Come to school….but leave the kids at home
Posted on | November 18, 2009 | Comments Off
While the Glen Rock school system certainly plans plenty of interesting and enriching activities for our kids that include our participation you have to, at times, question the planning and rationale that go into some of these events. Specifically, at issue is the restriction on bringing younger siblings to any of these events. Many of the kids in our school system have younger siblings — many are not quite school age — and at least one of the parents stays home with that child.
It seems, however, that the school system does not want you to bring these younger siblings to any of the events that include us (the parents) in them. Any parties, holiday celebrations, performances, rehearsals are all off-limits to the toddlers and babies. Exacerbating the problem is the lack of notice given prior to these events. The notices typically come, at most, one week in advance and explicitly state “no younger siblings.”
It seems highly unlikely that most stay-at-home parents have a babysitter standing at-the-ready for a quick 30 to 60 minute shift with just a couple of days’ notice. What this forces is a choice between children — school kid or toddler? It puts the parent in a tough spot and ultimately forces a sacrifice for the event.
This policy needs to be reconsidered. There is no way a stay-at-home parent can accommodate this requirement on a regular basis leaving their school kid without their companionship on these special days. This issue is probably not as big of a deal for working parents as their toddlers are already in day care but I’m sure there are times when they’d like to bring the sibling since they’ve already taken the time off from work to be there.
The schools do a great job in trying to involve the parents in many activities. Thank you for that. Now, please consider our day-to-day situation and let the siblings attend.
