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Posted
2 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

A quick reminder that this is the last week of school for Austin ISD.  A few surrounding districts have already had their last day, but I forgot to post before then.

It is OK to give your kid's teacher a gift.  HEB gift cards are great, Amazon gift cards are great.  No one straight up gives cash, but there's not a rule against it.
Lots of kids give small Starbucks gift cards, which is nice for a coffee but it does not bring groceries home.

If every elementary kid dropped $300 in gift cards on their teacher, and every kid in middle and high school gave $50 to each teacher, teacher income would rise about 10%.
That's not *that* much to give, it's about $1.50 per day.  I think most parents would be OK doing this, but folks tend to forget.

If you are in the mood to help out a teacher, buy some gift cards or go to your local ATM and make it rain.

Also, force your kid to write a nice note to their teachers ... my wife has a folder of them that grows every year.

You think every kid (‘s parents) should give their teacher $300?  So let’s assume each teacher has 30 kids (complete guess, as I have no kids in school), so that’s $9,000?  
 

I mean, shit yeah, I’d love a $9000 tip at my job too. Seems…unlikely. 

Posted (edited)

They'll get their $15 Starbucks/ Whataburger card and like it.

There were some parents who gave out $50 cards to the teachers.  Never heard about the $300 variety.

One of wife's previous Districts had a $75 limit on accepting gifts from parents.

Edited by Iceman
Posted
23 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

You think every kid (‘s parents) should give their teacher $300?  So let’s assume each teacher has 30 kids (complete guess, as I have no kids in school), so that’s $9,000?  
 

I mean, shit yeah, I’d love a $9000 tip at my job too. Seems…unlikely. 

Not to mention that nearly 60% of Texas students are eligible for free lunch. Those families don’t have 300 bucks burning a hole in their pockets to hand out as a gratuity at the end of the school year. 

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Posted (edited)

I'm here to provide comfort to any single struggling lady educators. 

Sure it's only a few minutes with a little weeping at the end.

Edited by MissingInAction
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Posted
4 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

You think every kid (‘s parents) should give their teacher $300?  So let’s assume each teacher has 30 kids (complete guess, as I have no kids in school), so that’s $9,000?  
 

I mean, shit yeah, I’d love a $9000 tip at my job too. Seems…unlikely. 

Yes, it would really help retain teachers, which would provide next year's students with more experienced teachers.  $2 a day for elementary, a quarter a day for each high school teacher.  I know it sounds crazy but it would help.  Ideally the leg would be doing this but I've given up on that.

Elementary teachers have about 20-22 through 4th grade.
Secondary teachers have maybe 180-200, teaching 6 out of 8 classes with about 30-34 kids per class.  

Give what you want, but I sized my number to give them about 10% more than they get.  Any amount is helpful and appreciated.  Very few parents give anything, but some give a small amount with a nice note from the kid and it totally makes my wife's day.

A lot of teachers today are able to teach because they have a spouse who earns much more money, or they are doing it as a second career and they've already got money from a previous career.  Teachers straight out of college without another source of income are getting squeezed.  They teach for 3-5 years and find out that they can make a lot more money doing something else ... and if they ever want to buy a house or maybe a new car, they need to move on from teaching.

I have seen some really great teachers leave the profession because of money.  They want to keep teaching and you would want your kid to have them.  But the salary is not enough, so they're gone.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Texas Jeff said:

A lot of teachers today are able to teach because they have a spouse who earns much more money, or they are doing it as a second career and they've already got money from a previous career.  Teachers straight out of college without another source of income are getting squeezed.  They teach for 3-5 years and find out that they can make a lot more money doing something else ... and if they ever want to buy a house or maybe a new car, they need to move on from teaching.

Most teachers now only are teaching because it’s the next step up in the career ladder. They can make 3X to 4X the money being assistant principals and principals, but they need the 3-5 years in the trenches as classroom teachers before they can apply for AP roles. I remember being in high school and the teachers were old ladies or old coaches who had been there for 20+ years. It’s not like this anymore with the younger generation of teachers and the younger generation of shithead kids who can’t go 5 seconds without their phones. 

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Posted

I love that the guy whose spouse is a teacher has come up with a creative way to increase his household income by suggesting that parents need to be tipping teachers. Fucking hilarious.

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Posted
2 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

Yes, it would really help retain teachers, which would provide next year's students with more experienced teachers.  $2 a day for elementary, a quarter a day for each high school teacher.  I know it sounds crazy but it would help.  Ideally the leg would be doing this but I've given up on that.

Elementary teachers have about 20-22 through 4th grade.
Secondary teachers have maybe 180-200, teaching 6 out of 8 classes with about 30-34 kids per class.  

Give what you want, but I sized my number to give them about 10% more than they get.  Any amount is helpful and appreciated.  Very few parents give anything, but some give a small amount with a nice note from the kid and it totally makes my wife's day.

A lot of teachers today are able to teach because they have a spouse who earns much more money, or they are doing it as a second career and they've already got money from a previous career.  Teachers straight out of college without another source of income are getting squeezed.  They teach for 3-5 years and find out that they can make a lot more money doing something else ... and if they ever want to buy a house or maybe a new car, they need to move on from teaching.

I have seen some really great teachers leave the profession because of money.  They want to keep teaching and you would want your kid to have them.  But the salary is not enough, so they're gone.

