<p>“Do you mean to say that if you just refused to write ANY LOR’s one year, because you just didn’t feel like it, that would be okay with your employer?”</p>
<p>I don’t really know the answer to that question. It has never come up on my campus; many of the teachers at my school write quite a few LOR.</p>
<p>It’s one thing for my school administrators to inform me of my professional responsibilities. I don’t mind that at all. I have no intention of being insubordinate, and if an administrator directed me to perform some duty, I would follow through.</p>
<p>What I don’t like is when others outside the school dictate to me what my professional responsibilities are. Put more bluntly, I don’t appreciate others telling me what I should do with my time. I devote many, many hours to my job, which includes teaching five sections of AP courses, so I’m a bit sensitive when others feel free to add to my duties. </p>
<p>And just so y’all don’t get the wrong idea, I write close to 50 LOR each year, as I previously noted.</p>
<p>Epiphany, </p>
<p>Unions have nothing to do with my point of view.</p>
<p>Along those lines, our district experienced a work-to-rule semester. That meant that every teacher stopped staying after school hours to do anything. (Backstory: teachers had been working without a new contract for the previous 2 years and wanted to press the School Board to negotiate and complete a contract.) </p>
<p>They were making the point that the school culture, as the families knew it, was possible only because of the vast majority of teachers who did “more” than they were required under rules of their contract. At 2:45 p.m. the halls in every school, K-12, were empty of teachers, and therefore of students because there were no clubs, informal tutoring, meetings to plan cool events for the students, etc. </p>
<p>The only thing the h.s. teachers said they would NOT STOP doing was writing LOR’s for colleges and jobs.
They felt too strongly about them.</p>
<p>I think it was an internal impulse among professional teachers that these letters were as essential to the students as the courses they taught within contracted hours. Everything else – sports, musicals, enriching trips – could be backburnered for a while, but not the LOR’s.</p>
<p>My S hand wrote thank you notes to the teachers and the GC back in the Fall.</p>
<p>We ordered travel coffee mugs (can never have too many of those - I am constantly losing mine!) from his school and he gave them to the teachers & GC personally when he was accepted to his first choice ED school. He waited to give them the news until he got them. According to him, they were very happy (both for him and with their mugs!)</p>
<p>Both of my daughters wrote thank you notes to their teachers and guidance counselors who wrote for them. They have always written their teachers notes during the holiday season and at the end of the year since elementary school.</p>
<p>We always give gifts (usually anywhere from $25-$35) during the holidays and at the end of the year. We will give a small bag of candy to those non-faculty members that have worked to make the school run smoothly.</p>
<p>I teach high school juniors. This year, I wrote 25 letters of recommendation for my last year students. Prior to writing, I interviewed each student and looked at their work in my class. I wrote, on average, two pages per student. I love the kids that I teach and despite the time it takes, I really enjoy writing letters of recommendation that will help them achieve their academic goals. </p>
<p>However, I was disappointed to only receive two thank you notes so far. One had a small gift and one did not. For me, the gift is totally irrelevant (though always appreciated). The note without a gift was so wonderful and heartfelt that I will cherish it forever. The note with the gift was not from the student but from the parent which was also a nice gesture.</p>
<p>When it comes to physical gifts, I have mixed feelings. I always appreciate gift cards to bookstores or teacher supply stores so that I can continue to have great movies, books, posters, etc. for my students. I also love when my students make a small donation to a charity. None of us became teachers for the money or for the perks, but we are often beaten down by the kids (who though wonderful, are whiny) and worse, the parents (who take a mile at every inch given), so knowing that we are appreciated and all those extras are noticed is nice.</p>