Thats a very strange take.
Kids like writing on the card for the teacher (its a class card).
When I say “gifts” we are not talking thousands here. Its usually less than $100.
When I got my first actuarial job in 1972, all of my fellow math graduates who went into teaching started at higher salaries than I did. However actuarial salaries go up much more quickly and ten years out they could be a multiple of teachers’ salaries.
I could argue that teachers make a bigger contribution to the advancement of society than actuaries so I support them strongly. I think starting teachers’ salaries are probably now less than starting actuarial students’ salaries so they have lost ground in recent decades?
where i live (MN) that is very true. entry level teacher is in 45-48K range (US). when i started in actuarial role 20+ years ago my salary was low 40’s. i think my company was hiring entry level actuarial candidates in the 60’s-70’s last time i got some figures (and that might be out of date since I am off that team now).
“We wouldn’ts wants nothins to happen to your sweet kid…”
Actuarial proficiency (exams, mathematical and computing ability) is arguably much harder than learning to become a teacher, so you will always have a much smaller sub-set of the population with the abillty to become an Actuary.
Regulations also make a difference, but the higher salaries you see in Actuarial are driven by limited supply of people with a high degree of quantitative ability (I would not be surprised if everybody here was at >95th percentile in math ability), and the fact that we work in finance (private sector). Teacher pay will always be limited by tax collected (as it needs to be affordable).
Agreed.
My wife, who was also an actuary and a classmate, and I always felt that our math colleagues who went into teaching were not as good a group of students as those who pursued actuarial studies. But that might be a good thing. Math was always so easy for me that I might have struggled to communicate at the right level to high school students. However my friends who went into teaching struggled a bit to get through university math. They were probably better teachers as a result.
There are other aspects to teaching that I might not have been good at. I was never attracted to the idea of maintaining discipline in a group of 30 or so teenagers, many of whom didn’t want to learn. Much easier being an actuary.
Like dealing with the parents lol. The kids are great, but the parents…
Curiously, my son is teaching while he looks for work in his industry. A school brought him on as a sub, then they offered him a contract. He’s been teaching science in a class for two weeks, and administration is already getting feedback from parents on how happy they are with what the kids are learning.
1 Like
We usually do something like a $20 Starbucks gift card per teacher
Ethics laws in my state prohibit gifts with a value above a certain low amount. We send small items, sometimes cookies/treats or other stuff, one year painted christmas ornaments, another year small succulents in a painted pot. I don’t recall if we ever sent gift cards (Mrs G handles), but pretty sure we never put cash in the gift.
Why is it always Starbucks? The only times I have ever bought anything at Starbucks is at an airport to get some pastries and when I’ve gone in to spend gift cards. A $20 bill is worth much more to me than a $20 starbucks gift card.
Actually - amazon cards are getting more common, and they are worth more to me.
My wife agrees that there are plenty of better coffee shops in the local area.
As someone who doesn’t drink coffee - it would be nice to get something that isn’t coffee related…
1 Like
This is common in my district.
My daughter taught HS science in a neighboring district. After 2 years, she was making $48k with meh benefits. She’s doing something else now. She was teaching at an alternative high school so lower average socioeconomic scale for her students. She didn’t get much in the way of holiday gifts.
My friend’s daughter taught 3rd grade in my district for a few years. Making about the same. The parents of her students presented her with a Xmas tree decorated with folded up $100 bills. There was over $1,000 on it. Plus a few hundred dollars worth of gift cards.
She was shocked the first time it happened, then realized it was SOP at that school. 
I asked when Mini Me started school as I didn’t want to stand out on either the high or the low end. Everyone gets Target gift cards (there is a Target about a mile from the school that nearly every teacher would drive within about 0.2 miles of to get to/from the school, so it is obviously convenient for any of them).
$50 for her regular teacher
$5 for the specials teachers
$5 for the bus driver
I might skip the bus driver this year… I think she’s ridden the bus twice all year. She used to ride more regularly but circumstances are different this year.
My parents gave my teachers jack
I didn’t even know this was a thing, is this why my grades were poor?
1 Like
You gotta do it, have you people not heard of guanxi?
I’ve never heard of tipping a teacher, and never would.
They’re extremely underpaid and I advocate for them to get a wage increase wherever I can. But I pay taxes for this.
I could see buying supplies for the school since schools are underfunded and I’d like my and others’ kids to have things like crayons. Which implicitly may be giving value to the teacher who might have purchased from their own budget. Just give the teacher the supplies and receipt and say if they care to itemize it on their taxes, they own those supplies that they can donate.
I like this idea. Be sure to pay in cash, as “someone else’s receipts” might not pass the audit.
Same.
Now I do volunteer with the robotics team, students from both of our local high schools. We do fund raising but our budget is pretty small, and I’ve told the coach (who is a HS teacher) that anything they need I’ll buy, within reason. I cook lots of food for the team and any time we run to Ace for parts I just buy them. Money and time well spent, imo.
I can’t remember if you’re in the US or not but if you are then all of what you’re spending and your mileage is tax deductible. I’m sure that’s not why you’re doing it, just don’t forget to take the deduction if you itemize! (Mileage rate is only 14 cents a mile, which might not even cover gas depending on your vehicle, but you may as well take the deduction if you drove the miles.)