, the teachers turn to the public.

Fifty teachers in Charlotte public schools have turned to the site DonorsChoose.org hoping for money to buy flexible seating — making it the most common request for CMS teachers on the site.

Collectively, they’re seeking more than $32,000 and represent more than 35 different schools across the city.

How much does it cost to outfit a classroom? The average request is $635.

The teachers’ pitches for funding have a few common traits. They rely on the premise that adults don’t love being stuck behind a desk — so why should kids?

“Not every student learns best sitting in a desk and chair,” a teacher at Nations Ford Elementary writes. “Sitting on textured cushions on the floor may provide a level of comfort that allows the student to focus on learning and not on how uncomfortable they feel.”

What would it take to outfit each classroom?

Crowdfunding classroom supplies is probably not the most effective method. It also leaves the potential for schools with more resources to have more inviting, productive classrooms than schools without means.

But in a school district the size of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, buying Starbucks-style furniture for every classroom would be a significant expense.

There are about 9,000 teachers in CMS. If it takes $600 to fully outfit a classroom with new furniture for each teacher, that’s a total of $5.4 million. It’s way more than the $339,000 CMS has budgeted for classroom furniture in its schools this year.

Still, it seems to be doable in an annual CMS budget of $1.4 billion.

In the meantime, you can check out the Charlotte DonorsChoose requests here.

Cover image by dcJohn via Flickr (Creative Commons)