Teacher Appreciation Breakfast (CDC Approved!)

Arlington High School (TN)

Instagram: arlingtonhighsc

Every year, my student council hosts a breakfast for our teachers and staff during their in-service days! It’s a nice way for us to show them our appreciation, and our teachers look forward to returning to school with a complimentary breakfast, usually served to them by students. However, with Covid-19, our council knew this activity would have to look a little different this year. For safety precautions, we wouldn’t be allowed to come in direct contact with the food (i.e. no serving) and nothing we provided could be shared, meaning no pouring drinks into cups from a large bottle or having teachers serving themselves from a container of food.

We knew that this was a simple event that meant so much to our teachers, so instead of abandoning it completely, we reimagined it. It took one major change: All of our food and beverages would be individually wrapped in order to prevent contamination from sharing. Our council has a group chat on the app GroupMe, so we sent out a Sign-up Genius where our members could sign up to bring items such as packs of muffins, oranges, bananas, bottled drinks, and more. We put these items on a table for teachers to take as they went in between meetings.

Several teachers reached out to our sponsor to thank our council for continuing to host this event, so we considered it a success! I recommend talking to your advisors about doing a similar activity to show your teachers support during these difficult and often stressful times; a little bit of planning to transform past events can make such a positive difference to the climate of your school!

-Dara Adamolekun, Arlington High School Senior