A Nice Gesture Gone Bad... :(
Every year our PTO has a Staff Appreciation Luncheon for ALL Staff members of the Elementary School during Teacher Appreciation Week. So this year, The PTO (me included) decided we'd make it a week of celebration. We thought long and hard about how we could make this fun for everyone but not a costly thing. So last week, we sent home letters with every student explaining what they needed to do this week.
Monday - Wear your teacher's favorite sport team, color, or sport T-shirt. Example: if your teacher likes Penn State, you could wear something Penn State, Blue and White, or just something Football related.
Tuesday - Wear your teacher's favorite cartoon / book character or animal shirt, or the color of the character / animal is fine too. Example: Mr. Henry's favorite character is Barney, so you could wear purple to show your appreciation.
Wednesday - Bring an encouraging sticker for your teacher and place it on the poster outside your teacher's door. Example: Great Job, Excellent, A+, etc.
Thursday - Do a good deed for your teacher day! Example: Open the door, pass out papers, clean up something, etc. at the very least, be on your best behavior.
Friday - Bring your teacher a homemade card. A Thank You!
Ok, sounds simple enough right? Well, first of all, it's really sad to see how few parents are involved in their children's lives. The participation level at the younger ages was so low I can't even guess at a percentage. Very disheartening! But that's not the "Gone Bad" part.
So today is Wednesday! Yesterday morning another PTO member ran the posters over to my house. She and her Mom were up till midnight the night before using a "cricket" machine (punches out the individual letters & shapes) and gluing them onto the posters. Last night, my kids and I went back to the school and hung up all the posters outside the teachers rooms and even put a sticker on each one to "start them out". Now, I noticed that not all the posters were the same. I didn't think anything about it. No big deal, right?? Well, I'll get back to that because guess what? It was a big deal. Anyway, So this morning, my kids took extra stickers in for their classmates and then I came in around 10am w/ more stickers and went around to all the classrooms giving out more incase there were kids who forgot or had parents who weren't very helpful.
I get to the office to find out that there were 2 "comments" made first thing this morning:
1. Why do some of the posters say "Thanks" and others don't? Hmm, I don't know, I didn't make them. ~ Well, someone didn't feel as appreciated because theirs didn't say Thanks like some of the others.
2. Why didn't the Learning Support / Reading Support / "Specials" Teachers get one? Hmm, Well, we were only targeting "Homeroom Teachers". So, now we have another problem since we blatantly omitted "certain" teachers.
Uggghhh, Can we not win? Nothing like this 'little celebration week' has ever been done before! We thought it would be fun for the kids to show their appreciation for their teachers. Am I not seeing the situation clearly?
This day made me want to throw up my hands and say never again. Run through the school tearing down all the posters. Instead, I personally went around to those "omitted" teachers and apologized. We did not mean to offend anyone. We were just targeting 'homeroom' teachers.
Will we attempt something like this again in the future? I don't know. We have definitely learned a lesson from it. (or at least, I have!) So, I'm looking for my bright spot in this situation..... The Kids! They did have fun putting stickers on their Teacher's posters!
Monday - Wear your teacher's favorite sport team, color, or sport T-shirt. Example: if your teacher likes Penn State, you could wear something Penn State, Blue and White, or just something Football related.
Tuesday - Wear your teacher's favorite cartoon / book character or animal shirt, or the color of the character / animal is fine too. Example: Mr. Henry's favorite character is Barney, so you could wear purple to show your appreciation.
Wednesday - Bring an encouraging sticker for your teacher and place it on the poster outside your teacher's door. Example: Great Job, Excellent, A+, etc.
Thursday - Do a good deed for your teacher day! Example: Open the door, pass out papers, clean up something, etc. at the very least, be on your best behavior.
Friday - Bring your teacher a homemade card. A Thank You!
Ok, sounds simple enough right? Well, first of all, it's really sad to see how few parents are involved in their children's lives. The participation level at the younger ages was so low I can't even guess at a percentage. Very disheartening! But that's not the "Gone Bad" part.
So today is Wednesday! Yesterday morning another PTO member ran the posters over to my house. She and her Mom were up till midnight the night before using a "cricket" machine (punches out the individual letters & shapes) and gluing them onto the posters. Last night, my kids and I went back to the school and hung up all the posters outside the teachers rooms and even put a sticker on each one to "start them out". Now, I noticed that not all the posters were the same. I didn't think anything about it. No big deal, right?? Well, I'll get back to that because guess what? It was a big deal. Anyway, So this morning, my kids took extra stickers in for their classmates and then I came in around 10am w/ more stickers and went around to all the classrooms giving out more incase there were kids who forgot or had parents who weren't very helpful.
I get to the office to find out that there were 2 "comments" made first thing this morning:
1. Why do some of the posters say "Thanks" and others don't? Hmm, I don't know, I didn't make them. ~ Well, someone didn't feel as appreciated because theirs didn't say Thanks like some of the others.
2. Why didn't the Learning Support / Reading Support / "Specials" Teachers get one? Hmm, Well, we were only targeting "Homeroom Teachers". So, now we have another problem since we blatantly omitted "certain" teachers.
Uggghhh, Can we not win? Nothing like this 'little celebration week' has ever been done before! We thought it would be fun for the kids to show their appreciation for their teachers. Am I not seeing the situation clearly?
This day made me want to throw up my hands and say never again. Run through the school tearing down all the posters. Instead, I personally went around to those "omitted" teachers and apologized. We did not mean to offend anyone. We were just targeting 'homeroom' teachers.
Will we attempt something like this again in the future? I don't know. We have definitely learned a lesson from it. (or at least, I have!) So, I'm looking for my bright spot in this situation..... The Kids! They did have fun putting stickers on their Teacher's posters!
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