This month's idea/strategy:
I enjoy meeting fellow educators and picking their brain for teacher appreciation ideas. I have the privilege of working with Duane Fish who is a former high school principal. Recently he shared with me an awesome teacher appreciation idea.
”During a faculty meeting I placed an index card at the seat of every teacher in the room. After we discussed our WHY in this profession, I put a picture of my father-in-law up on the screen and told them his story and how I got into education. I said, I know we all have people we strive to make proud, so please do me a favor and write (please print clearly), the name and address of someone YOU strive to make proud every day. I was specific and said, NO EMAIL ADRESSES... I want street addresses. I told them not to worry about why I needed it, I just did. Some listed a parent, child, spouse, grandparent, etc... a few listed mentors.
When doing walk thoroughs and classroom visits we took pictures of the teachers teaching and working with students. From there we used the pictures of each teacher to create a card for that teacher. Inside the card an administrator wrote a note about that teacher explaining what they do that makes them such a great teacher.
When we had a card created and written for each teacher, we mailed them to the person the teacher listed on their index card that they strive to make proud.
It was a huge hit!!! Lots of smiles, stories and even some tears.”
Think about the impact this type of meaningful and thoughtful card would have on your teachers! Teacher appreciation week is still several months away, however, now would be a great time to start planning this type of powerful gift. I know your time is very limited, so take a moment and think about your office staff. Could you drop the pictures into a file, create a template, and have your office staff create the card for each teacher? Let’s look at a sample timeline:
- November, December, and January: Administrators and Counselors take pictures and upload them to a shared file. Office staff create mailing labels based on the index cards.
- February and March: Office staff create and print a card for each teacher. Most office staff have periodic slow times. They could work on these during those times and print them on white cardstock on a color printer.
- April: Administrators and Counselors divide up the cards, write in the cards they take what makes that teacher an amazing teacher, and return them to the designated office person.
- May: Put the cards in the mail.
Duane collected the index cards in August and mailed the cards out at Christmas. There are multiple ways you could utilize this idea.
