Dear PS 107 Families,
Happy Hanukkah to everyone in our community who celebrates! May this festival of lights bring a little brightness to all of our lives during this very tumultuous time.
NYCPS Regulations on Gift-Giving
The season of giving is upon us, and I’d like to take this opportunity to remind our families of New York City Public Schools’ regulations regarding gift-giving to city employees, including PS 107 staff members. The Chancellor’s Regulations are the rules governing the NYC Schools, and regulation C-110 specifically addresses gift-giving. The regulations detail what is permissible for both individual and group gifts:
Gifts from individual to school staff: Individual students, parents and/or guardians may wish to make gifts to officials and employees at the end of the year and at similar occasions, such as holidays, weddings, and the birth of an official’s or employee’s child However, discretion must be used to ensure that officials and employees do not accept gifts of value from individual children, parents, or guardians. Only those gifts that are principally sentimental in nature and of small financial value may be accepted.
Gifts from school classes: In addition to individual gifts, sometimes an entire school class may wish to make a gift to officials and employees at the end of the year and at similar occasions, such as holidays, weddings, and the birth of an official’s or employee’s child. Officials and employees may accept gifts from whole classes of students, their parents and/or guardians, provided that each student, parent or guardian in the class has the opportunity to sign the card or note that comes with the gift, whether or not the student, parent or guardian contributed to the cost of the gift. In addition, students, their parents and/or guardians may not be asked to contribute more than a small amount of money toward such class gifts.
PS 107 staff are so grateful for this community’s generosity; however, we do ask that you keep these regulations in mind during the holiday season.
Kindness Tips from our Kindness Club
As noted in last week’s letter, December is Kindness Month at PS 107! Our student Kindness Club is providing regular morning announcements filled with great ideas for being kind (check out this one that was shared with our school community yesterday). Our Kindness Club also generated lists of ways to be kind that they wanted to share with our parent community. Here are some of their tips:
Say words like thank you, sorry, and please
Don’t exclude people from what you are doing (or if you are playing with a new friend, invite your other friends to join because your other friends may feel left out)
If someone is being unkind, don’t be mean back because it will make the problem worse
Be nice to each other by sharing
Believe in yourself
Always be an upstander (or don’t stand around and watch people get bullied – get help)
Don’t tease people because they are different
Don’t interrupt when someone else is speaking
Stand up for yourself in a kind way
Make people feel welcome in our school
Our caring, kind, compassionate community is what makes PS 107 such a special place! Have a wonderful week.
Warmly,
Ms Joanna
PS A reminder from Ms Diane: Please sign up to volunteer for your child’s Physical Education class at the Armory! Go to Konstella to sign up, and if you can’t find the sign up form, reach out to your class parent.