Open Letter to My Kid’s Elementary School Teachers

22. October 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Dear Teachers,

I love you, I do. I know you work hard and often work long hours grading, participating in after school activities and more. Your job is difficult. You have to teach kids who are often squirming in their seats, pulling the hair of the girl in front of them, or passing a note to the kid next to them. I support you in every way I can. I vote for increases in funding for the schools. I pay my taxes. I volunteer at the school and buy stuff so the school has even more funding.

I am willing to do a lot to support my child’s education and learning. I help with homework. I provide her with a good breakfast and lunch. I enhance her education by going to museums, encouraging her to read, and discussing current events over dinner. But I’m a busy person, as are most parents. So, I’m begging you, please, don’t have a costume, craft, and baked good all due on the same day. I can’t sew, nor can most of my fellow parents. Crafts? Foam crafts, sure. You know, the kind you can buy kits for. But crafts involving colonial products? Not so much. Also involved sewing. And baking? Baking I can do, but I’m betting some moms or dads aren’t so good at that. And it had to be done after dinner, so yeah, it was late.

I appreciate the concept behind all this and I know, you gave us notice. I know. Did I mention we were busy? That we didn’t get home until late? Maybe next time, just one of those things. I could handle doing just one. K, thnx.

Geeky Mom

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Volunteering Angst

24. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Gaggle of kidsImage by lorda via Flickr

So, I’ve been using some of my spare time to do some volunteering at my kids’ schools, mostly at the elementary school since they seem to need more help. I somehow ended up being the PTO webmaster. Okay, I told them I’d do it and it’s a good use of my skills. What this has entailed so far is setting up the site, responding to suggestions for functionality, etc. and then, posting information that was sent to me. Well, the requests to post started coming in more quickly and I decided to teach everyone else how to post (the site is a WordPress blog, so it’s pretty easy). That worked out fine and now most people are happily posting their own announcements. I also go to the PTO meetings and do the usual participating in schoolwide events.

I’m happy to be able to be involved in my kid’s school and it’s useful in keeping me informed, but my angst comes from feeling like they don’t really need me. Let me explain. The school is well-funded. What the PTO provides is mostly extra. They’re not buying supplies or paying teacher salaries or making sure low-income students have what they need to succeed. I can’t help but think that my efforts would pay off more at a school or organization that has significant needs.

Also, once you get on the “list” of people willing to volunteer, you get asked to do lots of things, partly because the percentage of parents who do volunteer is pretty small. And I often have this gut reaction of a) this seems like such a non-important thing to ask people to volunteer for and b) I can barely find time to keep my own life in order, much less the school’s. So, meh.

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More on paying for school

18. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

Remember that post I had about paying for public school? Well, here’s another suggestion that parents pay for laptops. I’ve been noting the many things I’m paying for that are not covered by the school. The PTO asks all of us to contribute, trying to raise close to $30k for cultural programs and other activities. Now, it’s true that if that money suddenly disappeared, it would be a big loss, but the school would still function. At the very least, almost everyone pays dues in order to get the directory. That’s $15. I also pay dues at another school. Another $15. I pay for field trips, which this year, will cost me about $100 because the 5th graders go on a big trip. I pay for school supplies, another $100 altogether for both kids. The soccer team booster club wants me to pay them $70. I’m not entirely sure what for. And there’s the cleats and shinguards and socks I’ve had to buy, well over $100. I’m paying $10 for a new music book for Geeky Girl who’s continuing to play the violin this year. Oh, and I’m paying about $15/month to rent the violin itself.

And I’m not counting all the extra things we do in order to boost the kids’ intellectual abilities: computers in the home, museum memberships, buying books, sending them to camp. And I’m not counting keeping them clothed and fed, also expensive.

Sure, I could choose not to let Geeky Girl play the violin or Geeky Boy play soccer. Those are optional, but they’re also really good for the kids. I can’t put a price tag on the skills they’re both learning from those activities. And really, it’s hard to put a price tag on school itself. I can’t imagine what it must be like for a family who struggles to buy the school supplies and who doesn’t even think about their kids playing a sport or a musical instrument because it’s cost prohibitive. When colleges increasingly look at what my mom used to call the “left side of the folder” at the activities kids are involved in to differentiate themselves from all the other applicants, kids who don’t have those are at a disadvantage.

As I said before, I know public schools are strapped for cash and some are more strapped than others. The ones that are most strapped are the very places where many parents can’t afford the extras, so asking parents to pick up the tab for more and more of the things that schools feel are necessary is just wrong. It just increases the gap between the school haves and have nots. Yes, it’s true that referendums to increase taxes to benefit schools often fail. Someone needs to work more on the argument that having good schools is good for everyone.

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Charge for public school?

09. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

Really? I can’t really believe this article proposing that we charge for public school. Um, I already pay over $2k/year in taxes that specifically go to the school district. Should schools have more money? Absolutely. But charging tuition is not the way to go.

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Real PTA Moms Respond

05. March 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Jackie at A Patchwork Life responds to the PTA debate, as a mom volunteering in a lower income school. I think that the parents who responded to Elizabeth’s post that I linked to yesterday tend to be in higher income school districts, where the tax base is such that they probably could fully fund the school if there were the political will to do so, and so there’s a frustration with the PTA fund raising efforts because they seem unnecessary or are creating further inequities between school districts.

The comments on Jackie’s post provide a completely different perspective on PTA efforts and should be a reminder that there are huge differences across school districts.

