Literacy in my classroom

I have worked very hard to incorporate literacy in my classroom. I've taken various literacy courses through UNLV and many different professional development classes as well. I've found that the theories and approaches are all best practices for all learners. I really enjoy using new strategies in my classroom because it really seems to draw the kids in when you do something they've never done before.
I love incorporating things that get students writing. An example is constructed responses and other things that prepare the kids for testing. Putting a diagram on the board and having the kids write all about it has been critical to helping my students understand what is expected of them when they get to their tests. Another fun example is having the kids do stations for different cycles. The water cycle and rock cycle is perfect for incorporating this. The students journal their life in the cycle as they roll a die at each station and follow the prompts to the next station. Then I have the students summarize their life.
In all of the reading that we have done I have found the most difficult part to be collaboration between collegues. We haven't had any planning time with our subjects, on grade level all year! This seems to defeat any of the professional collaboration models that we are supposed to follow. I believe that this is integral to getting the students the best of what the teachers can offer them. I find that totally frustrating. I do spend late evenings working with other teachers in an effort to do some planning together but feel that there is more appropriate times where we should be working together instead of pointless meetings.
As a science teacher I have found other barriers. As I have incorporated interactive notebooks in my classroom I would really like to do more modeling. I have requested an ELMO to help do this due to the high number of ELL students that I work with. I still don't have one. I also feel that science isn't getting any budget at my school because we don't have the supplies that we need to effectively do labs with the students. From complete rock and mineral sample sets to digital scales there is a lack of funding. I did try a fund raiser this year but we only made $30. I've written grants and not gotten any of them. Another teacher at my school just got one and we now have meter sticks and stop watches!
I hate to sound too pessimistic about this, but I feel that you really need some basics in order to effectively teach. I feel that the budgets of schools are very top heavy in Las Vegas. If the teachers had the equipment they lack for teaching we could do so much more!
Thanks for your patience! If you have any insight that could help me out, bring it on!
Happy Holidays! :)
Cindy