Gifts to teachers bring policy question to mind

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I would like your response to an enviable problem: receiving gifts. I am of the thinking that one can dictate the nature of receiving gifts only when you give your own party or when you die, but let me explain.

I am a teacher among many in a small, affluent private school. Many of the parents of our students freely, by their own choice, give gifts to teachers at Christmas and/or the end of the school year. The thoughts behind these gifts are appreciated by us all.

However, the gifts vary. Some are touching and personal, and others end up in the “re-gifting” cycle. To further complicate the issue, the needs on the part of the faculty differ, and some of us truly want and need the gifts, while others would rather see the gifts go to charity, so among ourselves we do not all look at the question the same way.

Taking all of this into account, the question of our “suggesting” the nature of these gifts or putting a policy in our school handbook has been discussed among ourselves. Is there a polite or appropriate way to put forward the idea of these gifts being discontinued, or going, for example, to the local soup kitchen instead of to us? Or should we just appreciate things as they are?

GENTLE READER: The prohibition against dictating the presents one expects to receive is even stricter than you claim. Giving a party is no excuse, and dying only entitles you to leave things to others.

However, an organization involving many people can have a policy – for example, one forbidding the staff to accept presents. Miss Manners noticed that you did not mention any such sentiment among your colleagues. But you might agree on the school’s banning presents but establishing a year-end fund, either to be distributed among the teachers or to go toward school needs.