How is your nephew in shop class for three hours a day? How does he have time for his other courses?
It’s worth noting that it’s the Parent-Teacher Organization–basically the school booster club–that is asking, NOT the teachers.
I’m always amazed at the hidden costs of private school: tuition is really only the start–there’s uniforms, books, and a lot of pressure for things like this.
In my (public) school, the PTA puts a lot of pressure on the parents to donate to the scholarship fund in the teacher’s names. I’m happy the fund is getting money, and I don’t really expect or need any gifts, but I am a little annoyed at being put in the scholarship loop: I mean, it’s a fund that mostly goes right back out to the kids of the parents that donate. So I’m supposed to be grateful that they spent money to send their own kids to college? I’d really rather just get a card directed at me.
Yes, is this something new? Certainly unheard of when I went to school in the '60s. Except for a card or candy or something at holidays, and only the nerds did that.
This.
If it isn’t plane tickets to Hawaii or the like, I’d just as soon you not get me anything. Foodstuffs just get tossed the second the kid leaves the room, and totchkes follow them into the circular file. I don’t need another coffee mug, either.
My wife is an elementary school teacher. She does get fairly inundated with gifts at Christmastime (though her school, a small Lutheran school, doesn’t have any formalized policies or requests about the topic, as the OP’s school does).
The gifts tend to fall into three camps:
- Gift cards (nearly always useful, at least)
- Something which the kid picked out (or worked on), which tend to be very sweet and thoughtful, though often suffer from an 11-year-old’s taste and sensibility.
- Something which was probably grabbed at the last minute (e.g., the infinite number of coffee mugs which she’s gotten)
I’d say that a fair number of them are at least thoughtful, but too often do fall into the “now what the heck am I going to do with this?” camp, and wind up in the next garage sale.
My younger son’s school generally asks that parents pitch in a small amount each for a small present for each of the teachers at Christmas - we’re talking a poinsettia and a coffee mug sort of thing here - and a dinner for all of them at the end of the year. In addition, Younger Son likes to make chocolate chip cookies for his teachers. That’s about the extent of it. I figure it comes out to well under $10 each so that’s what I voted.
As a preschool assistant I used to get presents, never expected but always appreciated. Us high school teachers don’t get nuthin’ 
(Well, I got a bottle of wine from my employer last year…) I’m not complaining. What I’d really like for Christmas is for everyone to hand in their assignments on time so I can grade them before MY Christmas break begins!
I teach.
Grand $ total of gifts I have ever received from students: $0.00
However, I think it is better this way. Nobody will ever be able to accuse me of playing favorites, and it would somehow feel kind of creepy and unethical to take a gift from a student.
There have been a few students who brought in a box of donuts, or some cookies or whatever, for the entire class and I might sneak one of those. Otherwise, quite happy to keep things the way they are.
As a parent, I would have a heart-to-heart with the principal/dean of the school and tell them this strong-arming tactic is disgusting and if they need money, have a bake sale like every other school in the world.
The idea of pressuring parents to contribute makes me ill. It’s a gift–how could I enjoy it, knowing arms had been twisted in order to provide it?
That said; the best gifts are just whatever you’d get anybody else. If you wouldn’t buy it or make it if they weren’t a teacher, then it doesn’t make sense to give it just because they are. Like ceramic apples and such. I don’t collect them, so I wouldn’t want anybody to go to the expense or trouble.
The exception is school supplies. You’d be shocked how much most teachers spend to make ends meet in the classroom.
I can’t speak for the OP, but in my classes, sometimes I have students who have room in their schedules their sr. year for two classes since they’ve met reqs. and there is no room in any other classes. Also, I stay after school for a few hours most days.
As for the scotch-- just remember that most schools don’t permit any alcohol on campus.:(
I’m glad you said that about school supplies, Ashes. I was beginning to feel like I’d been giving truly stupid gifts to lots of nice teachers through the years!
I’m British and my Mother was a Junior school teacher. She was inundated with presents come Christmas time. This was definitely happening in the late 80s/early 90s. But she worked at a private school, which may have been part of it.
The only thing weird I find is that school asking for the gift for the teacher. That’s, well, just wrong.
It’s fairly standard in our district for students in the skilled vocational programs like auto mechanics and welding take some correspondence courses, some summer courses, and some at a junior college. And these aren’t kids with Ivy League potential. Teaching them a trade is probably the high school’s best use of resources involving them.
This. I don’t think that this PTO is asking for gifts, but shaking the money tree for donations.
When I was a kid, I gave gifts to certain teachers, but it was more along the lines of “great magnolia blossom from our tree” rather than anything I bought. When our daughter was in public school, we were barely scraping by, but my daughter and I did occasionally make a card with a note saying how much she’d enjoyed the teacher’s class. After my husband and I started to be more comfortable, financially, we’ve done things like buy school supplies or gift cards and give them to the school counselors. This was after Lisa had graduated high school, though.
Back in my day, we had kids who were on the college track, and then the kids on the vocational-technical (votech) track. The kids in the votech track were the ones who were expected to get blue collar jobs, and so they didn’t need more than the most basic classes to graduate. Or so the thinking was, back then.
There’s no back then about it, this is still pretty common today.
A friend of mine jumped into the votech track and learned all about being an electrician. He makes more than all of us white collar suckers and has been for close to a decade now.
I didn’t know they still did that. We didn’t even have shop class when I was in high school.
Did I mention one of the moms last year got all of her kids’ teachers a Nook?
I think VoTech high schools are making a comeback. I think there’s one in most of the districts in our area.
When my daughter was a student, we were never asked to donate to gifts for the teachers. When I was a student, I don’t remember ever hearing such requests.
My daughter is a teacher now and I don’t believe her school solicits cash for gifts either, altho I do know the PTA-equivalent does do things for the teachers and staff throughout the year, but that comes from dues and fundraisers, not begging. Frankly, I think the organizations should put such efforts and energies into lobbying local governments for more money for the schools and decent pay for the teachers.
Isn’t this what always happens with these types of situations (PTO, homeowners association, church group, wedding planning). A group of overeager people (trying not to say women) with way too much time on their hands, takes over, and forces regular people to comply with their weird demands. All common sense goes out the window because everything has to be perfect.
So why is nobody telling the PTO to stick it where it fits, and they’ll give what gifts or not that they feel appropriate?