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I just contacted the school and heard back. It's open to all students but optional and extra curricular. We'll opt out this year.
I do think that (assuming they pull it off) that it'll be a fun thing for my daughter to go to and see what older kids are doing. I'm pretty sure most of the kids who participate will be 4th or 5th grade.
And it may inspire a life long interest in science. If not, she will find other things to be passionate about.
Science is my kids ' favorite subject, and also mine. I'll bet you anything, this won't even apply to kindergartners, and you won't need to worry. I would also bet you that 100% of the requests for time and money are optional. Choose what you can do and ignore the rest.
If you want to make things better, go to a meeting. Suggest one weekly email with all the info instead of lots of emails with one item.
Kibblekat, with regards to this, I think you're confusing your experience and mine. We don't receive e-mails from our PTSA. We receive flyers sent home in the kids backpack, but nothing identifies them as a PTSA flyer versus a school flyer versus an outside organization flyer. And then for each flyer, we have to figure out (ourselves) whether it was an assignment by the teacher (these I consider required), a PTSA activity (optional but closely affiliated) or an outside entity (not required at all). Some like girl scouts I'm familiar with. Others like science fair (which was a school activity when I was in school but extra curricular today) are ones I am not familiar with. Some are new to me and require more investigation.
I'm sure this all makes sense to people that are at the school frequently....and also makes sense to the kids who go to school everyday. It's us working parents, who are never at the school, and only see the ton of flyers & packets being sent home with the kids, that get overwhelmed.
It'll make sense by the end of the year and my complaints will stop.
Can you explain exactly what motivates the kids to do it? Prizes? Money? Grades? Skipping class?
Science isn't often the kind of thing that kids do for fun, so I'm curious what the motivation is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tiredtired
Earlier someone asked me what my "complaint" was. Well, it's that I see the PTSA as a stay-at-home-mom organization, and I feel that the local PTSA is pushing work on parents that we don't have time for.
As mentioned above, there are a ton of paperwork that is coming home, frequently with school-related activities. We'd like to be good parents and supportive of the school, but there is too many "assignments" coming from (mostly from the PTSA) that are either not age appropriate (prizes for reading when our kid can't read right now) or too time consuming (science fair) or not something we support (eat at restaurants, buy overpriced junk).
Since I'm not a volunteer at school, it is very hard to get the appropriate context for which of these activities we are "supposed" to do and which are acceptable to "ignore".
We have to filter out and skip unimportant activities....and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed right now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tiredtired
Kibblekat, with regards to this, I think you're confusing your experience and mine. We don't receive e-mails from our PTSA. We receive flyers sent home in the kids backpack, but nothing identifies them as a PTSA flyer versus a school flyer versus an outside organization flyer. And then for each flyer, we have to figure out (ourselves) whether it was an assignment by the teacher (these I consider required), a PTSA activity (optional but closely affiliated) or an outside entity (not required at all). Some like girl scouts I'm familiar with. Others like science fair (which was a school activity when I was in school but extra curricular today) are ones I am not familiar with. Some are new to me and require more investigation.
I'm sure this all makes sense to people that are at the school frequently....and also makes sense to the kids who go to school everyday. It's us working parents, who are never at the school, and only see the ton of flyers & packets being sent home with the kids, that get overwhelmed.
It'll make sense by the end of the year and my complaints will stop.
Before we went digital, the kids brought home folders stuffed with flyers for scouts, Spanish classes, art classes, etc. 90% of it we weren't interested in and immediately tossed in the recycle bin. They aren't requests for participation. They are just informational.
I am also a working parent. I don't think a folder full of flyers would make any more or less sense to me whether I was there or not.
ETA, not sure why all of the above was quoted... didn't mean to.
Kibblekat, with regards to this, I think you're confusing your experience and mine. We don't receive e-mails from our PTSA. We receive flyers sent home in the kids backpack, but nothing identifies them as a PTSA flyer versus a school flyer versus an outside organization flyer. And then for each flyer, we have to figure out (ourselves) whether it was an assignment by the teacher (these I consider required), a PTSA activity (optional but closely affiliated) or an outside entity (not required at all). Some like girl scouts I'm familiar with. Others like science fair (which was a school activity when I was in school but extra curricular today) are ones I am not familiar with. Some are new to me and require more investigation.
I'm sure this all makes sense to people that are at the school frequently....and also makes sense to the kids who go to school everyday. It's us working parents, who are never at the school, and only see the ton of flyers & packets being sent home with the kids, that get overwhelmed.
It'll make sense by the end of the year and my complaints will stop.
Ours are sent home on a special colored paper. Could there be a color code you don't know about?
Kibblekat, with regards to this, I think you're confusing your experience and mine. We don't receive e-mails from our PTSA. We receive flyers sent home in the kids backpack, but nothing identifies them as a PTSA flyer versus a school flyer versus an outside organization flyer. And then for each flyer, we have to figure out (ourselves) whether it was an assignment by the teacher (these I consider required), a PTSA activity (optional but closely affiliated) or an outside entity (not required at all). Some like girl scouts I'm familiar with. Others like science fair (which was a school activity when I was in school but extra curricular today) are ones I am not familiar with. Some are new to me and require more investigation.
