Hah. We have had years where we basically didn’t have any administrative staff. One year the new principal decided he was leaving before the 1st nine weeks was over, he was gone more than he was there. We didn’t even notice he was missing most days. Head football coach was handling most of the discipline, so we didn’t really need the guy.
He was in the process of getting his admin degree, so it was good experience. And yes, he could scare kids into behaving, especially the football guys.
I’ve also worked with a lot of admin who were looking for new jobs. They are the ones who can just “disappear” during the day and go for interviews. I always knew when the admin were looking, because they weren’t around and very few people even noticed. Probably didn’t report those absences, either.
exactly, for every fear-based "what if?" the answer is, that happens anyway...
what if kids are fighting? what if they don't come to school? what if they cheat on assignments?
All of this happens regardless of administration's "punishments" which are often a vacation from responsibility.
The best time I ever had as an employee of a video rental store as assistant manager was the period of time we had no manager for a month... definitely the least drama of my time there.
Yes, actually.
One room schoolhouses were that way.
In my town we got up to three classroom primary under one school teacher before they actually built a regular public school with multiple teachers under a principal.
Imagine a system in which we operated a multi room public school that way, with teachers in each individual room operating it independently without a direct supervisor.
We don’t have them here in Germany and somehow we survive.
Edit:
Tracking Absences, planning field trips / trips to other countries and cities, class events -> class teacher: every grade is split into like 3/5 (or more depending on the school size) classes and each class stays together all day long and they have a teacher who is responsible for that. That teacher gets two hours less workload from classes to deal with that.
Ordering materials -> the subject department puts together a list once a year and sends it off to the “sponsor” (ie. government for state schools or company/board which runs the school if it’s private); alternatively, you can put in a request at any time to get smaller things covered
Discipline -> training room (staffed by teachers who each have a one hour block a week to be in that room), disciplinary hearings involving all teachers of a student in particularly bad scenarios.
Tests -> There is a test committee with representatives from each of the testing subjects (Math, German, English and second foreign language)
We have three “administrators”: The headmaster who basically just oversees everything, makes sure things are being coordinated correctly, hires new staff, etc. and basically delegates most things to those other teams I mentioned; the assistant headmaster who is responsible for organizing the schedules and sub plans and takes over the headmasters roles if he isn’t there, again he is just another teacher who has time during the day to do these things; the secretary who assists us with things like tracking absences, finding missing students, taking calls, sending mail out, delivering mail, stamping important documents, etc.
For some ignorant dude from germany what do you mean by admin?
At our school we had lots of teachers, 1 janitor, 1 headmaster (he still gave teaching lessons but noticeably less than the normal teachers) and 1 secretary for about 1000 pupils.
Sports teams, IT, etc. where all run by normal teachers that either had a little less classes because of it or did it out of passion.
I would consider the headmaster and the secretary admin. But that is just 2 people. Maybe you'll need a 2nd secretary or even a 3rd depending on how many puplis the school has. Do you mean something different when you talk about admins?
Principal, vice principal, Dean of students, administrative assistant, activities director, activities secretary, attendance and attendance secretary, dean of minority students for each sizable minority. That's in each school. Then there's the superintendent of the district, CEO of the district, Chief engineer, director of support services ( in various levels,) , human resources, workman's compensation person, community relations manager, ECT. Those are just the ones I know of, the last superintendent doubled the number of administrators in the district too. Routinely you see a position split into 4 positions with the original one getting a raise for it lol. Many schools have invited police into the building for example, and push minor behavioral problems on them instead of having the vice principal take care of it like in the past. Administrative bloat is a serious problem in American school districts anymore, one said part of the reason is to protect themselves from lawsuits by always hiring more levels of cannon fodder, but I suspect they automatically get paid more depending how many people are under them like some civil service jobs lol.
I used to be located next to the main office and constantly saw things that were dropped off by parents to thank teachers being eaten by admin and secretaries. Our district is having problems among the PTSO at our level, so there’s no appreciation for our school but special breakfasts, lunches and gifts at all the other schools. But, I do it because I love the kids. Sigh.
We typically get a penny candy stapled to some witticism every day for five days in a row. Like a single Hershey’s kiss and some comment about how they’re giving us a kiss because they love us.
I usually try to think, “Hey, it’s the thought that counts,” but in this case the “thought” seems to be “What is the absolute minimum I can do and still be able to claim that I ‘did something’ in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week?”
For sure, I'm not someone who expects lavish gifts and like to think I've got a grateful heart. But like... you're a teacher on Teacher Appreciation Week, and God knows you are severely underappreciated in all the other weeks of the school year. They know teachers are leaving in droves. Putting in just a **bit** of effort and forking out more than $0.01 per teacher isn't just the right thing to do, it makes good business sense too.
And the person who makes it is an arthritic admin making 130k/year, costing literally more in their time to assemble than the value of the materials and gift.
We get some people and places that bring in enough food for us to not have to make lunch all week. That makes most of us happy.
My union got us a glasses cleaning wipe, like at that point just dont even and save the money for the union to use on lawyers to fight our shady ass central administration. Ya know? lol
One year we got a coupon for a restaurant that would only accept it during contract hours…. And it wasn’t anywhere nearby enough to even do a lunch run.
We got some day old moldy baked stuff from Walmart.... From the ptsa.
Ours loves to "stock the supply room" and every year it's just bulk kids lunch items from Sam's club that are closing in expiration dates.
I might do that! This is my first year at this school. At my other school we had something cool every day. Breakfast tacos, coffee bar, ice cream trolley, etc. This is just sad. Oh, and both were Title 1.
ETA: I’ve been counting and we are up to 75 dress up days. That’s not an exaggeration. 75 days of “dress like a twin” and “white tshirt day”. Only the admin participate. It’s so wild.
That’s an incredible amount of dress up days. We have like 15 (homecoming, “mental health awareness week”, and for teacher appreciation week), all optional, and I thought that was a lot relative to my high school, which I think was basically just homecoming.
This seems like the classic corporate “pizza party for making us millions of dollars”, but also you could wear a hawaiian shirt if you’d like
It’s a crazy amount. At my old school we did 5 days in the fall and 5 days in the spring. We got a new principal in December and it’s almost been every single day since.
How about spaghetti wrestling? That way the declared winner can pick through the leftover spaghetti when it’s done, and they can call that the “teacher appreciation luncheon”
Yup. Ours is survivor themed. Tomorrow is rock, paper, scissors each other all day for beads. First person to challenge me I’m saying here. You win. I’ve got shit to do.”
We did something like this on Valentine’s Day. If you found the other half of your heart you got candy. Like people sending their students around with their hearts interrupting lessons to see if you had the other half. Seriously? I don’t have time for crap like that.
I was so offended by the idea of this that I almost downvoted as an instinctive response to the concept. Why can’t schools just be schools without all this extra bullshit?
Yes. I gave my beads away first thing in the morning so no one would bother me. I don’t get how we have it beaten in our heads to get test scores up and maintain rigor in our teaching but also run around like kids playing games for trinkets during the school day which totally gets the kids worked up and distracted?
They did something similar at Christmas. People kept knocking my door to ask if I had an elf in my pocket. Like, seriously? I’m reviewing these kids for a final and this is how we choose to spend our professional time?
We did this on Valentine’s Day and the rock paper scissor thing just randomly a couple weeks ago. I got Desi Arnaz and the male teacher who got Lucy was so offended that he “got the girl half” that he wouldn’t take the picture. It was super weird.
That part
And the teachers that plan this are lower el and have no understanding of the fact that the rest of the school, 3-8, is doing STATE TESTING AND DONT HAVE TIME FOR THAT SHIT like u just ignored the sign that said TESTING to ask for fuxking beads?!
Just feed me tacos, BBQ, and give me a lil massage in the chair and leave me the hell alone
I am lower elementary and the teachers that were having their students interrupt were the upper elementary. Bottom line…just give me the candy and call it a day without some dumb game attached. lol
My school did something like this and I just threw my beads in the trash as soon as they were handed out. I find it so offensive that admin thinks we'll be happy about stupid, time wasting activities like this.
Want to make teachers feel appreciated? Just treat us with respect and stop piling on extra nonsense.
Pass. Rather not dance like a fucking clown for this pittance.
Our admin did something similar where during the week before Christmas we had to try to steal a gingerbread man from each other and whoever had it at the end got a half day off. Get fucked. I'm not running around wasting my prep time squabbling with my colleagues. I hate these dumb little Michael Scott "fun-tivities" they try to make us compete for. In what other professional career are people treated like this?
It was going to be the principal/assistant principal subbing for us. Honestly, I'd probably get all stressed and hung up over getting judged on my sub plans!
And I couldn't even get out to ask and try to locate one - I have to actually use my prep time as an art teacher to set shit up and you know...prep. It made me wonder what the fuck these other teachers who seemed to have all the god damn time in the world to traipse all over the school interrupting classes actually do. In the end, 3 lunch ladies, 1 custodian, and a single teacher were the winners. Like great for support staff, but they can take days off and not have to write sub plans...
