I didn't know some states have limits...hope we're not breaking a rule we're unaware of. However, our gifts are technically for the classrooms, not the teachers (the gifts remain if the teacher goes), so I'm not sure it would count.
I hope if you try it, you have the same great response we did! I still have teachers comment to me on how well it went and about the great gifts they received.
What a great idea!! I always try to get a game or special book for my childrens' teachers, but it would be great to know just what they need. The only problem we would have at our school is that the state only allows teachers to receive gifts valued at $5 or less. A lot of us cheat on that a little if we're getting something that will be used in the classroom. Last year my co-room parent and I sent notes to all the classroom parents to get Staples gift certificates so our childrens' teacher would be able to get something really nice. That way none of us exceeded the $5 limit. I'll have to show this idea to my board and see if we can come up with a way to make this work for us. THANKS!
Hi! I just needed to share this with you guys because I feel like we have so many disappointments as we try to make our schools better, it's nice to see when someone has a triumph.
Our teachers always ask that families donate a gift to their classroom for the holidays, rather than give the teacher a personal gift. This is always nice, but the response is mediocre. This year, the pres and I talked our schools Director (we are a small Montessori school - about 125 kids) into letting the PPA handle everything. We decided to have the teachers fill our their wish lists from a variety of catalogs, and from there, our PPA volunteers would copy the information onto Snowflakes that I made in Publisher. Each snowflake listed the Classroom, item #, description, quantity and total price. Everything you'd need to know to fill out the order forms. We made a display at the entrance to the school, and families could choose their snowflake(s), staple their payment on (with a small stapler we provided) and drop it in the collection box. The display was up for about 2 weeks.
Over break the pres and I placed the orders (which tallied up $$-wise perfectly!) and now our orders are in. A group of volunteer came over to my house and sorted them by classroom, and we'll deliver them to the classes tomorrow! All in all, we raised over $1400 in new materials, and our staff didn't have to put in more than an hour or two!
I am so excited about how this worked out for us. The Director has decided we'll do this every year, as it was the easiest and best organized inter gift program the school had ever done.
