Do you get enough notice for events at school??
I don't! I'm a working mom, but I don't think even if I stayed at home it is enough notice. Either way, you have meetings or appointments booked. I get calls or notes the day before sometimes. Today I am laving work (again) in a few minutes because my 8 year old made the honor roll for the first time ever! (This was also her first opportunitiy to get on the honor roll). So WOW. My husband is home today, but otherwise he would miss it too.
Does your school routinely give you less than a full week of notice?
Then I feel bad if I can't get enough people to come. Some kids parents aren't allowed to take off. And other parents simply don't know about it.
Right?? I missed the Bug-a-Boo day when my daughter was in kindergarten. My sister watched my kids then and called to tell me that all of the other kindergarten kids were dressed up. Bad Mom Award went to me that day. Luckily she had a perfect pink sparkly pin leotard and tutu set, some pink and glittery butterfly wings, and a pink wand with a sparkly star on it. My sister ran around to find those things and I got home in time to bring them to her and get her dressed. Oh I felt SO bad that day!!
So very true. Every school my kids have attended seems to be the same. The lack of Communication from school systems is appalling. Seems the only way to be in the loop is to volunteer at the school and I'm with you...no time.
Don't get me started......lol
Luckily, I work PT and can usually manage to roll with it but it is SO annoying.
It's not so much the real "events" that get me it's the random things like: crazy hair day, dress like a rock start day, dress like your hero day, pennies for xyz, dollars for abc, November food drive, etc., etc., ETC.!!!
I used to use the school calendar and put that in my phone. They got a new improved website so not I only know a month in advance. Still, you need to look at their website because most schools do give more notice, the handout is were you paying attention.
Does your school have an official web site? Does the PTA have its own web site separate from the school's? If not -- both need them. And if they do have sites but those sites lack calendars -- see if you or other parents can volunteer (I know, you work, but maybe someone can do this) to update those sites more regularly and add notices about things like honor roll ceremony, etc. You also need to get teachers to learn to feed dates to the web sites. It can take time for this kind of change to a school culture to take root, so don't expect great information to accumulate overnight. One thiing too about calendars and announcements on web sites -- the parents must go and look online proactively, rather than waiting for the school to send home paper flyers. In other words, if you get web sites with good calendars going, parents must make it a habit to check those sites on a regular basis or they will miss events!
Our PTA is "paperless" and the school largely is paperless, and I am not a huge fan of that most of the time, but the information is all there on the web sites -- I have to remember to GO to the sites and check on a regular basis or I will miss things like sock hops, food drives, yearbook orders, art contests, after-school extra classes and clubs. But it is all there. We never get a paper flyer about anything at all, and for classroom things, it's all on a site called Blackboard that carries homework, assignments and classroom events. But we must go to IT-- it does not get pushed out to us.
That is why on the PTA events I run I try to give as close to two weeks notice as I can. The teachers say not to bother because most parents just do not read these things and expect the kids to talk to their parents about the activities at home. Honestly, kids are not that reliable for this kind of information. I just try to notify my parents as early as possible for the events I run.
A lot of times I have found notes about events a long time after they are over under the bed, in a drawer, in the car under the seat, etc...I think the teacher should send out a monthly newsletter so that each parent will know to look for it and then they can be aware of upcoming scheduled events. Otherwise their teacher websites should always be up to date so parents can go online and check there to see if anything has changed. Also the school on-line calendar is important to keep aware of.
Yes, on Thursday my son's school sent home a little sheet saying that on Mon they'd be having a feast so we should bring some bite-sized foods to share. Um, yeah, I had no way to go grocery shopping this weekend, with 2 sick kids & a husband out of town. We weren't able to participate, so my son felt left out.
Lots of things posted on a Mon that are occuring on a Thurs--yes, not even us SAHMs can usually get to those--we need to find sitters and often have conflicts.
My daughters school is pretty good about that. They have a monthly newsletter with a calendar, they send out e-mails through thier website and they send home flyers in her folder. There was this one time last month it was supposedly princess day and I had no idea, it wasn't stated anywhere but a lot of the girls were in princess dresses and the little boys in superhero costumes (it was a couple weeks before halloween). It must have been just announced with the announcements but she didn't tell me and even if she did I probably wouldn't have believed her because she always wants to put princess dresses on anyway.
It's one of my biggest complaints, occurs in elementary, middle and high school. One of the best ones was a mailing that was postmarked the 14th, rec'd the 15th and the event was on the 10th.
What's even worse is when they give you a date, you schedule it and then the day before they decide to change the date.
Yes, the website does help, but it's not kept up to date. What's even worse are the office staff who don't have a clue.
My elementary school is awesome. Sorry to those whose schools suck at notices! We get the district calendar via e-mail at the start of the year. Then a monthly e-mail re-capping everything important that happened the month before and everything coming up during the next month (sometimes two months). Then a weekly e-mail from the principal hitting the highlights of the past week and what's coming up next week, along with attachments for notices, permission slips, order forms, etc. Then I get the PTA announcements each week forwarded by two different room mothers, along with any other notices for the classroom that week. Then on Sunday I get a message from one child's teacher's Shutterfly site with the calendar for the week, any announcements, pictures from class activities, volunteer schedules and requests for upcoming volunteer opportunities.
We have a new principal (this is his 2nd year) who is very tech-savvy and he has totally changed the quality, frequency and delivery of communication. I can honestly say that there is nothing important that goes on at their school that I don't know about, thanks to him and his push for regular e-mail communication.
The schools here are very lackadaisical with giving us notice about upcoming events. I just got notice yesterday that my son's class is having a thanksgiving party and we can send in things to help and parents can show up for the event. I cannot make it nor can I send anything in, sorry too late of notice. Luckily my son does not care. I got notice that my daughter made student of the month and honor roll and will be honored on the 29th of this month. Luckily my husband is able to work it out with his job so he can take the time so we can attend the assembly.
In spite of me being a SAHM I cannot make it to all events, especially with two kid in two different elementary schools nor can I always afford to have husband take time off so we can attend the in-school conferences. It makes my head swirl around with what parents are expected to do and keep up with when not given notice or when given notice too late.
Same thing here. I really wish the teachers were required to communicate via email so that the million papers didn't have to come home or get lost. Either that, or a site for each grade or class & what they have going on. We get a newsletter every few weeks, but it doesn't cover everything, unfortunately.
Yes, our school and PTA send out notice a couple days before an event. It's usually too late.
Rachel:
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! To Keaton!! How wonderful is that?!?!?!
Our school does information overload!! I think it's insane - we get "Tuesday Folders" filled with papers...then we get e-mails from the teachers and phone calls (mass recording) from the school - EVERY Sunday night we get an e-mail from the school telling us of the events at school the coming week and then we get a phone call too!!!
How's that for information overload!!!?
Congratulations to Keaton!! That ROCKS!!
