If you get married, there's a bridal registry.

If you have kids, there are baby registries.

When kids go off to school, however, registry options are limited.

The online world is changing this.

A handful of teacher supply registries are trying to link would-be donors with classes in need of supplies.

They are as recent as the Donate 2 Educate program, started this year by the Natomas Schools Foundation, natomasschoolsfoundation. org.

The oldest may be DonorsChoose.org, started in 2000 by a teacher in the Bronx in New York City. Other local and national registries are in Indiana, Texas and Washington.

The registries arose because supplying classrooms is often up to the teacher.

It's the norm for teachers to use personal funds to supply the classroom, said Mike Myslinski, a spokesman for the California Teachers Association. He had no figures but said the average teacher spends hundreds of dollars.

"Ridiculous amounts," is what Ashleigh Adams said she spends on her eighth-grade classroom at Southport Elementary in West Sacramento.

She estimated "ridiculous" at $400 to $500. A half-dozen others gave estimates from $200 to more than $1,000.

It's what an eighth-grade teacher does to keep decent reading books for her students.

It's what a kindergarten teacher does to keep kids in crayons. What a teacher of sixth-graders does to have copier paper after the budgeted supply runs out.

More teachers are getting supplies by putting wish lists or project proposals on sites like goldstarregistry.com or DonorsChoose.org.

The New York-based nonprofit DonorsChoose.org expanded to serve teachers nationwide in 2005 and has provided $24 million in supplies, said Candice Chesson, a spokeswoman.

Teachers describe what they need – which is just about anything students will use directly.

Donors go on the site and can donate a dollar amount or seek out a teacher, a school, a district or a type of program that appeals to them.

"A lot of our donors don't even have kids," Chesson said. "Many have not given to education before."

Jacquelyn Howard, a fourth-grade teacher at Orchard Elementary in Rio Linda, heard about DonorsChoose.org from her school district.

She had some doubts.

"I wasn't sure I would get any projects funded," she said.

But she did. Now she's had several fulfilled.

"It's absolutely amazing," she said.

The day before being interviewed for this story, she received a set of learning games to use with her students.

All DonorsChoose grants include a disposable camera. Teachers take photos of students using the materials and kids write thank-you notes to the donors.

The letters can be a writing lesson. "And I make it an art lesson as well," Howard said.

Adams, the West Sacramento teacher, signed up for Gold Star Registry, which differs from DonorsChoose.org in that it is for-profit and has a specific catalog of supplies, some of which are produced by the parent company that started Gold Star.

The Natomas Schools Foundation allows open-ended monetary donations and also offers a couple of big-ticket items that donors can contribute to – for example, a practice wall for the tennis team and equipment for the drum corps.

Both are a far cry from what most teachers are crying for, though.

"Tons and tons of pencils," said Marci Dixon, a teacher at Dry Creek Elementary in Rio Linda. Folders, notebooks and paper, too, are needed.

"Honestly," she said, "I think what most teachers like is the basics."

Call The Bee's Carlos Alcalá, (916) 321-1987.