IOWA SUB FIRED FOR OFFERING EXTRA CREDIT FOR GOFUNDME CASH
Stephanie Mullaley, a long-term substitute teacher at a high school in Iowa’s Clinton Community School District, was fired on May 29, 2026, after she allegedly offered students extra credit in exchange for cash donations to her personal GoFundMe. The district said the fundraiser, which was meant to pay for a trip to Ecuador, breached its ethics policy, Yahoo News reported.
According to the Iowa Capital Dispatch, state records show Mullaley started with the district in 2022, first as a paraeducator and later as a long-term substitute. In spring 2026, she reportedly told students she had set up a GoFundMe for what she called her “personal education goals,” PEOPLE reported.
She also reportedly told students that a cash donation could potentially earn them extra credit in her class. Some of them paid up.
Where the money was headed
The fundraiser was not for a school activity. Mullaley wanted $1,800 for a July 2026 trip to Ecuador with her husband.
The page described the trip as a medical mission, with Mullaley serving as an interpreter. In the page’s words, she would be “interpreting for a medical mission team (and) helping bridge language barriers so that care and compassion can reach those who need it most.” Her husband, it said, would be “assisting the team in any way he can.”
The page called the trip “a unique opportunity to travel to Ecuador,” The Independent reported. Donations were meant to cover flights, buses and boats, plus food and hotels.
The goal was not close to being met. The page pulled in six donations totaling $140, which reportedly ranged from $5 to $50. It was later deleted, WKRC reported.
The story might have ended with the firing, but Mullaley applied for unemployment benefits. Administrative Law Judge Duane Golden reviewed her claim. It was not a criminal case, and under Iowa law, workers fired for misconduct are not eligible for benefits.
Golden found that some students did donate. He also wrote that “students felt pressured to donate money to her personal GoFundMe page.”
The findings said the district discovered she was “using her position as a teacher to pressure students to donate funds.” The judge concluded Mullaley had shown a “willful or wanton disregard” for the district’s interests, the New York Post reported.
In September 2026, Golden denied Mullaley’s unemployment benefits, finding her conduct amounted to job-related misconduct. PEOPLE reported that the decision came in a document from the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing.
The district has said little beyond the firing itself. On October 2, 2026, Superintendent Wes Golden emailed PEOPLE that “as a matter of policy and out of respect for individual privacy, the district does not comment on confidential employee personnel matters.”
