C. Brooks, come on over, you would only have 12-15 students in a class, in a beautiful building with parents that shower you with gift certificates worth hundreds of dollars every Christmas. What brought this question on is that I received the dreaded "anonymous letter" yesterday (I really chuckled over it) saying how bad it was that we didn't provide our teachers with a Christmas party and give them gift certificates, etc. OH GIVE ME A BREAK. I just wanted to know what the rest of the world does.
I thought most PTO's had rules about spending money on entertaining the staff..
Thanks for the feedback!
Shelly

[ 01-17-2005, 03:29 PM: Message edited by: SHC ]

SHC, I plan to have my degree within the next three years. Can apply at your school? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

As a whole the PTO gives the teachers $200-$250 at the begining of the year. I can't remember. One year I think they got $300 or $400 because there was alot of money left from the previous year. They also get small Christmas gifts. We do a week long potluck for them during Teacher Appreciation and buy them a small gift. Parents do the cooking for the potluck and the budget on the gift buying for Christmas and apprec week is $200 (we are a small school). At our meetings teachers with the most parents attending win a supply basket.

This issue is very timely! I just attended a meeting in which a teacher (who is also a parent at the school) informed me that we need to get more business partners involved so that there can be more stuff for teacher appreciation. It is my first year at the school and from what I have seen in the past, last year they had a back to school breakfast and some stuff during staff appreciation week.
I do a little something every month for the entire staff. I cannot imagine telling some one that I need to be appreciated in a different way or more, just because other schools have that. We have had lots of moving around in our district due to school closings and combining, etc. We need some time to get more organized.
I work fulltime and I get my paycheck. The teacher are great and do a wonderful job, but it is their job isn't it?
The school I was at last year was just so much more appreciative of what the PTO did, I just feel that she is being ungrateful.

Other than teacher appreciation week, they get $100 in discretionary funds outright, they have a meal provided during both conference events, we offer them special deals on Spirit merchandise and about any other reasonable request that comes along. This year they changed the setup for entering grades for the district and we supported two Grade Card nights so they could get help in a relaxed environment and with tech support to get their grades done. We also covered the main dish for the Staff Family Christmas dinner. We don't have a lot of parent participation and are a low income school, so it's not realistic for volunteers to bring in treats for the staff of 75 so extras tend to come from PTO funds and most of us can't see spending the money for everyday stuff. I will tell you that you shouldn't feel like you aren't doing enough, there will always be someone out there that says "At so and so school, they have a huge lunch for this and don't make us do potluck, or they support every holiday under the sun." I hear this all the time and I remind them that they don't come to meetings and they don't tell us what parents other than the usual 4 would be willing to do this stuff and that takes care of it. I have also said, would you like to tell the students that they can't go on a field trip so you can have a free meal. Just keep up the good work!

We give them a back to school luncheon in August, we pay for all the coffee for the teacher lounge, we give them $200 for supplies and we have started supplying "Teacher Treats" to the lounge once a month or so. A parent told me we didn't do enough for them, so I'm here asking--"What do you do for your teachers other than Teacher Appreciation Week"?
Thanks
Shelly