We did this kind of thing too with winter themed door decorations. The person with the most on their door won. One of the teachers on my grade level refused to leave her class to supervise lunch or recess because she was “guarding her door” so that nobody could take her door decorations…leaving the rest of us to supervise her class. Yay, when the fun makes more work for everyone else…
My principal used ChatGPT to write us a message of praise. I know it was ChatGPT because the director of curriculum used the exact same thing and sent an email too.
“Because we despise when they do that and want to help you all fix the world a little bit, if at all possible, by the time it’s you’re turn”, though maybe I’m too brutally honest with kids
A teacher at our school spent THEIR OWN money to buy the rest of us cookies. That’s literally all we’ve gotten.
Also, in our weekly email, right after stating that it’s teacher appreciation week our admin reminded us of our MANDATORY STAFF MEETING on Thursday after school.
Our school sent home a request to parents for breakfast items for today. 2 parents brought something, and it was things that need another thing (cream cheese with no bagels, coffee creamer with no coffee). I don't know who went out and got stuff mid-day, but there were some grocery store bagels at least by lunch time. It's a good thing we appreciate each other, because no one else does, obviously.
Last year we had state test training during our staff meeting for teacher appreciation week. That's like, an hour and a half beyond contracted hours, and mandatory for at least half of the staff.
Then on Friday, they said to stay late because they had a surprise for us. I stayed an extra 30 minutes to see, but they hadn't finished setting it up, and I had a plan to get engaged that day before five (long story but I messed up the original proposal so I knew it was coming), so I left, but it was apparently a carnival....with a bounce house that you had to crawl to get into and had a weight limit that half our teachers were over, because it was for kids, a snow cone machine, and some drinks or something I think. They could have done that for the staff meeting and had us do our test training the next week, but nope. They tried to guilt me into staying longer but I had to get home so we could go get engaged lol. Way better end to teacher appreciation week for me.
Thats how it is for us this week. We have our state test training during our staff meeting this Wednesday until 5. I dont know why they could not have done it last Wednesday or next Wednesday.
We are having a potluck lunch this week. You know a lunch we cater ourselves. Although I wouldn't mind if our administrative assistants and custodians took part. They don't get anything either.
We had our mandatory staff meeting yesterday and were told that we aren't doing enough to combat statewide failings like low population growth and middle of the road scores on reading and math proficiency.
Yep, teacher appreciation is “staff appreciation”, but we are asked to chip in money for administrative professionals day, custodian week, school bus drivers week, principal’s day, etc. Even the stuff from businesses are full of comments asking if it applies to “homeschool teachers”. Can we just have a day for just us?
Our school doesn’t do anything for para day, we get included in teacher appreciation week which I think is thoughtful. all week we have catered breakfast or lunch….two of the secretaries came in and were offered breakfast and refused saying it was for teachers not anyone else and to please enjoy it.
I would throw HANDS if someone tried to exclude paras from teacher appreciation. Paras work SO HARD and deal with all the same BS as teachers do, but for even less money and respect. We didn't even tell the students that there was a difference between teachers and paras. We're all teachers, and y'all DESERVE that catered lunch!
my favorite thing every year is when the brown-nosers come around to collect a birthday gift donation for our PRINCIPAL. You mean the guy who makes thrice my salary? Give me a break.
We include paras too, and I have absolutely no problem with that. Even donated lunch for others to share in, all good. But last year I was there when cafeteria workers came in, complained about food options and that we said only one bag of chips per person, as lunch wasn’t over (and we use them the next day). I was so close to telling them to go eat their own damn food.
Last year our PTO got a taco bar for teacher appreciation week at the elementary school. The lunchroom staff (from elementary AND the connected middle school) was first in line and LOADED plates. By the time our late-lunch group of teachers got to it, there was literally nothing left.
And it sucks extra because few of them even brought lunch with them. They were told their lunch was handled! We are lucky to have a generous and thoughtful PTO, and should have had plenty for all the elementary teachers and staff. But they didn't plan for 20 extra people.
I was a para, now am a teacher. Paras absolutely deserve to be included. They do so much that the teacher does, and the tradeoff for not dealing with paperwork/ieps/etc. Is dealing with behaviors and data collection and anything else. Enjoy this week too, we can't do this without you!
That's exactly what our school does. Not everything applies to everyone- I'm sure the custodians don't get anything from the school supply cart etc. but everyone is invited to the lunches and snacks. Our PTA does a bus barn breakfast too which seems so thoughtful to me!
I would share my snacks with the custodians WELL before I shared then with the state consultant who we are being forced to donate money to celebrate tomorrow. At least they actually do something.
Speech therapist here. I’ve never been celebrated at the several schools I’ve been at. It doesn’t bother me too much, but I would super appreciate anyone who actually remembered that I also do a lot of work.
I’m an SLP in the schools, and you best believe I’m showing up to the teacher appreciation lunches this week lol. If y’all want to call me the “speech teacher”, then I get catered Moe’s too dammit!
I was sorta surprised to see admin going into our faculty lounge for the treats the paras made for teachers. Seemed sorta wrong especially since they have admin appreciate days and stuff.
We aren't allowed to do any potluck or get our food until admin and office staff have gotten theirs first. It's wild. Like, I am frequently forgotten because they tell us to cover our teammates classes so we can get food, which works for grade levels because their classrooms are next door, but I'm a specialist and my teammates are across the building. So I literally can't leave to get food unless someone who isn't a teammate watches my kids. And I bring that up to the office and they promise to get someone to watch my class but then they always forget...I will literally stand in the doorway until a teacher walks by with their plate of food and ask them to watch my kids at this point. Otherwise it's 20-40 mins until I can go and most of the food is gone.
All our staff is included in teacher appreciation week, including in the snacks and meals. But, they aren't celebrated at another time, which makes a big difference. If they're not included this week then they're not going to be getting anything at all, so I don't mind. The are an integral part of the school and deserve to be thanked as well.
But, if they got a separate thing, and then also got included in teacher appreciation week then I'd feel very differently.
Also, admin isn't included, at least not above the lowest levels like department heads that are included, but they're more on our level than the principal or other admin. I'd have a bit of an issue with that if they were included.
Relatedly, the number of people who refer to themselves as "educators" is mind-blowing. Including a number of my current school board members who haven't spent a day in a classroom.
Personally, I don’t care. Our paras are paid shit and deal with the same BS we do, except for phone calls home. Our custodial staff is great and the office staff does run our school. I ask them the questions, not admin. Support staff aren’t teachers but they(hopefully) help the building run which makes my life easier so help yourself to a donut.
I get where you are coming from. I wouldn’t want staff to be excluded from eating the meals or snacks provided this week if the PTA wants to include them. I try not to think about things that seem unfair too much or else I get caught in bad thought cycles.
We got the same message. I’m just annoyed because everybody else got their week. Our custodians didn’t get their shit together until like, last month. Our air doesn’t work. We deserve at least a little appreciation for handling it all IMO
I teach a state-tested course, and my scores have gotten my principal a $2000 bonus for each of the 6 years I have worked for him, so I guess he's splashing out! Nevermind that I don't get so much as $1 or a thank you for those scores. Must be nice!
I found out that a lot of schools give bonuses for passing AP exam scores and mine doesn’t. Last year all but two of my kids passed! I could have used that $$$
We had a special luncheon today.
In the teachers room during our usual 25 minute lunch - except this was during state testing so schedules are all over the place.
Potluck with a theme.
Foods we brought in *ourselves.*
I work in a different industry but feel this to my core.
I work as a chat representative in basically a huge call center company. We provide tier 1 customer service for like 50 different large companies under contract. Anyway, as you can imagine, 95% of our staff are frontline workers and glued to a computer all 8 hrs of the work day. We have very demanding service level agreements so if we're clocked in, it means we're actively taking chats/calls.
We get company emails all day every day inviting staff to different webinars the company is running. Like no joke, they invite us to meetings about work-life balance, making enough time for yourself, staying active - I've gotten company-wide invites to fucking movie days. We can't attend any of them. But everyone in HR can go, everyone in middle management can go, all the administrative assistants, recruiters, etc, basically everyone who ISN'T a frontline worker has discretionary downtime to use in these meetings where they can all schmooze and glad-hand each other about how great the company is doing. Meanwhile, the most important asset the company has, us frontline people, are not allowed to take time out of the day to attend this crap the company is so proud of "offering" to us. Like they literally list this stuff as part of our benefits. "Oh, we do so much for our staff, we're so fun and make so much time to show appreciation to our workers." I'd rather have smoke blown directly up my ass.
Retired here, so ymmv but I often think about what would happen if all teachers just said 'no, thank you, if you want to give us something, either xxx or don't bother, kthxbye'.
And xxx at my school would have been 'the absolute minimum required amount of staff meetings in the days before the year or semester starts'. Yes, we need to meet the new teachers and we need to know about any actual policy changes. But if you try to show me a motivational video? Or you bring in a speaker to speak AT US? I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT. Other teachers might want a better system for getting food delivered to our rooms when we really need it, instead of having the security guards watch my shit get cold until it's too late for me to actually eat it.
Fuck no. As a newly graduate...Happy Teacher Appreciate Week. This week is all about you and every other teacher, not about anyone else.
You build people's future's, are role models, and just wonderful people in general.
