Teachers spend their own money on their classrooms, and the lists that promise to help are full of discounts that expired years ago. Every offer below was checked on the retailer’s own page rather than copied from a roundup. Eleven of them are real. Two of the most widely listed ones turned out to be gone entirely, and they’re covered at the bottom so you stop looking for them.
One thing to sort out before you start: these programs verify you in four different ways, and none of them talk to each other. ID.me covers most, Target uses SheerID, Cricut uses gocertify, and a few still want a pay stub at a register. Verifying once doesn’t carry over.
1. Office Depot and OfficeMax: 25% Back All Year, Not Just a Coupon
Verifying with ID.me gets you a coupon for 20% off one qualifying purchase, which is what most lists mention. The better half is the part they skip. Verified teachers earn 25% back in Bonus Rewards instead of the standard 2%, and that runs continuously rather than once.
For someone restocking a classroom over a whole year, 25% back beats a single 20% coupon comfortably. Two limits are worth knowing: rewards cap at $100 per member per week, and the exclusion list is long. Ink and toner, computers, tablets, monitors and gift cards are all out.
2. Books-A-Million: 20% Off in Store, and the Card Is Free
The Educator’s Card costs nothing and takes 20% off everything you buy in store. That’s the largest flat in-store rate in this whole list. It also carries free shipping on eligible online orders throughout the year, which matters if you’re ordering a classroom library rather than carrying it out.
Sign up at a store with a valid teacher ID, or request a card online.
3. Sam’s Club: 60% Off a Membership
Bulk is where classroom budgets go furthest, and Sam’s Club takes 60% off a Club membership for teachers, or $50 off a Plus membership. Verification runs through ID.me.
The catch is that it’s for new members only, and you can’t have held an active membership in the last six months. Eligibility is unusually wide though: it covers classroom teachers, principals, assistant principals, college professors, and school employees generally rather than only people who teach.
4. Michaels: 15% Off Your Entire Purchase, Sale Items Included
Bulletin boards, borders, laminating supplies and classroom decor all live here, and the teacher rate is 15% off the whole purchase including items already on sale. That last part is rarer than it sounds. Most discounts drop off the moment something is marked down.
You have to complete educator verification inside a Michaels Rewards account first. Clearance, custom framing, books and craft machines including Cricut and Silhouette are excluded. One oddity worth flagging: their page headline says the discount works online and in store, while the fine print underneath says in store only. Confirm at checkout rather than assuming.
5. Target: A Circle 360 Membership at Half Price
Target’s teacher benefit isn’t a percentage off, which is why it gets misreported constantly. Verified teachers get a Target Circle 360 membership for $49 instead of $99, plus classroom deals through the year. Verification runs through SheerID, not ID.me, so it’s a separate check from most of this list.
Target’s eligibility is the widest here by some distance. It covers K-12 teachers, staff and faculty, college and university faculty, and daycare and early childhood staff. If you’ve been turned away elsewhere for working in early childhood, start here.
6. Cricut: 15% Off Materials, Plus Cheaper Machines
If you cut your own labels, name tags and bulletin board lettering, this is the one that pays for itself. Teachers get 15% off materials and accessories, and Cricut also runs reduced pricing on machines themselves, from around $109 up to $599 depending on the model. Shipping is free.
Verification runs through gocertify, which is a fourth platform separate from ID.me, SheerID and a pay stub at the register.
7. Half Price Books: 10% Off, and It Covers People Others Exclude
A renewable Educator Discount Card gets you 10% off all in-store purchases, year round. For building a classroom library on your own money, a used bookshop discount stretches further than a percentage off new hardbacks.
The eligibility is where it stands out. Alongside public and private school teachers, it covers college and university teaching assistants, school and city librarians, homeschoolers with verification from a state or local organization, and educators who’ve been laid off or taken early retirement within the past year. Almost nothing else on this list extends to someone who has just left the classroom. Day care providers and private specialty instructors don’t qualify, and the card is in-store only.
8. Skechers: 10% That Actually Stacks
Ten percent looks small next to the numbers above, and it’s the most useful discount here for a specific reason: it’s an additional 10% off on top of promotions and offers. Every other discount on this page says some version of cannot be combined. This one doesn’t.
