Curriculum Night Surprise: No Kids Allowed
When we received our children’s school calendars in the mail last month, I sat down with my digital and old fashioned paper calendars to plug in the important dates, including Curriculum Night for my twin fourth graders this coming Thursday.
On previous Curriculum Nights/Open Houses, The Spouse and I have brought all three of our kids along with us. We’ve all listened to the school principals, school nurses and so on, until it was time to visit individual classrooms. During Open Houses at my twins’ schools, The Spouse and I would play man-to-man D, each accompanying one of the twins to his or her classroom. If there was time (which there often wasn’t), we parents would swap and race to see the other twin’s classroom. That’s precisely what we were planning to do at this week’s Fourth Grade Curriculum Night. Then we received this letter on late Tuesday afternoon:
Important Notice
What: 4th Grade Curriculum Night
When: Thursday, September 11, 2008
What Time: 6:00-6:15 p.m. [Principal's name] will welcome 4th grade parents in cafeteria. 6:15-6:30 p.m. Fourth grade teachers will address parents in cafeteria. 6:30-7:00 p.m. Curriculum presentations. See below for locations. [List of teachers and their classrooms.]
Who: PARENTS AND/OR GUARDIANS ONLY (NO CHILDREN PLEASE).
Emphasis was NOT added to that last line. That’s exactly how it appeared on the flier that came home from school on Tuesday for an event on Thursday at 6. We’re talking fourth graders here. Who cannot stay home alone. Which means that in order to abide by the school’s dictate, The Spouse and I would have to scramble, on less than two days notice, to locate a babysitter in order to attend our children’s Curriculum Night event. (If only one of us went, that one parent would likely only be able to visit one of our twins’ classrooms.) If I were a single parent who’d been given so little notice and couldn’t find babysitting, my choices would be either to skip the event or bring the kids anyway. For two-parent families who have only one student attending this school, that means that only one parent gets to meet the teacher and discuss curriculum.
If we’d had notice, we could’ve prepared for this, although I think it’s a distinctly family-unfriendly tact to explicitly tell kids that they’re not invited. If the students were older and could stay home alone for the duration of the event, fine. But when they’re still young and their parents can’t find babysitting the end result of this policy is that many parents won’t be able to come. What’s that we always hear from educators about the importance of having involved parents (that’s parentS, as in plural) on a child’s academic success?
Believe me, I understand that having kids there would make it noisy and most definitely would make it more crowded. But if the younger grades can host Open Houses where children can accompany their parents, why can’t the fourth grade? Children who misbehave, talk too loudly or shout should be taken out into the hall by the parents or at the gentle suggestion of school staff. Isn’t that what school’s supposed to be about? Teaching children how to behave politely in public places? How to listen?
Banning children means banning parents who can’t find sitters, that is if you think it’s important to have BOTH parents involved in the child’s education. And that’s not right.
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We just got a similar surprise at my daughter’s pre-K. On Monday we had a “meet-n-greet” event, which we arranged a baby-sitter for - our first non-family member baby-sitter ever for our infant. Both my husband and I attended the event and met some of the other parents (though we were the only ones to attend from our daughter’s actual class). We just recently found out that there is also “curriculum night” in a few weeks. We are not willing to spend baby-sitting fees for a second night out, especially knowing now that we could have skipped or sent one parent to the first event. So likely just one of us will go to curriculum night, which is probably the more important event to have had both of us attend.
Both of these events say no children invited as well. Agreed that kids might make the night more difficult, but unless I want to shell out anohter $40, both parents just can’t be involved. That stinks.
Comment by LilMisBusy — September 10, 2008 @ 8:46 am