Appreciating Teachers is a Year-Round Event

Every year, the US celebrates Teacher Appreciation Week during the first full week of May. But with teacher in the name, appreciation is part of the mission of a PTO. Teacher appreciation is a year-round endeavor.

Teacher Appreciation Week grew from the efforts of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt lobbying Congress to dedicate time to acknowledge the work of educators in 1953. What began as a day expanded to a week through the efforts of the National PTA in 1984.

And while dedicating a specific week to celebrate our teachers is worthwhile and important, I can’t help but wonder if setting aside a week for appreciation is an easy way to avoid supporting our teachers throughout the year.

Since joining the PTA at my son’s school and stepping up as part of the executive board and as a substitute teacher in my district, I’ve asked a number of times in a lot of different places what teachers really want for Teacher Appreciation Week.

Spoiler alert: It’s better pay and smaller class sizes. It’s admin who listens and supports their staff. It’s parents who are partners instead of antagonists. It’s more planning time. It’s less staff meeting and useless professional development. It’s support for the professional development teachers actually want to pursue. It’s tuition reimbursement. It’s less state testing and more money for enrichment projects. It’s freedom to support students the way they need to be supported.

But that’s a heavy lift for the PTO.

Though well-meaning, Teacher Appreciation Week can feel like a cop-out for not making the effort the rest of the time. If a teacher is being paid peanuts, has to buy their own classroom supplies, and doesn’t have the support of their admin in the face of difficult students and worse parents, getting a tchotchke in their mailbox with a pun attached is useless.

In addition, Teacher Appreciation Week has become a catchall for staff appreciation. There are appreciation days are scattered throughout the year. School Custodian Appreciation Day is in October. School librarians, administrative staff and paraprofessionals are appreciated in April. And in addition to teachers, May boasts School Principal’s Day, School Lunch Hero Day, School Speech Pathologist Day, and School Nurse Day. Celebrating every single one would be costly and time consuming.

All this can put PTOs in a tricky situation. We want to support our teachers but may not have the resources to do anything fancy. We want to support our teachers but also acknowledge the hard work from the rest of the staff. We want to support our teachers but we also want to be supported in return.

What we can do is show our teachers we appreciation them throughout the year, so anything during Teacher Appreciation Week feels like giving them a bonus rather than throwing them a bone.

As a PTO, we can’t do anything about teacher pay, but we can help cover the cost of school supplies by running drives and sharing teacher wishlists, if allowed by the district. We have no control over class sizes, but we can advocate for our schools on a local, state, and federal level for more funding. We can work with admin and put pressure on principals who are not stepping up adequately for staff. We can offer mini-grants to help fund special projects and offer financial support to cover field trips and assemblies. We can volunteer our time to help in the classroom and throughout the building.

But also, yes, we can provide meals and snacks and maybe some school branded supplies. We can encourage students to write their teacher a nice note and chalk the walk outside with messages and shout outs.

Whatever we can do, we should do.

If you Google ideas for Teacher Appreciation Week, you will be inundated with cute, fun and over-the-top ideas that go above and beyond. I’ve seen taco bars and massage chairs. Free car washes and door-to-door coffee carts. It’s all amazing, but reliant on money, time, and volunteers, all of which are in short supply for many PTOs. Add in economic concerns and the cost of food these days? It’s a lot.

Despite the laundry list of wants and desires shared above, the fact is that teachers really do appreciate when we show we care by providing some food, some time, and some kind words.

At my son’s school this week, the PTA facilitated a breakfast (generously donated by a local childcare organization), snacks for the breakroom (including a bunch of coffee pods for the Keurig), school branded sticky notes and pencils, and a food truck lunch to end the week. I like the food truck because it means everyone gets a hot lunch, whether you’re eating at 11am or 1:30pm. We’re also sending home fliers for kids to fill out and send back to school with a note or poem for their teacher. On the first sunny day of the week (we’re three for three on rainy days to kick of Teacher Appreciation!), we brought chalk to school in the morning and had kids draw pictures and write notes for their teachers.

Other little things that are appreciated? Stocking the breakroom with plastic utensils, so staff aren’t forced to eat their lunch with a spork if they forget to bring something from home. Salt and pepper shakers and Dawn dishsoap are also helpful! Nice handsoaps for the teacher bathrooms are also great, so they don’t have to use industrial school soap every time they wash their hands.

And because, as I’ve said repeatedly, appreciation should be a year-round effort, we also provide breakfast on the first day teachers are back in school to set up their classrooms and we provide dinner for all school-required evening events like Meet the Teacher night, Open House and parent-teacher conferences.

Despite knowing the dates for Teacher Appreciation Week at the start of the year, it always seems to sneak up on us. Which is why I want to encourage PTOs to start planning now.

This doesn’t mean setting up catering a year in advance, but rather writing down what worked, what didn’t and being able to pass those ideas along. Did you create a sign-up for volunteers and donations? Make a document and post the link, so next year, that sign-up can be duplicated. Did you receive monetary donations? Write down how much and where they came from. If Venmo was the most common vector for support, perhaps it would make sense to push that more in the future. If businesses helped out, remember their name so you can ask again next year. If you used outside vendors, write down their contact information, so you know who to call in the future.

And ask your teachers. What would they like to see next year? Is there anything that didn’t work or something that would have been more helpful?

By doing the work now, you can set yourself up for success later. Volunteers will be more likely to sign-up if they know what the expectations are. And recruiting leaders will be easier if they know everything is plug and play going forward.

I’m doing this for my PTA now and in the coming weeks, I’ll have a template available to help you do this too. But you can start now by taking the first step to build your PTO binder by downloading the About Our School planning guide and subscribing so you get more worksheets and planning guides in the future!