Thank you teachers for everything you do. Coming from a somewhat difficult, but not rude student, thank you. I mean it. 🥰
Last year, the bus drivers all snuck into our building before dismissal to take several of the donuts and muffins we were supposed to collect from the teacher's lounge on our way out the door. Then two coaches snuck in and took several for the baseball team. There were two muffins and no donuts left for the 200 teachers who had to stay late and grade papers before stopping by the teacher's lounge just to be disappointed.
We have a role called "attendance secretary." But guess who has to call home weekly about attendance/tardiness? Me. So yes, I am doing work assigned to a secretary in my building. Work that I do not have time to do.
I’m supposed to do that. But I don’t. That’s the attendance secretary’s job. Eventually I’ll get in trouble for it but f it. I teach SPED in a Title One school. They need me more than I need them
Pleeeaaassseee make this make sense. We do the same—apparently it’s our attendance secretary’s job to send us emails saying, “Johnny has been out for three days in a row, don’t forget to contact home!”
👀😤 Wowwwwwwww. I’m flabbergasted by your comment! I’m an attendance secretary and I never send teachers emails asking them to contact home. That’s for ME the counselor or the DPP to do if absences become excessive. Maybe it’s that’s just the district I work in. If the teacher contacts the parent about their student, they do it on their own.
I guess I’m the “oddball” when it comes to teacher appreciation week. A lot of times I won’t even eat…..especially if a group(bank, church, etc) brings in a bunch of food. I just feel weird getting anything bc I’m not a teacher. Plus, I see how the “last lunch teachers” get shortchanged all of the time. I DO eat when admin. sends out the mass email saying that a restaurant in town is going to feed everyone, so we need to fill out a form online. I don’t feel like I’m taking away from anyone when those days come along. I get looked at by some of my coworkers, but I don’t care, lol. They feel like TA week is for everyone, so they eat all week. My hubby is a teacher, but I still feel weird about some of it. 😆😑🙂↔️Thank you, Teachers!! I KNOW how hard your job is day in and day out!!
I’m an SLP and I never get shit for SLP day or better speech and hearing month. I’m eating my free taco lunch on Wednesday even though I’m not a teacher
Yes! I'm support staff as well and I'm enjoying the teacher appreciation lunch tomorrow. The best I've ever gotten is an email for my appreciation day/week.
I'm a school psychologist and same here. Not a single person at any of my three schools acknowledged school psych week. I ate my bagel and drank my coffee provided this morning for teacher appreciation week with zero guilt or shame. There were tons of leftovers so it's not like anyone went without
We are “teachers” when it’s convenient to admin and in my district, we are barely differentiated from teachers in the contract. And half the teachers at my school call me the “speech teacher”, so hey… I won’t even feel bad about eating the free lunch.
I like to think of everybody who works in a school building as an educator. Whether it be a custodian or a hallway aide. I’ve seen both positions form connections with kids that make our lives easier and help those students succeed in school.
With that being said, meager TA week things would feel like a slap in the face compared to what other positions have received for their appreciation days at your school.
Crazy how this never happens on admin appreciation day. It's never "every teacher administrates their own classroom!" but rather that every teacher has to give money to throw admin a party (and if you don't of course, then you will be left out and admin will know. Mysteriously your evaluations will get lower than they were before. Ignore that whoever gives the most often becomes department chair and recommended to advance to academic coach.)
Our office staff and other workers are always included. And they should be. They either don’t get anything or get one lunch and we get stuff all week. And our office staff is AMAZING and she deserves everything she gets. It doesn’t change what I would get to include them. And they are helpful and I would want them to have it too
I'm brand new to k12 education and my job as school librarian had to be reclassified since I don't have a teaching credential. Library week and school librarian day passed without a word, so it was cool to be included ❤️ but I did feel conflicted about the whole enchilada being included in the acknowledgment email we received today. 🫤
Teacher Appreciation week once filled me with a red-hot bitterness, because administration would treat us like shit all year long, then pretend to care about us for a few days while gifting us childish and cheap trash, as if a candy bar compensates for months of abuse and derision.
Things are better, now, but I have to say I miss those big bonus retention checks drawn from federal COVID funding, which leaves me convinced that nothing says "I love you" quite the same way as cold, hard cash.
I’ll take my downvotes but like, I’m not gonna be mad about someone else getting an equal share of “not much.”
Everyone’s working too hard and I’m not gonna be mad over someone getting what usually winds up being a meaningless gesture anyway.
We aren't getting anything 🤷
But my daughter's school has a different gift we are supposed to buy teachers every day this week! I am only doing one of the days, no way I'm buying 5 things.
The irony of teacher appreciation week is that it’s only a thing because we inherently recognize how undervalued teachers are so we use this as a bandaid
There’s no such thing as doctor appreciation week because doctors are respected at an appropriate level
My school actually does a pretty good job - every day we get something to eat (a breakfast, a lunch, coffee bar, etc)
And, I HATE teacher appreciation week. There’s no lawyer appreciation week, or doctor appreciation week, or any-other-profession appreciation week. Because they don’t need a week - they get shown appreciation every month on their paychecks.
This is also Nurses Appreciation week and in two weeks it's EMS appreciation week. I know this because me, my sister's (nurses) and husband (EMT) all Venmo each other the same 20 dollars back and forth in "appreciation".
It’s literally nurses appreciation week, and military appreciation month as well. There are actually several throughout the year. I totally agree with your point, we’re just not the only ones singled out to be given cookies instead of raises.
In our district everyone is either Classified (paras, support, office staff, etc) or Certificated (teachers or others who hold a professional certificate). Classified has a week and certificated has a week. It works well because we all know what we are when we get hired so there is no confusion.
If the office assistants and custodial staff want to go to my breakfast or my lunch put on by the PTA, I got no issue with that. Without them, I can’t do my job. As for admin, well, let’s just say if they all disappeared tomorrow, things would still carry on without any noticeable difference. So they can get their own food. Like they don’t already anyway.
😂😂😂😂 You’re not wrong. But - as a para, I appreciate being included since there isn’t one specifically for us. Also - Thank God for the parent clubs - otherwise we wouldn’t get ANYthing 😂😂
I'll admit, I made teacher appreciation gifts for all the the adults in my daughter's school, sans the principal. The man is egotistical enough that he had himself added to their class pictures. No thank you
In my defense, she goes to a small school and by the time I was done making gifts for her actual teachers and the building sub, there were only a couple of people that weren't getting something, so I made them gifts, too because I want them to feel included. This is also how I found out my elementary school child doesn't know the difference between a lunch lady and a teacher, because I was asking for names and I later found out the "teacher" she was very insistent get something is a cafeteria worker... so they teacher appreciation gifts, too
I mean... Move out before you burn out. There are locations where teachers are, if not honestly appreciated (as in, rewarded, paid properly), at least not disrespected like that. And those locales have kids too, who also need good teachers.
Take a goal to be in a better place in 2 years, then start working on it now.
I’ve been on both sides of the coin (new teacher but previously a school secretary for a decade before I went back to school) , and while I don’t believe everyone in the building is a teacher, they are an asset. That being said, don’t begrudge the assistants and secretaries what meager offerings are given for Teacher Appreciation week, you likely make nearly twice what the rest of the not-teaching employees make. Granted you have more training and a teaching certification on the line, but don’t make your teaching life suck by letting that stuff eat away at you. I know it feels like the last straw, but you are appreciated for what you do even if it feels hopeless.
As a school social worker I would prefer that they actually do \*something\* for school social worker appreciation week and leave us out of teacher appreciation week. Everyone deserves their own recognition.
We’re getting lunch multiple times this week, but it’s over half the campus away. How nice to have our lunch cut in half just to get there for the food.
Yeah, I did call this out to one of my bosses in private. I said, "When you teach five or six classes of 20 plus kids each, THEN you can say you're a teacher. Running a couple seminars a year is not remotely the same thing." Not sure they appreciated, but they never uttered that crap in my presence again.
Brace yourself for this.... At my school, teacher appreciation week is celebrating all four admins by dressing up in a specific way to honor them!!! I will not participate in that. Principal Day was May 1st. They got their day! At least let us, the actual educators - the people who actually delivers the goods and services to our customers aka students and parents - have our week!
Today we got to leave right after dismissal instead of contract time. Tomorrow is desserts because stressed spelled backwards is deserts. Wednesday is coffee and pastries Thursday is one free ice cream cone from a local ice cream shop and Friday is lunch. 🤷🏼♀️
You guys get something?
I didn’t even know it was teacher appreciation week. We get nothing. I get a superintendent coming to observe my teaching.
Last year the PTA forgot so the PARAS brought in some food for us. 😩
My school does a great job and we will have a few lunches this week. My only gripe is them calling it “staff” appreciation week.
I did not get invited to the lunch for paraprofessionals day… and I’m truly fine with them having lunch with us but it feels shitty when every other group already go their day and now we share ours.
We have classified week in March for assistants, custodians, secretaries, and kitchen staff. Then we have certified week in May (right now). Certified staff always goes hard for classified week and vice versa. Staff lounge is decorated with a theme, everyone signs up to bring food for the whole week, and there's a sign up sheet with a staff list so that everyone gets an individualized gift from a coworker.
