CT Mirror

Lisa Balzano’s recent visit to a Fairfield high school left her floored by one sight in particular: a supply room stocked with almost anything a teacher would need. “She opened this room with supplies, and I almost fell over,” Balzano recalled. “I said, ‘What’s this?’” Balzano is a special education teacher at Bridgeport Military Academy, where she buys her own tissues, pens, pencils, markers and more. Anything she needs, she purchases — except for paper. Teachers are allocated two reams a month.  “That was a year or two ago, and it’s still embedded in my brain how it was just Fairfield,” Balzano said. “It’s 10 minutes from where I live, and it’s just completely different.”