holiday gifts in MCPS

[Anonymous]

First year parent, whats the deal? In preschool we did gift cards to B&N and also a baked gift. Are gift cards allowed in public school and if so whats a good amount. Help!

[Anonymous]

Gift cards are definitely allowed. I think the limit is $25. It is customary to give a gift to the main teacher. In addition, I usually send a gift to the resource/special ed teacher (one of my kids gets lots of services and support) and I send a letter to all teachers to express my appreciation.

[Anonymous]

I don't think there is an offical county limit but I also do 20-25.

[Anonymous]

If there is a room parent, you might ask if they have plans to do a combined gift--sometimes this is the case.

[Anonymous]

NP here.
Do you all give gifts to the specialist teachers, like music and PE teachers, too?
How do you give gifts to them? Drop them off at the office?

What about before- and after-school teachers? There are way too many of them to keep track of!!! A big basket for all of them?
Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Our school has a limit of $25 per teacher with a total of $50 per teacher per year (in other words, you can't give them 3 $25 gift cards and get around the rule). Depending on your families situation and relationship with specialists, it is nice to remember the specialists. Typically I do $25 per teacher (usually Borders so they can decide whether to spend it on the class or on themselves) I try to give the specialists smaller gift cards and if possible, something for the office/building services (usually a basket of cookies, or a plant for the lounge).

[Anonymous]

I'm collecting $ for a Visa gift card for my son's K teacher.
Can I go over the $25 limit if the gift card is from all of us (17 families)?? I'm suddenly worried.

[Anonymous]

to the last poster- yes you can go over the $25 amount for a group gift.


We've always done a $25 gift card for Target or a Visa gift card.

[Anonymous]

To 12:00 - no people don't routinely give to all the specials teachers. I send a personal note each year. Personally, while I would love to give gifts, I just don't have $200 per kid for gifts.

[Anonymous]

How would you know if there is a limit? I've never heard anything like that before at our MCPS school. FWIW, we give a gift card for $50 to the classroom teacher (and not to B&N --- that's way too popular (ie: many other parents will give that and there are only so many books and cds you can buy) --- try Target or Macy's where the selection is more diverse) and $10 gift cards to Starbucks or DD to the music, art, PE, media, bus driver, etc. We send the gifts in with our child (sometimes the classroom teacher sends them to the office mailbox for the specials teachers; other times she's allowed to hand-deliver them).

[Anonymous]

I'm wondering how many people give holiday gifts to the specials teachers? I hadn't even thought of that.

[Anonymous]

This question is for all MCPS parents. Do you normally give gift to PE or music teachers?

[Anonymous]

Teachers (or any MCPS employee) may not accept gifts of more than $20 (this is down from the former limit of $25). A group gift from a number of parents is ok as long as each parent does not give more than $20.

I have given small gift cards either at Xmas or at the end of the year probably 1/2 to 3/4 of the time. One year we tried to cover the specials...

here is the formal ethics policy

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/ethics/

and here is the Bannockburn ES newsletter describing the rules--

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/schools/bannockburnes/news/BES%20December%202012%20Newsletter.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This question is for all MCPS parents. Do you normally give gift to PE or music teachers?

At our former ES, the PTA put out a letter for staff gifts with a suggested donation of $5 per student. Then the PTA committee chair coordinating this would divide this total among the various "specials" teachers - PE, music, art, aids, etc.

In addition to this group gift, we usually did an individual gift to DC teachers (one homeroom/language arts teacher and a different teacher for math).

[Anonymous]

We give $50 to the kid's main teacher and $25 from each kid for the special teachers. At our school, the art, PE and music teacher are really good and very enthusiastic about their subjects. They teach all the grades which I think would be challenging. My kids love the special classes more than their main classes.

I don't why but room parents only do the parties. They don't organize collections for the teachers.

I also called the school last year to ask if there was a limit and whether what we were planning was OK. I was told that there wasn't a limit as long as it was within reason (thousands of dollars...which wouldn't happening from us anyway). We work at non-profits and don't sell anything to MOCO. The teachers we are giving gifts to don't influence purchase decisions anyway so it doesn't fall into their ethics/conflict of interest policy.

I could see there being an issue in high school where grades count if parents were giving large sums but seriously what on earth could an elementary school teacher actually be bribed to do? Extra graham cracker snack?