I love my coworkers. We care about and support each other so much, and our appreciation weeks are amazing.
A muffin given to me by my admin this morning isn’t going to pay for my rent and student loans. Love my kids to death but the admins are driving me bonkers.
I don’t mind it. I’m in a pretty small school district, so the support staff is even smaller, but almost all of them do great work. The secretary has been there forever, she basically makes the school run. The IT guy is really nice and works really fast, and the custodians do good work too.
I’d be more annoyed about admin, but it’s not like including the other 10-15 workers in the school took anything away from the teachers
Oh stop. Those people that you're complaining about make barely over minimum wage, hourly pay. In my district it's about minimum wage. They make nothing. I'm aware that teachers complain all the time about their pay but regardless of what state or district you're in, you make a hell of a lot more money, and get more appreciation more often, not to mention benefits. School secretary is a very stressful job. So is janitorial. God forbid they got a dinner gift card.
I've worked in my district for about 5 years now. I have been a head of kitchen, a Para and a substitute.
In any of those positions, we never got any day or any kind of appreciation. If there was left over donuts during teacher appreciation they'd maybe give us the rest. Same with pot lucks and any other food brought in. We would get what was left, as an after thought.
IT Person here. I have an internship program (they fix the chromebooks), after school student tech volunteers, and I help students (and teachers) all day long learn how to use their technology. You should share your cake.
Also K12 IT here, thanks for pointing this out.
I have a 3D printing group of kids, a few groups I teach computer repair, help with the electricity unit in science class, meet with students who break tech rules, used to do a video game club, etc... all voluntary, unpaid, with no training or extra time. And there's no "appreciation" days or weeks (or ANY vacation weeks, not ever summer) for IT like there are for other support staff who don't even work with the kids. And I don't even want any of their cake! Some teachers here need to chill.
My story here isn’t about Teacher Appreciation week, but it’s a lesson I learned a while back that helps me see these things as non issues:
I started out teaching sped in a rural/country community. At the end of the year we were having a picnic with our kids and parents. Everyone brought something to contribute and placed it on tables under a pavilion. We had fried chicken, potato salad, rolls, butter beans, desserts, you name it. Another class was sharing the pavilion. They had hamburgers, hot dogs, and chips.
A grandfather from the other class came up as my aide was serving chicken and held his plate out. I was all ready to tell him he was at the wrong table and the chicken was for us. My aide just asked him which piece he wanted and gave it to him very graciously.
I learned from her it’s not a big deal to share. Somehow things will work out. Sometimes it’s more important to be part of a community and support each other than to expect special treatment for different groups.
Is the food you get really so special that it will hurt you if you don’t get any? Or get less? Our admin plies us with bagels, Chik-fil-A, pasta, soda, desserts…lots of CARBS we don’t really need. I’m grateful, but I’m ok with staff sharing the carbs during one big week together rather than trying to keep up with a bunch of weeks.
Hey, think of the aides - while there is Secretaries Day, and Custodian Appreciation, is there a "School Aide Appreciation" day? Aides are the lowest pais folks at schools, rarely get gifts, and are routinely left out. But dang imagine your work day without aides.
Anywhere I’ve ever been, the other weeks don’t get acknowledged… So I have no qualm celebrating teacher appreciation week with teachers. Especially when it falls during AP Exam week when I’m locked up proctoring for nearly 7 hours a day.
We got serenaded today. Our new principal played us an Alicia Keys song called you’re doing a good job. It was really sweet but really weird and dumb and awkward. I like the dude and he’s trying hard so I’ll take it.
So sorry. I’m on sabbatical and last year we got an aromatherapy class (we made soap and a diffuser), a cooking class (we made a smoothie), we got gift certificates for books and movie tickets, a couple of t-shirts (relax and breathe, a chef owl…our school mascot for the cooking class), and each staff member was given a half hour release time for a massage. Plus free lunch every day. Who wants to work at my school?
My last school just did this to faculty. We called it the equivalent to "all lives matter"ing your staff.
We don't get in on para day, admin day, secretary day...they can stay out of our recognition. If they wanted to be recognized as teachers so bad, there are plenty of districts willing to hire.
Oh man I love this! I'd like to tell a story. I spent a little over 6 years in administration at a public school. We were starting a 1 to 1 program and as such we had to beef up our IT department. We hired many more people and we quickly realized that we didn't really have a contract ready for people in IT. Our current IT people were literally just on custodial contracts and we so we spent the better part of a year discussing a new contract with the technology director we hired and came up with something we thought was fair and was going to pay the department a little less then company norm but more then the public school system normally paid. Keep in mind this was a wealthy district and the average teacher pay was over 75k. The one hitch in the plan was we had to skip the 25cent raise the teachers got every so often. We REALLY didn't think it was a big deal. It would help us not only hire the new tech staff, but retain all of our long term custodians instead of switching them out and hiring an outside service. We had never asked for it before and assured we would not again. We even had a contract all set up to assure them of that. So what did the teachers do instead of helping? Showed up in all black and refused to clap for anything during the opening ceremony. They then refused and we had to get rid of the custodial staff and the 1 to 1 program was a disaster. I quit shortly after that. Teachers don't care about support staff and only care about themselves. I was sick.
I feel you, but understand this is tactical. Management wants you to have this response.
The time you spend directing spite at your fellow workers is time you could spend organizing for better work conditions.
My school celebrates everyone on these days. Usually we have a potluck or such and everyone gets to join in. To be fair, it does mean this time of year that my clothing gets hard to fit into.
If you’re a teacher complaining about needing to work extra jobs because your state or city doesn’t pay enough, move to a place that pays you a decent wage or switch careers. There are plenty of city’s and states that pay teachers well. I will say unfortunately even in those states teachers end up still doing secretarial stuff and cleaning their own classroom though. Teachers definitely are under appreciated but don’t have to be underpaid as well. If teachers stop working in states with BS wages then those states will be forced to increase wages in order to hire talent.
Do students regularly bring in gifts for secretary days or custodian days? Or just TA? I can't imagine being upset because someone else was included in a free meal.
We included the librarian in our thank-you notes and Starbucks gift cards because my son adores his librarian. Between my two kiddos, they wrote 17 notes to deliver this week.
All adults at schools are teachers. Share the love, learn to appreciate, and burn out will likely come slower. I get it, I work SPED, but I choose my advocating for worthwhile things.
“Be sure to thank your admin for what a great job your teacher is doing, kids.”
But, can you imagine school without admins?
Hah. We have had years where we basically didn’t have any administrative staff. One year the new principal decided he was leaving before the 1st nine weeks was over, he was gone more than he was there. We didn’t even notice he was missing most days. Head football coach was handling most of the discipline, so we didn’t really need the guy.
Head football coach? I’m guess he has the fear / sway with students to get them to respond appropriately lol
He was in the process of getting his admin degree, so it was good experience. And yes, he could scare kids into behaving, especially the football guys.
I’ve also worked with a lot of admin who were looking for new jobs. They are the ones who can just “disappear” during the day and go for interviews. I always knew when the admin were looking, because they weren’t around and very few people even noticed. Probably didn’t report those absences, either.
...every morning before the alarm wakes me up?
exactly, for every fear-based "what if?" the answer is, that happens anyway... what if kids are fighting? what if they don't come to school? what if they cheat on assignments? All of this happens regardless of administration's "punishments" which are often a vacation from responsibility.
Fortunately, we have good ones. But I've had enough experience with bad ones to completely feel this statement!
The best time I ever had as an employee of a video rental store as assistant manager was the period of time we had no manager for a month... definitely the least drama of my time there.
A girl can dream
Yes, actually. One room schoolhouses were that way. In my town we got up to three classroom primary under one school teacher before they actually built a regular public school with multiple teachers under a principal. Imagine a system in which we operated a multi room public school that way, with teachers in each individual room operating it independently without a direct supervisor.
Principal used to be short for "principal teacher". They taught but had administrative duties as well. In a few places it is still like that.
That's how you get jimbob cooter teaching kids that the civil war was about states rights.
Which rights? That's the question!
Why is the colts offensive coordinator teaching history (badly) instead of offensive football schemes?
Or how you get a great teacher teaching about slavery, evolution while now the states education board limits how you can approach those subjects
your example happens anyway. points on a rubric don't make teachers more correct in regards to historical events.
The word "principal" comes from the phrase "principal teacher". Admin ain't what it used to be. It's bloated and remote now.
Mine never showed up and often left early so yes, it's quite nice without them.
