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Tips for staff, students, and parents

Let your board members know how much their work for students is appreciated during School Board Recognition Month (SBRM) in January. This printed kit is just the starting point.

We hope these ideas will spark creative and meaningful board appreciation campaigns in your district!

  • Display board appreciation posters, cards, and banners in community businesses. (poster)
  • Add a message recognizing board members on the school marquee. (sample messages) 
  • Include messages of appreciation on social media. (sample messages) 
  • Invite board members to a PTA meeting and publicly thank them for their service. 
  • Submit a guest editorial to the local paper. (sample editorial) 
  • Make board members the guests of honor at a school event, such as a school basketball game, and arrange a special ceremony to honor them at halftime. 
  • Arrange for a student choir to provide a virtual performance for the board at its monthly meeting. 
  • Donate a book or set of books to the school library, dedicated to the board, and include board members’ names and dates of service on a recognition label within each book. 
  • Invite board members to a school assembly to entertain them with a student-produced skit demonstrating what a school board does. Give the board members a round of applause. 
  • Have students write them notes of appreciation. 
  • Have culinary arts, or family and consumer science students bake a cake and serve at a recognition ceremony. 
  • Ask each board member to answer the question, “Why do you serve on the school board?” Then use the quotes in stories or make a poster out of the quote and display it during a recognition ceremony. 
  • Arrange for a student group to organize a recognition event for the board. 
  • Have elementary students research what the board does and then make a presentation to the board. 
  • Pair up a talented student with each board member and have the students teach their board member something these students excel in: a cheerleaders/dance student could teach a cheer or dance routine, a math whiz could show a board member the practical uses of a Pythagorean theorem, etc. Then have the board member teach the students something about their occupation and have all the students and board members report what they learned at a board meeting.

Inspired by: Ohio School Boards Association and Texas Association of School Boards