“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a beautiful gift from someone I don’t even know or haven’t taught their kid,” one teacher said

NEED TO KNOW

• A group of Marin County, Calif., public school teachers got a big surprise when they were called into a meeting earlier this week and each given a check for more than $9,000
• Local resident Maja Kristin donated $1 million to the teachers of the district, sharing that she was upset over the “injustice” of Marin County’s public school funding

• The district ranks in the bottom 4% of California school funding, despite being in one of the wealthiest counties in the country

A group of California public school teachers got a big surprise this week when they were called into a meeting and each given a check for just over $9,100.

One hundred teachers in the Bay Area’s Ross Valley School District — located in the wealthy Northern California county of Marin — were asked to come in for a meeting on Thursday, Aug. 13, but they were not told what the meeting was about, according to local outlet KRON4.

As they gathered in a conference room, a local resident named Maja Kristin stood up to speak and asked the principals in attendance to hand out envelopes to every single teacher.

“We as citizens, we can write direct checks,” Kristin told the assembled teachers, who were then instructed to open the envelopes, which contained checks for $9,161.70.

Kristin had directly donated $1 million to the teachers of the district, sharing that she was upset over the “injustice” of Marin County’s public school funding.

Despite Marin previously being ranked the 10th wealthiest county in the country, Kristin said she had recently learned that Ross Valley was in the bottom 4% for funding in California — and that its teachers were the lowest paid in Marin County.

“The property values are really high in our district, but the property, the assessed value, is really low because people move here and they stay here,” Tyler Graff, Ross Valley School District’s superintendent, told KRON.

“So Prop 13 has kept our tax base quite low compared to other Marin districts,” he added, referring to the California tax rule that keeps base property tax rates at 1% of a property’s assessed value.

Teachers who spoke to the outlet shared that they “couldn’t be more grateful” for Kristin’s donation.

“It’s life-changing,” teacher Sydney Dean said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a beautiful gift from someone I don’t even know or haven’t taught their kid,” Amber Bunnell-Wild added.

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According to KRON, the teachers cheered at the meeting before lining up to thank Kristin for her donation. They also shared personal stories about how the money could help them.

“I have three kids, and there’s lots of activities that they want to do that we can’t always afford to pay for because of my salary,” teacher Anna Schnell told the outlet. “And it’s with this kind of money that there are things I can say yes to that they want to do, so it’s really exciting and huge for our family.”

“This feels great to have people right here in the community wanting to support public education and public educators,” added Eric Brandt.

As for Kristin, she told the outlet that she hopes her actions will inspire other Marin County residents to make similar donations.

“My hope was that folks like you would be here, and word would get out,” she explained to the press, “and Marin residents who value public education would step forward one way or another — whether it’s a direct gift or a political act, or foundation pool.”

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