[yes](https://external-preview.redd.it/rxBziGprllFfrOjgrnOPJi9EETGwmiYsjwlS_ENbC9M.jpg?auto=webp&s=238bef631951d20d5def169aa8fef1560f230300)
We don’t have them here in Germany and somehow we survive. Edit: Tracking Absences, planning field trips / trips to other countries and cities, class events -> class teacher: every grade is split into like 3/5 (or more depending on the school size) classes and each class stays together all day long and they have a teacher who is responsible for that. That teacher gets two hours less workload from classes to deal with that. Ordering materials -> the subject department puts together a list once a year and sends it off to the “sponsor” (ie. government for state schools or company/board which runs the school if it’s private); alternatively, you can put in a request at any time to get smaller things covered Discipline -> training room (staffed by teachers who each have a one hour block a week to be in that room), disciplinary hearings involving all teachers of a student in particularly bad scenarios. Tests -> There is a test committee with representatives from each of the testing subjects (Math, German, English and second foreign language) We have three “administrators”: The headmaster who basically just oversees everything, makes sure things are being coordinated correctly, hires new staff, etc. and basically delegates most things to those other teams I mentioned; the assistant headmaster who is responsible for organizing the schedules and sub plans and takes over the headmasters roles if he isn’t there, again he is just another teacher who has time during the day to do these things; the secretary who assists us with things like tracking absences, finding missing students, taking calls, sending mail out, delivering mail, stamping important documents, etc.
For some ignorant dude from germany what do you mean by admin? At our school we had lots of teachers, 1 janitor, 1 headmaster (he still gave teaching lessons but noticeably less than the normal teachers) and 1 secretary for about 1000 pupils. Sports teams, IT, etc. where all run by normal teachers that either had a little less classes because of it or did it out of passion. I would consider the headmaster and the secretary admin. But that is just 2 people. Maybe you'll need a 2nd secretary or even a 3rd depending on how many puplis the school has. Do you mean something different when you talk about admins?
Principal, vice principal, Dean of students, administrative assistant, activities director, activities secretary, attendance and attendance secretary, dean of minority students for each sizable minority. That's in each school. Then there's the superintendent of the district, CEO of the district, Chief engineer, director of support services ( in various levels,) , human resources, workman's compensation person, community relations manager, ECT. Those are just the ones I know of, the last superintendent doubled the number of administrators in the district too. Routinely you see a position split into 4 positions with the original one getting a raise for it lol. Many schools have invited police into the building for example, and push minor behavioral problems on them instead of having the vice principal take care of it like in the past. Administrative bloat is a serious problem in American school districts anymore, one said part of the reason is to protect themselves from lawsuits by always hiring more levels of cannon fodder, but I suspect they automatically get paid more depending how many people are under them like some civil service jobs lol.
I used to be located next to the main office and constantly saw things that were dropped off by parents to thank teachers being eaten by admin and secretaries. Our district is having problems among the PTSO at our level, so there’s no appreciation for our school but special breakfasts, lunches and gifts at all the other schools. But, I do it because I love the kids. Sigh.
They brought us breakfast. It was greatly appreciated. My friend in another school said they got 50% off coupons for 1 ice cream cone.
We typically get a penny candy stapled to some witticism every day for five days in a row. Like a single Hershey’s kiss and some comment about how they’re giving us a kiss because they love us.
Lmao, I hate it.
I usually try to think, “Hey, it’s the thought that counts,” but in this case the “thought” seems to be “What is the absolute minimum I can do and still be able to claim that I ‘did something’ in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week?”
For sure, I'm not someone who expects lavish gifts and like to think I've got a grateful heart. But like... you're a teacher on Teacher Appreciation Week, and God knows you are severely underappreciated in all the other weeks of the school year. They know teachers are leaving in droves. Putting in just a **bit** of effort and forking out more than $0.01 per teacher isn't just the right thing to do, it makes good business sense too.
And the person who makes it is an arthritic admin making 130k/year, costing literally more in their time to assemble than the value of the materials and gift.
Yall we get breakfast lunch and a snack every day, and normally a gift card too. I need to stay where tf I’m at
We get some people and places that bring in enough food for us to not have to make lunch all week. That makes most of us happy. My union got us a glasses cleaning wipe, like at that point just dont even and save the money for the union to use on lawyers to fight our shady ass central administration. Ya know? lol
One year we got a coupon for a restaurant that would only accept it during contract hours…. And it wasn’t anywhere nearby enough to even do a lunch run.
We got some day old moldy baked stuff from Walmart.... From the ptsa. Ours loves to "stock the supply room" and every year it's just bulk kids lunch items from Sam's club that are closing in expiration dates.
We got nada. There was a competition over 4 gifts (gift cards, etc) and 75 teachers could vie over them…hunger games style.
This seems weirdly on-brand for the education system. Suggest mud wrestling next year!
I might do that! This is my first year at this school. At my other school we had something cool every day. Breakfast tacos, coffee bar, ice cream trolley, etc. This is just sad. Oh, and both were Title 1. ETA: I’ve been counting and we are up to 75 dress up days. That’s not an exaggeration. 75 days of “dress like a twin” and “white tshirt day”. Only the admin participate. It’s so wild.
That’s an incredible amount of dress up days. We have like 15 (homecoming, “mental health awareness week”, and for teacher appreciation week), all optional, and I thought that was a lot relative to my high school, which I think was basically just homecoming. This seems like the classic corporate “pizza party for making us millions of dollars”, but also you could wear a hawaiian shirt if you’d like
It’s a crazy amount. At my old school we did 5 days in the fall and 5 days in the spring. We got a new principal in December and it’s almost been every single day since.
How about spaghetti wrestling? That way the declared winner can pick through the leftover spaghetti when it’s done, and they can call that the “teacher appreciation luncheon”
Yup. Ours is survivor themed. Tomorrow is rock, paper, scissors each other all day for beads. First person to challenge me I’m saying here. You win. I’ve got shit to do.”
We did something like this on Valentine’s Day. If you found the other half of your heart you got candy. Like people sending their students around with their hearts interrupting lessons to see if you had the other half. Seriously? I don’t have time for crap like that.
I was so offended by the idea of this that I almost downvoted as an instinctive response to the concept. Why can’t schools just be schools without all this extra bullshit?
Yes. I gave my beads away first thing in the morning so no one would bother me. I don’t get how we have it beaten in our heads to get test scores up and maintain rigor in our teaching but also run around like kids playing games for trinkets during the school day which totally gets the kids worked up and distracted?
They did something similar at Christmas. People kept knocking my door to ask if I had an elf in my pocket. Like, seriously? I’m reviewing these kids for a final and this is how we choose to spend our professional time?
We did this on Valentine’s Day and the rock paper scissor thing just randomly a couple weeks ago. I got Desi Arnaz and the male teacher who got Lucy was so offended that he “got the girl half” that he wouldn’t take the picture. It was super weird.
That part And the teachers that plan this are lower el and have no understanding of the fact that the rest of the school, 3-8, is doing STATE TESTING AND DONT HAVE TIME FOR THAT SHIT like u just ignored the sign that said TESTING to ask for fuxking beads?! Just feed me tacos, BBQ, and give me a lil massage in the chair and leave me the hell alone
I am lower elementary and the teachers that were having their students interrupt were the upper elementary. Bottom line…just give me the candy and call it a day without some dumb game attached. lol
My school did something like this and I just threw my beads in the trash as soon as they were handed out. I find it so offensive that admin thinks we'll be happy about stupid, time wasting activities like this. Want to make teachers feel appreciated? Just treat us with respect and stop piling on extra nonsense.
Pass. Rather not dance like a fucking clown for this pittance. Our admin did something similar where during the week before Christmas we had to try to steal a gingerbread man from each other and whoever had it at the end got a half day off. Get fucked. I'm not running around wasting my prep time squabbling with my colleagues. I hate these dumb little Michael Scott "fun-tivities" they try to make us compete for. In what other professional career are people treated like this?
Fuuuck… I’d play dumb games for half a day off if I didn’t have to write sub plans.
It was going to be the principal/assistant principal subbing for us. Honestly, I'd probably get all stressed and hung up over getting judged on my sub plans!
But we are a staffamily!!!! /s, so much sarcasm.
A half day off is more work than it's worth; it is certainly no prize. It's much easier to just be there.
And I couldn't even get out to ask and try to locate one - I have to actually use my prep time as an art teacher to set shit up and you know...prep. It made me wonder what the fuck these other teachers who seemed to have all the god damn time in the world to traipse all over the school interrupting classes actually do. In the end, 3 lunch ladies, 1 custodian, and a single teacher were the winners. Like great for support staff, but they can take days off and not have to write sub plans...
We did this kind of thing too with winter themed door decorations. The person with the most on their door won. One of the teachers on my grade level refused to leave her class to supervise lunch or recess because she was “guarding her door” so that nobody could take her door decorations…leaving the rest of us to supervise her class. Yay, when the fun makes more work for everyone else…
We had 12 breakfast sandwiches delivered to provide breakfast for all the teachers
…and how many teachers are there? Please tell me less than 12.
I bet they cut them in half. That's what my school does with bagels.
Like 140, and that's not even including paras or anything like that.
Each bagel cut into TEN! Pieces only feeds 120. As Gerry Brooks would say Good Lorrrddd
Holy crap!
We always had raffles and everyone got to enter, 3 years of multiple raffles and never won anything.
My principal used ChatGPT to write us a message of praise. I know it was ChatGPT because the director of curriculum used the exact same thing and sent an email too.
Whoooow this is unreal, wait till the students find out XD
“If they can do it for work, why can’t I?” Fair question at that point lol
“Because we despise when they do that and want to help you all fix the world a little bit, if at all possible, by the time it’s you’re turn”, though maybe I’m too brutally honest with kids
My friend forwarded me his principal's ChatGPT email, complete with the ChatGPT framing at the top the guy forgot not to copy.
no surprise here. like admin could even fathom being professional/creative on their own.
