Originally posted by Lori Koch: I am putting together a questionnaire for all our teachers to fill out. This questionnaire will be handed out by room moms and at the open house orientation at the beginning of 2005-2006 school year. In this questionnaire I am wanting the teachers to answer questions about their personal likes, hobbies, colors, books, music, etc. I am hoping this will make it a little easier on the parents who purchase gifts for their child's teacher at Christmas, end-of-year, etc. So far I have hobbies, books, music, restaurants, favorites stores & malls, sporting events they like to attend, favorite color. I want to be able to get as much information as possible from each teacher. I am hoping to have this completed so that we can pass these out at the beginning of the school year. Any other suggesions? Thanks for any help you can offer!
At our school we're not allowed to ask the teachers anything nor are we allowed to have room parents approach other parents about honoring theit teachers at speical times throughout the year. We're not even allowed to send home a Christmas Wish List for supplies for the teachers. Control Freak prinicpal wont allow it. We don't even get classroom lists with parents names or phone numbers.
Our PTO thought this was a great idea about 5 years ago, afterall we thought, who needs 20 I love my teacher mugs! Our teachers found out about it and were so uncomfortable with the idea we stopped doing it. They didn't want it to look like they were expecting gifts. We now make parents aware that our teachers spend ALOT of their own money on classroom supplies above and beyond what the PTO provides for. If you can find out where your teacher's shop for their extra classroom supplies, parents can give them gift certificates. Not very personal, but oh so appreciated. Good luck!!
Question--exactly how did you notify parents that this helpful info was available? I saw the post about room parents doing it at Open House, and would like to hear any other ideas. One of our parents suggested this idea last month, and hoped that we could get it in place for the end of the school year. I sent all staff the surveys, and several were quickly returned. We were going to do the binder-in-the-office thing, so I worded a notice to parents carefully (or so I thought), and specifically added that no child or parent is ever required or expected to get any school employee a gift, and that this was only info to be used if needed or wanted. Unfortunately, some of the teachers told the principal that they were uncomfortable with this, and they felt that it would look like they were indeed asking for gifts. Perhaps it was just the timing. Our principal likes the idea, and wants us to start it up at the beginning of next year. She's probably right, but I was just wondering how others publicized this type of project when it first started. :confused:
Just wanted to let everyone know that I am still working on the list. I gave my list to my son's teacher and she is showing it to several other teacher's just so I can get their input (since this is for them)! Each teacher so far is excited that I am doing this. I will have this completed by the end of next week and will email a copy to you all. Thank you!
Closetwriter, I just hope your feelings weren't too hurt by seeing your teachers getting rid of gifts they had received. As the daughter & sibling of teachers, I felt compelled to say that the thought behind those gifts probably WAS appreciated. But if you take the number of students in this year's class and multiply it by the number of years that person has been teaching, the total number of apple coffee mugs received can be far beyond the storage capacity of the average teacher's house.
