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By Karen Springen
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The last day of school is right around the corner. What's the best way to thank your child's teacher? Some advice:
Check school policy. If your principal allows gifts, remember that giving a present is optional. "You should not feel you have to do that," says former elementary-school principal Cindy Post Senning, great-granddaughter of Emily Post and coauthor of "Emily Post's The Guide to Good Manners for Kids."
Don't break the bank. Extravagant gifts could be "misperceived as a bribe," says Senning--especially if you give them before report cards come out.
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Avoid cliches. "Don't give anything with apples," says Tim Sullivan, president of PTO Today, a bimonthly magazine for school parent-teacher organizations. Sullivan, whose mom spent 20 years as a teacher, remembers her opening every kind of apple imaginable, including ceramic and plastic ones.
Organize a class gift. Any parent can take the initiative and collect money based on each person's ability to pay. "If someone can give $5, and someone can give $20, great," says Sullivan.
Buy a gift certificate. Sullivan suggests a gift card to a bookstore --or a spa. "You want to allow the teacher to make it for the teacher, not necessarily for the classroom," he says.
Make something. Bake cookies or cupcakes. Or your child could decorate a frame for a photo of the teacher with students.
Send a handwritten note. Just say, "You've made my child's second-grade year so special, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that," says Sullivan. Get your child to pen a letter, too. Write, "Boy, I never would have gotten through math without you," suggests Senning, who still keeps framed copies of some of the notes kids wrote to her. "It helps kids learn the concept of actively expressing appreciation," she says. It's one lesson they might not have learned in school.
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