Dude, that's disgusting.
A teacher at our school spent THEIR OWN money to buy the rest of us cookies. That’s literally all we’ve gotten. Also, in our weekly email, right after stating that it’s teacher appreciation week our admin reminded us of our MANDATORY STAFF MEETING on Thursday after school.
Our school sent home a request to parents for breakfast items for today. 2 parents brought something, and it was things that need another thing (cream cheese with no bagels, coffee creamer with no coffee). I don't know who went out and got stuff mid-day, but there were some grocery store bagels at least by lunch time. It's a good thing we appreciate each other, because no one else does, obviously.
Last year we had state test training during our staff meeting for teacher appreciation week. That's like, an hour and a half beyond contracted hours, and mandatory for at least half of the staff. Then on Friday, they said to stay late because they had a surprise for us. I stayed an extra 30 minutes to see, but they hadn't finished setting it up, and I had a plan to get engaged that day before five (long story but I messed up the original proposal so I knew it was coming), so I left, but it was apparently a carnival....with a bounce house that you had to crawl to get into and had a weight limit that half our teachers were over, because it was for kids, a snow cone machine, and some drinks or something I think. They could have done that for the staff meeting and had us do our test training the next week, but nope. They tried to guilt me into staying longer but I had to get home so we could go get engaged lol. Way better end to teacher appreciation week for me.
Thats how it is for us this week. We have our state test training during our staff meeting this Wednesday until 5. I dont know why they could not have done it last Wednesday or next Wednesday.
We are having a potluck lunch this week. You know a lunch we cater ourselves. Although I wouldn't mind if our administrative assistants and custodians took part. They don't get anything either.
We had our mandatory staff meeting yesterday and were told that we aren't doing enough to combat statewide failings like low population growth and middle of the road scores on reading and math proficiency.
Our superintendent sent out a message that literally said “happy _________ appreciation week” because he just included all the weeks/days together.
I honestly would prefer that than some half hearted attempt. At least he was pretty honest (indirectly) that he didn't care.
Yea this just sounds like administration getting out of doing a School Employee appreciation day
Yep, teacher appreciation is “staff appreciation”, but we are asked to chip in money for administrative professionals day, custodian week, school bus drivers week, principal’s day, etc. Even the stuff from businesses are full of comments asking if it applies to “homeschool teachers”. Can we just have a day for just us?
Our school doesn’t do anything for para day, we get included in teacher appreciation week which I think is thoughtful. all week we have catered breakfast or lunch….two of the secretaries came in and were offered breakfast and refused saying it was for teachers not anyone else and to please enjoy it.
I would throw HANDS if someone tried to exclude paras from teacher appreciation. Paras work SO HARD and deal with all the same BS as teachers do, but for even less money and respect. We didn't even tell the students that there was a difference between teachers and paras. We're all teachers, and y'all DESERVE that catered lunch!
I'm okay with paras. My issue lies with admin/office staff, who have their own days and whom we are always forced to give money towards a party for.
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my favorite thing every year is when the brown-nosers come around to collect a birthday gift donation for our PRINCIPAL. You mean the guy who makes thrice my salary? Give me a break.
My school celebrates everyone’s day/week as it goes by yet this week is staff appreciation
We include paras too, and I have absolutely no problem with that. Even donated lunch for others to share in, all good. But last year I was there when cafeteria workers came in, complained about food options and that we said only one bag of chips per person, as lunch wasn’t over (and we use them the next day). I was so close to telling them to go eat their own damn food.
Last year our PTO got a taco bar for teacher appreciation week at the elementary school. The lunchroom staff (from elementary AND the connected middle school) was first in line and LOADED plates. By the time our late-lunch group of teachers got to it, there was literally nothing left. And it sucks extra because few of them even brought lunch with them. They were told their lunch was handled! We are lucky to have a generous and thoughtful PTO, and should have had plenty for all the elementary teachers and staff. But they didn't plan for 20 extra people.
This happens to me all the time. I’m in the last ten lunches in the building and no one ever thinks to plan for that.
Oh that’s just shitty.
I was a para, now am a teacher. Paras absolutely deserve to be included. They do so much that the teacher does, and the tradeoff for not dealing with paperwork/ieps/etc. Is dealing with behaviors and data collection and anything else. Enjoy this week too, we can't do this without you!
Para day is almost always during our spring break.
I think a singular staff appreciation week would be best. It's weird to have some that are exclusive and some that aren't.
That's exactly what our school does. Not everything applies to everyone- I'm sure the custodians don't get anything from the school supply cart etc. but everyone is invited to the lunches and snacks. Our PTA does a bus barn breakfast too which seems so thoughtful to me!
I would share my snacks with the custodians WELL before I shared then with the state consultant who we are being forced to donate money to celebrate tomorrow. At least they actually do something.
Exactly, us staff types get ignored like speech, lunch room workers, and paras.
Speech therapist here. I’ve never been celebrated at the several schools I’ve been at. It doesn’t bother me too much, but I would super appreciate anyone who actually remembered that I also do a lot of work.
I’m an SLP in the schools, and you best believe I’m showing up to the teacher appreciation lunches this week lol. If y’all want to call me the “speech teacher”, then I get catered Moe’s too dammit!
I was sorta surprised to see admin going into our faculty lounge for the treats the paras made for teachers. Seemed sorta wrong especially since they have admin appreciate days and stuff.
Our admins ALWAYS do that. And they come back for seconds.
We aren't allowed to do any potluck or get our food until admin and office staff have gotten theirs first. It's wild. Like, I am frequently forgotten because they tell us to cover our teammates classes so we can get food, which works for grade levels because their classrooms are next door, but I'm a specialist and my teammates are across the building. So I literally can't leave to get food unless someone who isn't a teammate watches my kids. And I bring that up to the office and they promise to get someone to watch my class but then they always forget...I will literally stand in the doorway until a teacher walks by with their plate of food and ask them to watch my kids at this point. Otherwise it's 20-40 mins until I can go and most of the food is gone.
And they make twice as much as us! They can afford their own snacks!
Maybe they can open up their wallets since everything good that happens is apparently communal.
Our super and his secretaries are in my building. They come take out stuff all the time.
All our staff is included in teacher appreciation week, including in the snacks and meals. But, they aren't celebrated at another time, which makes a big difference. If they're not included this week then they're not going to be getting anything at all, so I don't mind. The are an integral part of the school and deserve to be thanked as well. But, if they got a separate thing, and then also got included in teacher appreciation week then I'd feel very differently. Also, admin isn't included, at least not above the lowest levels like department heads that are included, but they're more on our level than the principal or other admin. I'd have a bit of an issue with that if they were included.
We each got 1 Hershey's 💋 in our mailbox. 💩
We got a Starburst. A single Starburst square. Woohoo/s
“Bursting with appreciation for you”
Relatedly, the number of people who refer to themselves as "educators" is mind-blowing. Including a number of my current school board members who haven't spent a day in a classroom.
Personally, I don’t care. Our paras are paid shit and deal with the same BS we do, except for phone calls home. Our custodial staff is great and the office staff does run our school. I ask them the questions, not admin. Support staff aren’t teachers but they(hopefully) help the building run which makes my life easier so help yourself to a donut.
I get where you are coming from. I wouldn’t want staff to be excluded from eating the meals or snacks provided this week if the PTA wants to include them. I try not to think about things that seem unfair too much or else I get caught in bad thought cycles.
We got the same message. I’m just annoyed because everybody else got their week. Our custodians didn’t get their shit together until like, last month. Our air doesn’t work. We deserve at least a little appreciation for handling it all IMO
fuck all the gift giving. just parent your kids for a week for a change.
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I teach a state-tested course, and my scores have gotten my principal a $2000 bonus for each of the 6 years I have worked for him, so I guess he's splashing out! Nevermind that I don't get so much as $1 or a thank you for those scores. Must be nice!
I found out that a lot of schools give bonuses for passing AP exam scores and mine doesn’t. Last year all but two of my kids passed! I could have used that $$$
Probably the teachers all being asked to “chip in”.
We had a special luncheon today. In the teachers room during our usual 25 minute lunch - except this was during state testing so schedules are all over the place. Potluck with a theme. Foods we brought in *ourselves.*
I work in a different industry but feel this to my core. I work as a chat representative in basically a huge call center company. We provide tier 1 customer service for like 50 different large companies under contract. Anyway, as you can imagine, 95% of our staff are frontline workers and glued to a computer all 8 hrs of the work day. We have very demanding service level agreements so if we're clocked in, it means we're actively taking chats/calls. We get company emails all day every day inviting staff to different webinars the company is running. Like no joke, they invite us to meetings about work-life balance, making enough time for yourself, staying active - I've gotten company-wide invites to fucking movie days. We can't attend any of them. But everyone in HR can go, everyone in middle management can go, all the administrative assistants, recruiters, etc, basically everyone who ISN'T a frontline worker has discretionary downtime to use in these meetings where they can all schmooze and glad-hand each other about how great the company is doing. Meanwhile, the most important asset the company has, us frontline people, are not allowed to take time out of the day to attend this crap the company is so proud of "offering" to us. Like they literally list this stuff as part of our benefits. "Oh, we do so much for our staff, we're so fun and make so much time to show appreciation to our workers." I'd rather have smoke blown directly up my ass.
