Fourth annual KI classroom furniture giveaway about to get underway

Cheryl Hentz

Contributor

September 8, 2025

GREEN BAY – Though many schools took advantage of summer to complete renovations and major repairs, Bryan Ballegeer – KI’s vice president of education markets – said one critical aspect often remains neglected: the classroom environment itself and its lasting effects on students and educators.

That’s why KI, a Wisconsin-based contract furniture company, Ballegeer said, is launching its fourth annual Classroom Furniture Giveaway.

This contest, he said, will award three K-12 educators and one librarian across the nation with $50,000 each to reimagine and transform their learning spaces. 

Why the classroom matters so much

Learning in a classroom, Ballegeer said, doubtlessly plays a role in students’ education and outcomes, while also impacting connections and senses of community.

“My best friends to this day are the guys I went to school with and played football with when I was in fifth grade and beyond,” he said. “Having that ability to be in a physical space with your peers builds that socialization.”

Ballegeer said he recognizes school is about academics, but “might argue it’s primarily about socialization first.”

“Getting to know how to be a human amongst peers – how to respond to elders or your authorities, if you will,” he said. “Then it’s also about reading, writing and arithmetic.”

That connection and community piece, Ballegeer said, is why classrooms and being in a physical space with one’s peers still matters.

“When students are in a space together and they see one of their peers doing something unique, or doing something that they can’t [personally] do yet, it fires them up to try doing it themselves,” he said. “Whereas, when they’re at home, learning remotely, seeing a peer doing something they’d like to do, but haven’t yet, doesn’t have that same impact.” 

For decades, Ballegeer said classrooms were dominated by hard wooden desks attached to equally hard wooden chairs.

However, this style of seating, he said, is no longer conducive to modern learning.

“Those desks were all in a row, like five rows of six, or six rows of five,” he said. “That was the most versatility [they offered].”

Today, Ballegeer said there’s a wide variety of different surface types, different heights and different seating options to work with.

A combination of seating styles, he said, is important in today’s classroom setting because, just as no two students are alike, not all students learn alike, either. 

“What our data shows, and teaching professionals know, is that not every solution is right for every kid,” he said. “In a standard classroom of 30 students, there are probably 14 different learning styles, at a minimum. Some kids are more auditory learners, some are more visual learners, some are more kinetic learners, etc. So, when you have this versatility of solutions in the space, these teachers know that’s actually supportive for them.”

Passion behind past entries

Each year, Ballegeer said KI receives hundreds of entries for the furniture giveaway, and something he’s noticed in most of them is the passion these teachers have for their students and how to make things better for them. 

“Teachers don’t get into the profession for the money,” he said. “Of course, there’s appreciation from them for us doing this and giving them a chance to redo their classroom, but it’s really the passion of them explaining why they need this in their classroom and how it would support their students [that stands out].”

In past entries, Ballegeer said KI has heard about mismatched furniture in classrooms, some furniture that is broken and, in some cases, glued or duct-taped together just to get by.

“One of the most explicit call-outs was from a teacher who had a young woman in her classroom who uses a wheelchair, and the desk they had for her, [though] ADA-compliant, clearly stood out from all the other desks,” he said. “So, this young woman feels isolated already, and then she very clearly has a different desk than the rest of her classmates. It just doubles down on that isolation or that standing out, if you will.”

In that teacher’s design, Ballegeer said she found some KI products that had uniformity but could also accommodate the young woman’s accessibility needs without singling her out from her other classmates.
“That’s one very specific story, but that’s the kind of passion and dedication these teachers show in their entries explaining why they need [the classroom makeover],” he said. “It might be to help make a difference for one student, a group of students or an entire classroom of students.”

For some students, Ballegeer said the classroom represents the most structured or stable place in their lives.

“[A classroom makeover] could make them happier or make their lives that much more enriched,” he said. “That level of passion is the most common theme we see in the entries.”

Another common theme, Ballegeer said, is entries from teachers who say they just can’t teach the way they need to.

They’ll share, he said, that the furniture – often decades old and made of heavy steel – is too cumbersome for students to move, which makes transitioning from group work to individual tasks impractical.

Furthermore, Ballegeer said the outdated furniture doesn’t support the teaching methods many educators believe are best for their students.

“When designed with intention, classroom spaces can support diverse learning styles, improve mental health, encourage movement and foster a sense of belonging,” he said. “This program puts the power back in educators’ hands, giving them and their students the ability to co-create a space that’s truly theirs.”

Ballegeer said to date, the contest has had 11 winners, and all 11 have included their students in the classroom design.

“Teachers are some of the most selfless, giving people there are,” he said. “Winning free classroom [furniture] is not about making their lives easier. That might be a byproduct, but their first thought is that this is a way to help their students learn better.”

When students are given a space designed with them in mind, especially when they’ve had a role in that design, Ballegeer said everything changes.

KI’s research from previous winners, he said, shows that flexible layouts and supportive seating don’t just make kids comfortable – they help them stay engaged, feel connected and grow with confidence. 

The spark that started it all

Ballegeer said the contest started very simplistically, with two KI employees who had both worked in education extensively – himself and Emily McGinnis, K-12 market manager for the company – seeking to empower people via the KI brand. 

“As we were ideating different marketing ideas, we kept coming back to the fact that teachers best know their classrooms,” he said. “They know what happens in a classroom and what’s truly needed. They are running education for 30 kids, more or less, day in and day out.”

Ballegeer said that had them wondering what would happen if KI empowered teachers to design the classroom of their dreams and “put them in the driver’s seat where typically they’re not in a driver’s seat.”

“They get the furniture that’s given to them, or maybe they find little pieces here and there or donated goods – but what if they were given a blank check to design their dream classroom?” he said. “It took off from there.”

Ballegeer said the first year, KI gave away three classrooms, one in each of the KI regions – East Coast, Midwest and West Coast. 

In addition to the classroom giveaway, Ballegeer said in the second and third years, as well as this year, KI expanded the contest to include a library category.

“In our first year of the classroom design competition, we had hundreds of entries and 20-30% of them were from librarians,” he said. “We had to rule them out in that first year, because we had said it was specifically for general ed classrooms.”

Since there was such a strong interest expressed by librarians – noting it would benefit not just one classroom but the entire school – starting in year two, Ballegeer said KI added a library or media center makeover option to the contest.

“Now, there’s one librarian who wins across the nation each year,” he said.

Ballegeer said the impact of these classroom makeovers goes far beyond furniture.

“These new environments empower both students and teachers to engage more deeply, reconnect and rediscover the joy of teaching and learning,” he said. “When educators can shape spaces around their students’ needs, the results are both powerful and lasting.”

Contest details

Ballegeer said KI has interviewed teachers, students and others who use KI classroom furniture, with 88% reporting their seating is comfortable; 96% reporting their furniture and classroom design make it easy to break into groups for collaboration; and 92% reporting it’s fun to study in their classroom. 

The giveaway, he said, provides educators with the power to redesign spaces that support creativity, collaboration, well-being and meaningful learning, and is open to all K–12 learning environments – including classrooms, libraries, makerspaces, esports labs and more.

Educators and librarians interested in KI’s fourth annual Classroom Furniture Giveaway, Ballegeer said, are invited to create their dream learning space using KI’s Classroom Planner tool, which can be found at KI.com. 

The entry period for the contest, he said, runs from Sept. 19 through Oct. 17. 

Ballegeer said all submissions will be reviewed by KI’s education team, along with a panel of designers and architects.

Finalists, he said, will be announced in November – after which the public can vote for their favorite design or teacher.

The four winners, he said, will be revealed Nov. 19, and all four classroom installations will be completed in 2026.