Christmas gift etiquette for teachers, etc..

[Disneyland1084]

Christmas is coming up. My DS is in preschool. Both of his teachers are going to DL during that time. I plan on getting them Disney gift cards and See's Candies. For the others, I'm getting them Amazon gift cards and See's. My question is, should I give the assistants and speech therapist the same size box of See's that I do the teachers?

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

I think A Christmas story said it best.

Yes clearly a little bribe never hurts.

 

[_19disnA]

I would ask around and see what the other parents with children in that school might say. Many schools have specific guidelines about gifts (or lack thereof) so that is where I would start. You clearly don't want to be the only parent giving all of those people gifts if no one else plans to give anything (or if the school discourages gift giving).

What someone else chooses to do at another school may not be relevant to your school's situation. I don't view this as a one size fits all type of answer.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

I'm a teaching assistant. I always appreciate any gifts I receive from my families. Anyone who works with your child (speech therapist, etc.) will appreciate being acknowledged with a card or gift. Whether or not the gifts are similar or different is completely up to you. There are really no guidelines beyond what you want to do.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Remembering back to when my DS was little - Most years I think we gave the same thing to assistant that we gave to the lead teacher. He was generally either equally fond of both, or even a little closer to the assistant, so he would have questioned why they were different. (But these were inexpensive or homemade things, so it wasn't a budget-buster to do so.)

 

[tinkerbellandpeterpan]

I think just do whatever your budget allows. Generally people will be grateful to be acknowledged. I don't think they will be comparing gifts.

But as usual, take my 2 cents for what it's worth!

 

[Cheburashka]

Your gift ideas are very nice. Give whatever gift to each teacher / assistant that you want them to receive. I'm a very experienced teacher and have never seen teachers comparing gifts- that would be so ungrateful and crude. A teacher might show off a gift she was excited about, but they aren't going to be criticizing or tallying who got what.

 

[AppleDumpling]

Agree with others, there are no rules. I would tend to give everyone the same, and honestly, I’d skip the candy, and just give each a giftcard, inside a card with a short note of appreciation. That way you can just hand each of them an envelope.

 

[thinkerbell]

I’ve been an assistant and a teacher. Anything is appreciated. For the past 19 years I had a team teacher where we had our own homeroom and switched to teach each other’s classes. I taught math/science/SS and she taught ELA. Sometimes parents gave us both the same thing, sometimes she got something a little more from her HR students and vice versa. We didn’t compare but sometimes we were right together when the kids delivered them so we saw what the other got.
Teachers giftcards.

 

[marthachick]

Just no coffee mugs or “apple” things. Our neighbor was a teacher’s assistant and every time she had a yard sale she had tables of these things.

 

[sasywtch]

First of all, Sees YUM I would give the same. Those silver or gold boxes are a little smaller than the 1 lb if cost is a factor.

 

[Karin1984]

Is giving a gift to your teachers a US-wide custom or is this something local?

 

[martikus]

Do what your budget allows. I always did $20 gift card for main teacher than then $10 for others like his art teacher, speech teacher etc. it ended up being about 7 people. My son always wrote his name or a picture in the card. The year of kindergarten I did $30 main teach, $20 asst teacher and $10 everyone else.

So in your example I’d give assistants etc smaller boxes of sees than main teacher.

 

[snowwite]

Is giving a gift to your teachers a US-wide custom or is this something local?

Not sure but we did it in MA

 

[lowlight]

Is giving a gift to your teachers a US-wide custom or is this something local?

We were a poor mostly farm town, nobody gave gifts to any teachers that I know of. I feel like gifting and tipping has gone nuts in the US.

 

[kdonnel]

Is giving a gift to your teachers a US-wide custom or is this something local?

Yes.

Like any gift giving tradition, it is always appreciated but never expected.

Depending on how affluent the area is where you teach, you might receive hundreds of dollars in gift cards at the end of the year.

But not nearly enough to make up for the 10's of thousands in underpayment of salary by the local governments.

 

[jo-jo]

Years ago we gave cookies as gifts. We gave them to all the teachers they had. Our kids had main teacher and then specials. Gym, library, music, two more that I can't think of. Anyway, the specials teacher told me thank you, they are never thought of even though they see just as many kids.

 

[mjkacmom]

Is giving a gift to your teachers a US-wide custom or is this something local?

I think it’s a US thing, here class moms take up collections at Christmas and at the end of the year, but people give individual gifts as well. It really slows down in middle/high school.

 

[aprilgail]

I always gave gift cards or if my daughter knew something the teacher really liked we gave a gift card plus that item- one teacher lived on red bull so got her a gift card and a six pack of red bull- she was SO happy with the red bull, even when I saw her years later she would mention it LOL.
My brother was a teacher and one thing I learned was never ever a coffee mug- we tossed out so many of them he would bring to our house because he lived alone and had no use for them- and no home made edible products- chances are that gets tossed too. oh and never ever anything "apple"!

 

[DisneyHardin]

Years ago we gave cookies as gifts. We gave them to all the teachers they had. Our kids had main teacher and then specials. Gym, library, music, two more that I can't think of. Anyway, the specials teacher told me thank you, they are never thought of even though they see just as many kids.

That was very nice of you. I am a Special Area teacher and I generally don't get any gifts for Christmas from students.