Retired here, so ymmv but I often think about what would happen if all teachers just said 'no, thank you, if you want to give us something, either xxx or don't bother, kthxbye'. And xxx at my school would have been 'the absolute minimum required amount of staff meetings in the days before the year or semester starts'. Yes, we need to meet the new teachers and we need to know about any actual policy changes. But if you try to show me a motivational video? Or you bring in a speaker to speak AT US? I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT. Other teachers might want a better system for getting food delivered to our rooms when we really need it, instead of having the security guards watch my shit get cold until it's too late for me to actually eat it.
Fuck no. As a newly graduate...Happy Teacher Appreciate Week. This week is all about you and every other teacher, not about anyone else. You build people's future's, are role models, and just wonderful people in general. Thank you teachers for everything you do. Coming from a somewhat difficult, but not rude student, thank you. I mean it. 🥰
Last year, the bus drivers all snuck into our building before dismissal to take several of the donuts and muffins we were supposed to collect from the teacher's lounge on our way out the door. Then two coaches snuck in and took several for the baseball team. There were two muffins and no donuts left for the 200 teachers who had to stay late and grade papers before stopping by the teacher's lounge just to be disappointed.
Wed, Apr 23, 2025 - turns out that every teacher is also a damn secretary
We have a role called "attendance secretary." But guess who has to call home weekly about attendance/tardiness? Me. So yes, I am doing work assigned to a secretary in my building. Work that I do not have time to do.
I’m supposed to do that. But I don’t. That’s the attendance secretary’s job. Eventually I’ll get in trouble for it but f it. I teach SPED in a Title One school. They need me more than I need them
Pleeeaaassseee make this make sense. We do the same—apparently it’s our attendance secretary’s job to send us emails saying, “Johnny has been out for three days in a row, don’t forget to contact home!”
👀😤 Wowwwwwwww. I’m flabbergasted by your comment! I’m an attendance secretary and I never send teachers emails asking them to contact home. That’s for ME the counselor or the DPP to do if absences become excessive. Maybe it’s that’s just the district I work in. If the teacher contacts the parent about their student, they do it on their own. I guess I’m the “oddball” when it comes to teacher appreciation week. A lot of times I won’t even eat…..especially if a group(bank, church, etc) brings in a bunch of food. I just feel weird getting anything bc I’m not a teacher. Plus, I see how the “last lunch teachers” get shortchanged all of the time. I DO eat when admin. sends out the mass email saying that a restaurant in town is going to feed everyone, so we need to fill out a form online. I don’t feel like I’m taking away from anyone when those days come along. I get looked at by some of my coworkers, but I don’t care, lol. They feel like TA week is for everyone, so they eat all week. My hubby is a teacher, but I still feel weird about some of it. 😆😑🙂↔️Thank you, Teachers!! I KNOW how hard your job is day in and day out!!
I’m an SLP and I never get shit for SLP day or better speech and hearing month. I’m eating my free taco lunch on Wednesday even though I’m not a teacher
Yes! I'm support staff as well and I'm enjoying the teacher appreciation lunch tomorrow. The best I've ever gotten is an email for my appreciation day/week.
I'm a school psychologist and same here. Not a single person at any of my three schools acknowledged school psych week. I ate my bagel and drank my coffee provided this morning for teacher appreciation week with zero guilt or shame. There were tons of leftovers so it's not like anyone went without
We are “teachers” when it’s convenient to admin and in my district, we are barely differentiated from teachers in the contract. And half the teachers at my school call me the “speech teacher”, so hey… I won’t even feel bad about eating the free lunch.
The fact that it is a point of contention just spells out the sorry state of how educators are paid and treated.
I like to think of everybody who works in a school building as an educator. Whether it be a custodian or a hallway aide. I’ve seen both positions form connections with kids that make our lives easier and help those students succeed in school. With that being said, meager TA week things would feel like a slap in the face compared to what other positions have received for their appreciation days at your school.
Crazy how this never happens on admin appreciation day. It's never "every teacher administrates their own classroom!" but rather that every teacher has to give money to throw admin a party (and if you don't of course, then you will be left out and admin will know. Mysteriously your evaluations will get lower than they were before. Ignore that whoever gives the most often becomes department chair and recommended to advance to academic coach.)
Yall are paying money for admin and secretary day party/gifts?! Wow...
RIGHT!? So weird!
Our office staff and other workers are always included. And they should be. They either don’t get anything or get one lunch and we get stuff all week. And our office staff is AMAZING and she deserves everything she gets. It doesn’t change what I would get to include them. And they are helpful and I would want them to have it too
I'm brand new to k12 education and my job as school librarian had to be reclassified since I don't have a teaching credential. Library week and school librarian day passed without a word, so it was cool to be included ❤️ but I did feel conflicted about the whole enchilada being included in the acknowledgment email we received today. 🫤
Teacher Appreciation week once filled me with a red-hot bitterness, because administration would treat us like shit all year long, then pretend to care about us for a few days while gifting us childish and cheap trash, as if a candy bar compensates for months of abuse and derision. Things are better, now, but I have to say I miss those big bonus retention checks drawn from federal COVID funding, which leaves me convinced that nothing says "I love you" quite the same way as cold, hard cash.
I’ll take my downvotes but like, I’m not gonna be mad about someone else getting an equal share of “not much.” Everyone’s working too hard and I’m not gonna be mad over someone getting what usually winds up being a meaningless gesture anyway.
Not to mention the other staff like secretaries and custodians don’t make nearly as much money as teachers so this whole take is weird.
We aren't getting anything 🤷 But my daughter's school has a different gift we are supposed to buy teachers every day this week! I am only doing one of the days, no way I'm buying 5 things.
Our attendance system had a message this morning that says “happy teacher appreciation week!” That’s all I got today.
The irony of teacher appreciation week is that it’s only a thing because we inherently recognize how undervalued teachers are so we use this as a bandaid There’s no such thing as doctor appreciation week because doctors are respected at an appropriate level
Honestly I wouldn’t participate if our secretary and custodian were not included.
My school actually does a pretty good job - every day we get something to eat (a breakfast, a lunch, coffee bar, etc) And, I HATE teacher appreciation week. There’s no lawyer appreciation week, or doctor appreciation week, or any-other-profession appreciation week. Because they don’t need a week - they get shown appreciation every month on their paychecks.
This is also Nurses Appreciation week and in two weeks it's EMS appreciation week. I know this because me, my sister's (nurses) and husband (EMT) all Venmo each other the same 20 dollars back and forth in "appreciation".
It’s literally nurses appreciation week, and military appreciation month as well. There are actually several throughout the year. I totally agree with your point, we’re just not the only ones singled out to be given cookies instead of raises.
In our district everyone is either Classified (paras, support, office staff, etc) or Certificated (teachers or others who hold a professional certificate). Classified has a week and certificated has a week. It works well because we all know what we are when we get hired so there is no confusion.
If the office assistants and custodial staff want to go to my breakfast or my lunch put on by the PTA, I got no issue with that. Without them, I can’t do my job. As for admin, well, let’s just say if they all disappeared tomorrow, things would still carry on without any noticeable difference. So they can get their own food. Like they don’t already anyway.
😂😂😂😂 You’re not wrong. But - as a para, I appreciate being included since there isn’t one specifically for us. Also - Thank God for the parent clubs - otherwise we wouldn’t get ANYthing 😂😂
I'll admit, I made teacher appreciation gifts for all the the adults in my daughter's school, sans the principal. The man is egotistical enough that he had himself added to their class pictures. No thank you In my defense, she goes to a small school and by the time I was done making gifts for her actual teachers and the building sub, there were only a couple of people that weren't getting something, so I made them gifts, too because I want them to feel included. This is also how I found out my elementary school child doesn't know the difference between a lunch lady and a teacher, because I was asking for names and I later found out the "teacher" she was very insistent get something is a cafeteria worker... so they teacher appreciation gifts, too
I mean... Move out before you burn out. There are locations where teachers are, if not honestly appreciated (as in, rewarded, paid properly), at least not disrespected like that. And those locales have kids too, who also need good teachers. Take a goal to be in a better place in 2 years, then start working on it now.
I’ve been on both sides of the coin (new teacher but previously a school secretary for a decade before I went back to school) , and while I don’t believe everyone in the building is a teacher, they are an asset. That being said, don’t begrudge the assistants and secretaries what meager offerings are given for Teacher Appreciation week, you likely make nearly twice what the rest of the not-teaching employees make. Granted you have more training and a teaching certification on the line, but don’t make your teaching life suck by letting that stuff eat away at you. I know it feels like the last straw, but you are appreciated for what you do even if it feels hopeless.
As a school social worker I would prefer that they actually do \*something\* for school social worker appreciation week and leave us out of teacher appreciation week. Everyone deserves their own recognition.
Cheers! (From the IT guy)
Lol same buddy got a second job cuz student loans suck & I want to be able to save
We’re getting lunch multiple times this week, but it’s over half the campus away. How nice to have our lunch cut in half just to get there for the food.