I have had experience at both ends of the school spectrum. I attended a school as a child where something like 85% of the students received free or reduced lunch. I’m sure they had to scrape for basic resources and that fund raising was an important part of that. At the other end, the first elementary school we were in here in PA was the richest in the area and the district actively competed with area private schools and was very up front about that competition. I went to PTA meetings there and volunteered in the classroom. Worst. Experience. Ever. I realize that that experience is not typical but it kind of scarred me. I mean the women who volunteered dressed for it, wearing pearls and diamonds and their best label outfits. I had on a t-shirt and jeans. One woman spent the entire time talking about famous graduates of her exclusive all-women’s high school. Ugh.

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PTA fundraising

04. March 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

There’s a very interesting discussion going on at Half-Changed World about what the PTA funds and whether it creates inequities or not. As I said over there, I have no idea what our PTA pays for at either the elementary or middle school. In fact, I’m planning to attend the school board meeting and the PTA meeting in the coming weeks, so maybe I’ll have more to say then.

Here’s the thing. I am not involved very much in either of my children’s schools. This is because I worked full-time, their schools were a 15-20 minute drive away, which meant if I wanted to volunteer for something, I was going to have to use a couple of hours of precious personal time. I’m trying to remedy that now that my hours are flexible. I’ve volunteered to help with an after school Shakespeare Club at the elementary school and I’ll see what I can do at the middle school after the PTA meeting next week.

One commenter notes the phenomenon of the PTA mom clique, and I’ve certainly felt that from time to time. At my younger child’s old elementary school, for example, there was a very well established PTA, with moms who’d been serving for years and who all knew each other quite well. Trying to participate was hard because I wasn’t part of the in crowd. The new elementary school isn’t like that as far as I can tell, mainly, I think, because more of the moms work and so there’s more coming and going as those moms have time to participate.

One other improvement I’ve noticed is the increased use of technology for getting parents involved. I signed up to make a dish for a potluck next week because they used a cool potluck web site to solicit donations. It was easy for me to see what they needed people to make. I could pick something and voila, I was done. Also, there’s more communication by email, etc. It would be nice to have more connecting via technology, like setting up a Facebook or Ning, so that parents can connect outside of participating in events.

Earlier this week, I listened in on the Parents as Partners webcast, which was really interesting. For a while I thought I was the only parent, but someone chimed in that they were helping get parents connected via various social networking tools. They were getting a little pushback from the school, but were working through that. The hardest thing is figuring out how to get connected to the school in a real way, where you feel like you know what their educational goals are and that you can have a voice in shaping those goals. I’ve been mostly focused on shaping my own kids’ goals and am finding that at times, they’re not in sync with the school and I don’t know what to do about that. I’m not sure how much being involved in the PTA would help that. Certianly, the webcast indicated that this kind of connection was the goal in many schools and it wasn’t all about the PTA.

It’s a complicated thing, sending your kids off to school and feeling like you don’t know what’s going on there. It’s taking a lot of work, but I hope to feel less in the dark by the end of the school year.

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Whose fault is it?

26. October 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Warning: rambling thought process below!

I have to say that I’ve been feeling a mounting frustration about school. My kids’ schools, that is. But I’m completely and totally conflicted about it, too. Will Richardson writes today about a conversation with a principal about who’s responsibility it is to teach kids digital literacy. I was also struck earlier this week by Laura at 11D’s Weekend Journal post, where she says, “the traditional paths to career success are made for men and the childless” in part a response to her need to be available to her kids, both in the general parent way, but also to advocate for her son with the schools and because there aren’t adequate after school programs for her youngest son. There are a couple of comments in the thread to Will’s post that mention “bad parenting” or “less than stellar parenting.” I have to admit, that gets my goat.

The thing is, I often feel stretched way too thin. My son comes home to an empty house. We usually talk a couple of times by phone and both Mr. Geeky and I try to get him to work on homework and do household chores from a distance. This is about as effective as trying to freeze water with a blow torch. There are a couple of after school programs that I just now found out about that he could attend, but no matter what, it’s not the same as having a parent around, someone you trust enough to ask stupid questions and who brings you apple pie when the going gets tough. So, I do take some blame when my kids struggle.

On the other hand, I think it’s far too easy for teachers to assume that a parent is home to guide a kid through homework, to help them get organized, etc. And so, they immediately assume that something’s not good on the home front when things start to slide.* I get frustrated at times because I feel like two-income families are in a real bind when it comes to getting kids through school successfully. If your kids needs, or you choose to provide personal attention, that often means after dinner, taking away from your own time to decompress for work or get other things done. I don’t mean to sound selfish here, but I always find it interesting when people talk about “family” time and they’re usually referring to some idyllic time long ago when parents didn’t come home and frantically throw together something for dinner after a long commute home.

I think my conflict comes from feeling that there are certainly things I could do to help make school a more successful experience for my kids, but that I’m trapped in a system that doesn’t fully appreciate or maybe doesn’t even recognize my conflict. I’ve never heard anyone at a parent-teacher meeting or back-to-school session talk about ways the school helps two-income families struggling with a compressed time-frame to work with their kids. I’ve never heard after school programs or clubs highlighted. I also find it frustrating at the lack of societal support for both education and raising kids. Schools lack money to have more innovative programs or to extend days (things that might help dual-income families). And local, state, and federal governments have few programs that provide quality after school services.

I’ll keep trying to resolve my conflict, but I have to say, it really does keep me up at night.

*I have to say that my kid’s teachers have made a valiant effort to make me feel like it’s not my fault that things aren’t going well for my kid, and that at this point in his life, homework is his responsibility.

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