Office holiday party · The boss · Warm · about a minute
Principal's Holiday Party Speech to School Staff (1 Minute)
A principal speaking at the staff holiday party after the last day before winter break, with teachers, aides, office staff, and custodians in the room, who wanted to thank everyone at once and get one laugh.
Given by Emmerich, principal of an elementary school. 141 words. The names are made up.
The toast
Thank you all for coming, and for not grading anything for at least the next hour.
There's a bottom drawer in the front office that's always full of granola bars. It's for the kids who show up without breakfast. The district doesn't pay for them. I've never once seen anybody fill that drawer, and it has not been empty a single morning since August.
I'll confess that at least two of the chocolate chip ones went missing during testing week, and that was me.
That drawer is this staff. Nobody asks, nobody signs anything, and a kid who walks in hungry finds out somebody already thought of them. You do that in your classrooms all day, in ways I mostly hear about from parents months later.
So please raise whatever you're holding. To all of you, and to the bottom drawer.
Why it works: The drawer is something every adult in the building has opened, and nobody has ever been thanked for it, which makes it the right thing to thank. The one laugh is at the principal's own expense, and the drawer stands for all the quiet work he can't list.
Make it yours
Borrow the shape, not the lines. Put your own people, your own year and your own detail in each spot, or answer a few questions and get a first draft built from them.