On a sale item, stacking 10% onto an existing markdown often beats a bigger discount that has to replace it. Verification is through ID.me, and it works online at skechers.com only. It’s not valid in Skechers stores or at other retailers carrying the brand.
9. Crocs: 15% Off Select Styles
Verify through ID.me and you get 15% off select styles. Note the wording, because coupon sites frequently quote this as 20%. That higher figure traces back to a promotional link rather than Crocs’ own teacher page, which says 15%.
10. Vera Bradley: 10% Off the Bag You Haul Everything In
Ten percent off at verabradley.com, verified through ID.me. The same discount covers students, first responders, medical professionals and military personnel, so it isn’t teacher-exclusive, but a teacher tote takes more punishment than most bags and this is a rare discount on one.
11. Barnes & Noble: A Free Year of Premium Membership
Barnes & Noble’s current educator offer is a free year of Premium Membership, carrying the same store and bn.com benefits as the paid version apart from the annual tote bag. You enroll in store with a school ID or pay stub plus photo ID. There’s no online enrollment.
Read the eligibility carefully, because it’s the strictest here. It covers teachers, librarians, guidance counselors, principals and reading coaches at accredited K-12 schools. It explicitly excludes homeschoolers, preschool, higher education, volunteers, support staff, substitutes, student teachers and retired teachers.
Two Teacher Discounts That No Longer Exist
Both of these still appear on current teacher discount lists, and neither has been claimable for a while.
JOANN’s teacher discount is gone because JOANN is gone. The chain closed its last stores in 2025 after a second bankruptcy. Michaels bought the brand names and intellectual property, but not the stores, which is why joann.com now forwards to Michaels’ teacher discount page. If a list is still showing you a JOANN teacher rate, it hasn’t been checked in over a year.
Barnes & Noble’s Educator Discount ended in 2023. Enrollments stopped that February and the program closed that April. Classroom purchasing moved to institutional and bulk options. The Premium Membership for Educators covered above is its replacement for individuals, and it works differently, so a list quoting the old educator percentage is quoting something that no longer exists.
Three More That Look Like Teacher Discounts and Aren’t
Lakeshore Learning’s 15%. Lakeshore is a teacher supply store, so its member rate gets described as a teacher discount constantly. It isn’t one. The 15% belongs to Lakeshore Rewards, which anyone can join. Worth having, just not because you teach.
Crayola. No teacher discount. What Crayola does run is free classroom resources and an Art in Education grant program, worth up to $250 for an individual educator and $500 for a team. That’s real money, but you apply for it rather than claim it at checkout.
Oriental Trading. Deep clearance pricing on classroom supplies and a free loyalty program for parent teacher organizations. Neither is gated on being a teacher.
And one that can’t be confirmed either way: Staples. It’s the most quoted teacher discount in this category and the hardest to stand up. ID.me, the platform those lists say runs it, states it isn’t aware of a Staples teacher discount. Staples’ own teacher appreciation page says the program has ended, with terms dated to 2018. Sources quoting a Staples percentage don’t agree with each other on when it expires. Ask in your local store if you shop there anyway, but don’t count on a number you read online.
Check Which One You Actually Qualify For
The most useful thing to take from this list is that “teacher” means something different at every retailer, and the gaps are wide enough to catch people out.
- Daycare and early childhood: Target includes you by name. Half Price Books excludes day care providers by name. Same job, opposite answer.
- Retired or recently laid off: Half Price Books honors the discount for a year after you leave. Barnes & Noble excludes retired teachers outright.
- Substitutes and support staff: excluded at Barnes & Noble, covered at Sam’s Club, which extends to school employees generally.
- Higher education: fine at Target and Sam’s Club, excluded at Barnes & Noble.
Verify with ID.me first, since it covers the largest number of these, then handle Target’s SheerID check and Cricut’s gocertify separately. The in-store cards from Books-A-Million, Half Price Books and Barnes & Noble need a trip with your ID and a pay stub, and they’re worth the trip.
For classroom technology, software and devices sit outside this list and have their own set of programs, several of them free rather than discounted. Those are covered in our roundup of tech companies offering teacher discounts. If you’re looking at the money side rather than the shopping side, our guide to financial benefits available to teachers covers union benefit suites and tax filing discounts, and there are more unusual ones in teacher discounts you didn’t know existed.
