by Ashley
Take a look at this Facebook thread one of my friends posted the other day….
There are a couple things about this post I want to draw attention to:
- What the heck? When did first day of preschool warrant a teacher gift? Is this a “thing”????
- My favorite reply is the person’s comment directly above me. The person starts by saying “don’t get sucked into over-giving”…but then goes on to say she gives FOUR different presents a year (Christmas, teacher appreciation, valentine, and end of year). What the what??? That sounds like over-giving to me!!! If this is “regular” giving, then what does OVER giving look like??? Yelp!
We did attend the “meet the teacher” night like I said in the Facebook thread and we absolutely love our teacher! I’ll try to refrain myself from launching into a whole tirade about how much we love this place, how superior it is to the old place, blah blah blah (that’s all totally unrelated to debt, but suffice it to say I feel good about our decision). I also really think I’ll like the fact that this is an actual preschool (as opposed to daycare). I’ve been debating signing up as a room parent. From what I understand, the room parent’s primary role is to email other parents from the class to give them reminders about upcoming events, etc. I don’t think the room parent actually organizes any parties or functions (which is what I remember room parents doing when I was a kiddo in elementary school). If anyone has room parent experience (in a preschool), let me know if it involved any financial aspects. There’s an information meeting for interested room parents next week so I may attend it.
Whoa – side track – anyway, when we went to the meet the teacher night, our lovely teacher had a room wish-list sign. It was basically a list of things she would like to have in the room and she said if anyone had the things lying around she would be grateful to have them. One thing she had listed was a rug for the reading corner. We happen to have a rug rolled up lying under our bed (where it has been for over a year). It was a cheap rug – I think $40 from Ikea, and we replaced it when we received a much nicer, larger, and fancier rug as a hand-me-down from a friend who redid her living room. So our Ikea rug is barely used but we have no use for it. I’ve decided to make this our “first day of class” present (if that’s even a real thing??). I feel good about this because it costs us $0 out-of-pocket and will actually be used by our daughters. Plus, if I were to buy a first day of class present, it would have probably been in the $5-$10 range, so I figure a $40 rug is better than what she would have received otherwise.
So, time for some reader questions:
How many gifts did/do you buy for a preschool teacher and for what occasions?
Since this is the Jewish Community Center I’m sure there is no expectation of Christmas gifts….but do we need to get 8 different Hanukkah gifts? I shudder at the thought! And Valentines? Really? I hadn’t even thought of that! We do have a teacher’s appreciation in the Spring, but from what I understand I thought it was more about providing a nice lunch for the teachers and to have parent volunteers in the classrooms with the kids so the teachers could have an hour mid-day lunch break. Gifts, too??? Yikes!
Does anyone have experience as a preschool room parent? If so, what did it involve? Did it end up costing you any money out-of-pocket? I’m okay with the time commitment (which sounds relatively minimal if the primary responsibility is really just sending emails to other parents), but I don’t want to have to be in charge of buying a pricey present and trying to get reimbursed from other parents or anything like that.