I wasn’t trying to be a dick with my initial response. Well, maybe a bit, it is surly. But I’m very aware and empathetic to the plight of teachers. Several of my friends, and my sister in law, were/are teachers. They get the shit end of the stick all the time and it is extremely thankless. 
 

I just thought $300 per teacher was a bit ambitious. 

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Posted

lol at a $300 end of year teacher gift. I say that as someone who’s wife was a public school teacher and never received anything close to that, and as someone who tries to be very generous to the teachers at our kid’s preschool.

Anyone who gives that level of gift most likely has their kids at a pricey private school. Casually suggesting that it should be the norm for an average family is a bit out of touch.

Posted (edited)

Three hundred as a single gift at end of the year is dumb. We kick in in 25-50 dollar increments a few times a years directly for gifts for our elementary school aged kid's teachers. A few hundred to the elementary PTO, and a few hundred more to the district education foundation stuff. The latter through their gala situations. After elementary shit gets pretty opaque in terms of tracking the money directly to the benefit of the teachers, and with sports involvement dollars start to flow to the booster clubs.  

Edited by Anastasis
Posted
I'm here to provide comfort to any single struggling lady educators. 
Sure it's only a few minutes with a little weeping at the end.

What are you crying about?
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Posted
lol at a $300 end of year teacher gift. I say that as someone who’s wife was a public school teacher and never received anything close to that, and as someone who tries to be very generous to the teachers at our kid’s preschool.

Anyone who gives that level of gift most likely has their kids at a pricey private school. Casually suggesting that it should be the norm for an average family is a bit out of touch.

So we are not all billionaires here?
Posted

Hey everyone, don't get caught up in my $300 number.  Perhaps it was too high.  The point is ... what was the point again? 🙂  The point is the school year is ending and if you want to give your kid's teacher a little gift with a nice note from your kid it will make the teacher's day.  About 95% of families do not do this.  I do think that most families appreciate their teachers, they just don't think about it with summer coming up.

BTW, Prop A last year in Austin ISD raised about $170,000,000 in new taxes.  There are about 5500 teachers in Austin ISD.  So you say, well, that's about $30,000 per teacher, go get it from that pile!  ... not ....   The state took a 75% cut and the district used less than half of the rest of the money for teacher raises.  About 90% was gone before it made it to teacher raises, and we will pay the Prop A tax every year.

It's really a shame, because if we could take that pile and give it to teachers and staff, we could make a big dent in their ability to live in Austin.

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Posted
On 5/25/2025 at 6:23 PM, MrBig said:

Most teachers now only are teaching because it’s the next step up in the career ladder. They can make 3X to 4X the money being assistant principals and principals, but they need the 3-5 years in the trenches as classroom teachers before they can apply for AP roles. I remember being in high school and the teachers were old ladies or old coaches who had been there for 20+ years. It’s not like this anymore with the younger generation of teachers and the younger generation of shithead kids who can’t go 5 seconds without their phones. 

Where the hell are your numbers coming from? It’s pure absurdity. Do you really think assistant principals are making 150k or more a year?

After 10 years of teaching in AISD I made 55k. After 4 years of being an AP I made 67k. As a principal I made 104k.

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Posted (edited)

My wife would do $100 worth stuff for the parents at Christmas time and another $100 for end of the year (Teacher week or whatever they would call it) every year back in the day. Can confirm that teachers appreciated it and for the siblings coming up through the pipeline behind them it helped turn those 88's and 89's into 90's on the ole transcript ;)

Maybe it's placebo in my mind, but teachers are humans and in a jump ball they probably bias for the kids/families they like, was always my guess.

Edited by Vegas64
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Posted
13 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

also not legal.

When has that ever mattered to this regime? 

Posted
On 5/25/2025 at 7:23 PM, MrBig said:

Most teachers now only are teaching because it’s the next step up in the career ladder. They can make 3X to 4X the money being assistant principals and principals, but they need the 3-5 years in the trenches as classroom teachers before they can apply for AP roles. 

Um, no. None of this is true.

(I’m in higher ed but my sister is a high school teacher/coach.)

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Posted
On 5/25/2025 at 6:23 PM, MrBig said:

Most teachers now only are teaching because it’s the next step up in the career ladder. They can make 3X to 4X the money being assistant principals and principals, but they need the 3-5 years in the trenches as classroom teachers before they can apply for AP roles. I remember being in high school and the teachers were old ladies or old coaches who had been there for 20+ years. It’s not like this anymore with the younger generation of teachers and the younger generation of shithead kids who can’t go 5 seconds without their phones. 

You're an idiot.

Posted

TEA announced today that it is extending the takeover of HISD for an additional two years, now through 2027. Once the state moves in, they will never go back to local control. It’s a cautionary tale for AISD.

Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, royiv said:

TEA announced today that it is extending the takeover of HISD for an additional two years, now through 2027. Once the state moves in, they will never go back to local control. It’s a cautionary tale for AISD.

I noticed in the TxTrib story about the STAAR bill failing that the Senate had slipped a provision into their version of the bill that would allow the TEA to take over, and appoint a conservator for, any district that sued the state/TEA, about anything.  It's a blessing that bill failed.

Edited by sasquatch69
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