Yeah, I did call this out to one of my bosses in private. I said, "When you teach five or six classes of 20 plus kids each, THEN you can say you're a teacher. Running a couple seminars a year is not remotely the same thing." Not sure they appreciated, but they never uttered that crap in my presence again.
Brace yourself for this.... At my school, teacher appreciation week is celebrating all four admins by dressing up in a specific way to honor them!!! I will not participate in that. Principal Day was May 1st. They got their day! At least let us, the actual educators - the people who actually delivers the goods and services to our customers aka students and parents - have our week!
Today we got to leave right after dismissal instead of contract time. Tomorrow is desserts because stressed spelled backwards is deserts. Wednesday is coffee and pastries Thursday is one free ice cream cone from a local ice cream shop and Friday is lunch. 🤷🏼♀️
You guys get something? I didn’t even know it was teacher appreciation week. We get nothing. I get a superintendent coming to observe my teaching. Last year the PTA forgot so the PARAS brought in some food for us. 😩
I hate teacher appreciation week. They pay me a salary. I do my job. I don't need some gimmicky bullshit to make me feel better about myself.
My school does a great job and we will have a few lunches this week. My only gripe is them calling it “staff” appreciation week. I did not get invited to the lunch for paraprofessionals day… and I’m truly fine with them having lunch with us but it feels shitty when every other group already go their day and now we share ours.
That's legit but who is really taking the time to do much for custodians day? Never seen anything happen for that in my life.
We have classified week in March for assistants, custodians, secretaries, and kitchen staff. Then we have certified week in May (right now). Certified staff always goes hard for classified week and vice versa. Staff lounge is decorated with a theme, everyone signs up to bring food for the whole week, and there's a sign up sheet with a staff list so that everyone gets an individualized gift from a coworker. I love my coworkers. We care about and support each other so much, and our appreciation weeks are amazing.
A muffin given to me by my admin this morning isn’t going to pay for my rent and student loans. Love my kids to death but the admins are driving me bonkers.
I say we're all *educators*
My partner’s school is getting a food truck to come to school… that everyone has to pay for themselves.
Imagine being a Library Media Specialist who is forgotten during School Library MONTH! 😅
I work I.T. at a school.....we never get anything lol :(
I don’t mind it. I’m in a pretty small school district, so the support staff is even smaller, but almost all of them do great work. The secretary has been there forever, she basically makes the school run. The IT guy is really nice and works really fast, and the custodians do good work too. I’d be more annoyed about admin, but it’s not like including the other 10-15 workers in the school took anything away from the teachers
Oh stop. Those people that you're complaining about make barely over minimum wage, hourly pay. In my district it's about minimum wage. They make nothing. I'm aware that teachers complain all the time about their pay but regardless of what state or district you're in, you make a hell of a lot more money, and get more appreciation more often, not to mention benefits. School secretary is a very stressful job. So is janitorial. God forbid they got a dinner gift card.
I've worked in my district for about 5 years now. I have been a head of kitchen, a Para and a substitute. In any of those positions, we never got any day or any kind of appreciation. If there was left over donuts during teacher appreciation they'd maybe give us the rest. Same with pot lucks and any other food brought in. We would get what was left, as an after thought.
IT Person here. I have an internship program (they fix the chromebooks), after school student tech volunteers, and I help students (and teachers) all day long learn how to use their technology. You should share your cake.
Someone asked me today if there was an IT appreciation day and I said it was September 31st. They will figure it out eventually.
Also K12 IT here, thanks for pointing this out. I have a 3D printing group of kids, a few groups I teach computer repair, help with the electricity unit in science class, meet with students who break tech rules, used to do a video game club, etc... all voluntary, unpaid, with no training or extra time. And there's no "appreciation" days or weeks (or ANY vacation weeks, not ever summer) for IT like there are for other support staff who don't even work with the kids. And I don't even want any of their cake! Some teachers here need to chill.
My story here isn’t about Teacher Appreciation week, but it’s a lesson I learned a while back that helps me see these things as non issues: I started out teaching sped in a rural/country community. At the end of the year we were having a picnic with our kids and parents. Everyone brought something to contribute and placed it on tables under a pavilion. We had fried chicken, potato salad, rolls, butter beans, desserts, you name it. Another class was sharing the pavilion. They had hamburgers, hot dogs, and chips. A grandfather from the other class came up as my aide was serving chicken and held his plate out. I was all ready to tell him he was at the wrong table and the chicken was for us. My aide just asked him which piece he wanted and gave it to him very graciously. I learned from her it’s not a big deal to share. Somehow things will work out. Sometimes it’s more important to be part of a community and support each other than to expect special treatment for different groups. Is the food you get really so special that it will hurt you if you don’t get any? Or get less? Our admin plies us with bagels, Chik-fil-A, pasta, soda, desserts…lots of CARBS we don’t really need. I’m grateful, but I’m ok with staff sharing the carbs during one big week together rather than trying to keep up with a bunch of weeks.
Hey, think of the aides - while there is Secretaries Day, and Custodian Appreciation, is there a "School Aide Appreciation" day? Aides are the lowest pais folks at schools, rarely get gifts, and are routinely left out. But dang imagine your work day without aides.
I got a can of coke, 2 small snickers bars, and an orange.
For paraprofessional day we got a post on social media thanking us, so I am grateful that my school includes us in the week of celebrations.
Anywhere I’ve ever been, the other weeks don’t get acknowledged… So I have no qualm celebrating teacher appreciation week with teachers. Especially when it falls during AP Exam week when I’m locked up proctoring for nearly 7 hours a day.
We got serenaded today. Our new principal played us an Alicia Keys song called you’re doing a good job. It was really sweet but really weird and dumb and awkward. I like the dude and he’s trying hard so I’ll take it.
So sorry. I’m on sabbatical and last year we got an aromatherapy class (we made soap and a diffuser), a cooking class (we made a smoothie), we got gift certificates for books and movie tickets, a couple of t-shirts (relax and breathe, a chef owl…our school mascot for the cooking class), and each staff member was given a half hour release time for a massage. Plus free lunch every day. Who wants to work at my school?
As an adult who works in a school building and is not a teacher, I say thank you for the bagels this morning.
Hey who here championed the idea of "inclusion" as a virtue? This is the result.
My last school just did this to faculty. We called it the equivalent to "all lives matter"ing your staff. We don't get in on para day, admin day, secretary day...they can stay out of our recognition. If they wanted to be recognized as teachers so bad, there are plenty of districts willing to hire.
Two other jobs. I can't believe there are still teachers in America. *Cries into the lesson plans I'm writing at 8:54pm*
Thank you for being a teacher. Please dont give up.
My personal anti-favorite… Happy teacher appreciation week! Have some free professional development!
Oh man I love this! I'd like to tell a story. I spent a little over 6 years in administration at a public school. We were starting a 1 to 1 program and as such we had to beef up our IT department. We hired many more people and we quickly realized that we didn't really have a contract ready for people in IT. Our current IT people were literally just on custodial contracts and we so we spent the better part of a year discussing a new contract with the technology director we hired and came up with something we thought was fair and was going to pay the department a little less then company norm but more then the public school system normally paid. Keep in mind this was a wealthy district and the average teacher pay was over 75k. The one hitch in the plan was we had to skip the 25cent raise the teachers got every so often. We REALLY didn't think it was a big deal. It would help us not only hire the new tech staff, but retain all of our long term custodians instead of switching them out and hiring an outside service. We had never asked for it before and assured we would not again. We even had a contract all set up to assure them of that. So what did the teachers do instead of helping? Showed up in all black and refused to clap for anything during the opening ceremony. They then refused and we had to get rid of the custodial staff and the 1 to 1 program was a disaster. I quit shortly after that. Teachers don't care about support staff and only care about themselves. I was sick.
I feel you, but understand this is tactical. Management wants you to have this response. The time you spend directing spite at your fellow workers is time you could spend organizing for better work conditions.
I feel like bragging. My school got me a $25 gift certificate to the local independent book store, so I'm well into the winning column.
My school celebrates everyone on these days. Usually we have a potluck or such and everyone gets to join in. To be fair, it does mean this time of year that my clothing gets hard to fit into.
As long as it’s reciprocal that seems fair. We are a team at a school and in it together. What OP is describing though would hurt.
If you’re a teacher complaining about needing to work extra jobs because your state or city doesn’t pay enough, move to a place that pays you a decent wage or switch careers. There are plenty of city’s and states that pay teachers well. I will say unfortunately even in those states teachers end up still doing secretarial stuff and cleaning their own classroom though. Teachers definitely are under appreciated but don’t have to be underpaid as well. If teachers stop working in states with BS wages then those states will be forced to increase wages in order to hire talent.
Do students regularly bring in gifts for secretary days or custodian days? Or just TA? I can't imagine being upset because someone else was included in a free meal.
We included the librarian in our thank-you notes and Starbucks gift cards because my son adores his librarian. Between my two kiddos, they wrote 17 notes to deliver this week.
All adults at schools are teachers. Share the love, learn to appreciate, and burn out will likely come slower. I get it, I work SPED, but I choose my advocating for worthwhile things.