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Katie Ludlow Rich
Katie Ludlow Rich is a writer and independent scholar focused on Mormon women's history. She is the co-writer of the book, “Fifty Years of Exponent II,” which includes an original history of the organization and a selected works from the quarterly publication and blog. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of Mormon History, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and Exponent II. She lives in Utah County with her husband, four kids, and two dogs. Email at KatieLudlowRich @gmail dot com

Our Bloggers Recommend: Why are LDS seminary teachers paying for their own printer paper?

As high school students in the United States return from winter break, many LDS students return to LDS seminary classes. For those outside of the jello belt where full-time, salaried teachers may teach seminary, these early-morning classes are taught by unpaid volunteers (through church “callings”). Guest writer Jenny Smith has shared that many teachers have to self-fund classroom supplies and treats, causing great discrepancies between the “haves” and “have-nots.” Smith is the admin of a large facebook group of seminary teachers and conducted a survey that revealed how much budget woes impact teachers and classroom experience. Smith also wrote about the issue for By Common Consent: “A Seminary Teacher’s Dirty Little Secret.”

Recently, Tamarra Kemsley at the Salt Lake Tribune wrote about the issue and Smith’s survey for the Salt Lake Tribune’s Mormon Land coverage. Check out her article, “LDS Church has billions of dollars. So why are some seminary teachers paying for their own printer paper?

What do you think about seminary teachers having to pay out of pocket for supplies to teach as volunteers?

Our Bloggers Recommend: Why are LDS seminary teachers paying for their own printer paper? LDS Seminary

Read more posts in this blog series:

Katie Ludlow Rich is a writer and independent scholar focused on Mormon women's history. She is the co-writer of the book, “Fifty Years of Exponent II,” which includes an original history of the organization and a selected works from the quarterly publication and blog. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of Mormon History, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and Exponent II. She lives in Utah County with her husband, four kids, and two dogs. Email at KatieLudlowRich @gmail dot com

4 Responses

  1. Early morning seminary is my absolute favorite calling. And it’s also confusing. You have a church employee who does training and supervises you. But you also answer to the stake presidency. So its hard to know who to go to with questions or for approval. There is a different reimbursement process and a very small budget to draw from. It’s also very specific what you are allowed to be reimbursed for. If you teach at a church, you can use library supplies. But some places get grumpy about sharing their ward supplies with seminary. I wish the church treated early morning seminary mor like they treat release time seminary. (I attended and now sub in release time seminary, so I’ve experienced both)

    1. To complicate it even more, I taught early-morning for six years in Utah at a church by a private school. The school wanted nothing to do with the program, and the students came from several different counties/stakes. So seminary was overseen by a stake president from a different stake building than it was held in, and for students he did not have in his stake (with teachers who did not attend church in the stake the building was at either). The S&I employees wanted us called teachers to attend their frequent employee meetings (for which they got paid) at another high school.. It was such a complex chain of command, that things just got bumped around and then Covid hit to make it worse (virtual school, different rules for the private school and church etc). The carpets would be getting cleaned, or the copier was broken, and we had no one to tell us since we didn’t attend that stake the building was in either, to know anyone to reach at 6 am. It was an amazing calling but super complicated and frustrating at times, and I did spend a lot of personal money and never could get anything reimbursed….

  2. This is a huge problem, I would love to see it addressed. Both my mom and grandma taught early morning seminary out of their homes and spent a lot of personal money and so much time.

    I feel like this should and could easily be addressed by providing budgets and making it easy to get reimbursed through CES.

    Not to detract, but Just a plug that there is a lot of pressure in other callings – particularly working with children and youth – to pay out of pocket for things. I am really appalled at the way my current ward handles reimbursements. The Bishopric are so controlling and micromanaging that pretty much every woman in our ward has given up trying to get reimbursed. It’s a major issue.

    I’m just so tired of fighting. I recently asked to be released from my calling. Reimbursements were only one straw of many… I do think my bishopric and other leaders view people’s time, talents and resources as something that has been covenanted to the church and therefore to them. I disagree and have huge issues with the wording change in the temple. I always felt like I covenants with the Lord, and it was between me and Him..
    But the new wording makes it very clear it is for the church and I’m not ok with that.. too many leaders that have no respect for the limitations of volunteers…

  3. I loved teaching early morning seminary for 9 years. The kids were fabulous and we had some great times. I didn’t a fortune in photocopying, making resources abd feeding sleepy teenagers plus travelling miles.. this was 25 years ago and inwas unaware of the church’s wealth. It would be so easy, a sign of gratitude abd respect for the teacher and the kids but mostly just the right thing omdo to give seminary teachers a budget for supplies from pens to food..

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related Blog posts

"Seminary remains the only youth program where the latest churchwide increase in youth budgets was not applied, perpetuating the old system of “haves” and “have nots”. CES — ever focused on its coddled Release Time Zone students and neglectful of the dedicated Outer Stake student — has set the current budget amount at $4.50/student per year. Seminary is taught approximately nine months a year in the US, and that amounts to 50 cents per student per month. You read that right: 50 cents. The budget problem is so widespread that in a survey I did of self-identifying seminary teachers, I determined family budgets help make up the budget shortfall in 85-95% of surveyed Seminary classes. This means your child’s experience in seminary is at least partially dependent on the disposable income of your child’s seminary teacher’s family. It’s true that there are many reasons for a student’s different experiences in seminary, but when you feel critical of your child’s seminary teacher, have you considered that *budget* could be the explanation for an apparent lack of creativity? A student who is in the class of a teacher who can afford Nerf guns and bacon is going to have a dramatically different experience from the teacher who blew their paltry classroom budget on a printer cartridge."
It surprises me now that I didn’t question the personal revelation I received my freshman year when I first read those words and felt God bursting within me and the people around me. I questioned the man teaching the class. I recognized that what was being taught in seminary was not my experience.

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