07/06/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CXDR8PCcb/
π€ TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK IS WILD WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT
A flower.
A handwritten note.
A free dress down day.
Maybe a taco bar if the PTA is feeling generous.
That is what the system offers in exchange for a master's degree, ten months of emotional labor, fifteen unpaid hours per week, and $800 of your own money in classroom supplies.
A flower and a taco bar.
The teachers who are leaving are not leaving because they do not feel appreciated.
They are leaving because appreciation does not pay the mortgage.
Because a flower does not cover the cost of what this job actually takes from a person.
Because at some point the gap between what you give and what you get back becomes impossible to justify no matter how many heartfelt notes you receive.
Teachers do not need one week a year.
They need the thing appreciation is supposed to represent.
Value.
Signed, Elle. A former teacher who received enough mugs and candles to stock a gift shop and still left because none of it was actually what she needed.