I'm sure this all makes sense to people that are at the school frequently....and also makes sense to the kids who go to school everyday. It's us working parents, who are never at the school, and only see the ton of flyers & packets being sent home with the kids, that get overwhelmed.
It'll make sense by the end of the year and my complaints will stop.
My kids are in 2nd and 3rd now and they also get papers sent home in their Friday folders. I would think that if you needed to participate in the science fair it would have come from your child's teacher. We get all sorts of fliers from Identikid (identification cards for kids) to invest in your child campaigns (goal of raising a certain amount of money each year) to tailgates at the ES for the HS football games from the PTO. Anything important academic wise comes from each of my children's teachers.
Kibblekat, with regards to this, I think you're confusing your experience and mine. We don't receive e-mails from our PTSA. We receive flyers sent home in the kids backpack, but nothing identifies them as a PTSA flyer versus a school flyer versus an outside organization flyer. And then for each flyer, we have to figure out (ourselves) whether it was an assignment by the teacher (these I consider required), a PTSA activity (optional but closely affiliated) or an outside entity (not required at all). Some like girl scouts I'm familiar with. Others like science fair (which was a school activity when I was in school but extra curricular today) are ones I am not familiar with. Some are new to me and require more investigation.
I'm sure this all makes sense to people that are at the school frequently....and also makes sense to the kids who go to school everyday. It's us working parents, who are never at the school, and only see the ton of flyers & packets being sent home with the kids, that get overwhelmed.
It'll make sense by the end of the year and my complaints will stop.
I get the feeling of being overwhelmed.
My kid's school did something similar and called it the "Thursday Folder." Each Thursday, a folder was added to the take home load which included a variety of flyers for school-related, PTA-related, district-related and third-party activities. One day each week, a catchall for all that stuff. And there would be email messages sent to remind parents to check the "Thursday Folder" each week and make sure to send it back empty on Friday. The Thursday folder got pretty big, typically with eight to twelve things stuffed in it, on occasion more.
They went digital a few years ago and got rid of the "Thursday Folder" but there is still the occasional flyer that gets to the kids in class.
So, now we get three-to-four email messages a week with announcements, links, etc. that used to be included in the Thursday Folders (but no scans of flyers - they must have made the decision to not accept or use attachments, which helps is using search tools of email messages).
Kibblekat, with regards to this, I think you're confusing your experience and mine. We don't receive e-mails from our PTSA.
We receive flyers sent home in the kids backpack, but nothing identifies them as a PTSA flyer versus a school flyer versus an outside organization flyer. And then for each flyer, we have to figure out (ourselves) whether it was an assignment by the teacher (these I consider required), a PTSA activity (optional but closely affiliated) or an outside entity (not required at all). Some like girl scouts I'm familiar with. Others like science fair (which was a school activity when I was in school but extra curricular today) are ones I am not familiar with. Some are new to me and require more investigation.
I'm sure this all makes sense to people that are at the school frequently....and also makes sense to the kids who go to school everyday. It's us working parents, who are never at the school, and only see the ton of flyers & packets being sent home with the kids, that get overwhelmed.
It'll make sense by the end of the year and my complaints will stop.
Every school that my children attended, or where I was a teacher or sub teacher always clearly identified who was sending out the flyer or announcement. In some schools, it also was done by color. For example, where I used to teach, the PTSA always & only used goldenrod paper & had their logo & name on each sheet, the office always & only used light green paper & it clearly stated the name of the school. Teachers could use white, or any colored paper except for goldenrod & light green and also clearly identified the sheet with their name and grade level.
All outside organizations had to very, very clearly list who they were on the flyer/notice/announcement, and get the written permission of either the principal or the school district central office to be sent home with students.
Also, some schools only send out school materials on a certain day of the week in a special folder (ie. Thursday blue folders) and teachers send out their materials only on a different day, such as Friday, or in a different folder (ie. Classroom folders).
Some districts are now doing all homework assignments & messages via the classroom teacher's website or home page. Personally, I disagree with that, because they assume that every parent has easy access to a home computer and the internet and that is not always the case. Even if it is situation where your computer was in the shop for a week or two the parent would need to go to a public library to find out the homework assignments or messages, if they did not have a smart phone, or ask the teacher to print out everything for them. Frankly, I think that doing everything on line is discriminatory against the low income students & their families that probably do not have a, or multiple, computers in their home.
Perhaps, there is something that you are missing. If they truly do not identify who is sending out the notice that seems pretty odd and confusing. Can you ask a neighbor or another parent? Maybe there is a key (such as a color code) that you are missing.
Last edited by germaine2626; 10-06-2016 at 04:44 PM..
Can you explain exactly what motivates the kids to do it? Prizes? Money? Grades? Skipping class?
Science isn't often the kind of thing that kids do for fun, so I'm curious what the motivation is.
Wrong. Science has always been something many kids do for fun. Of course, some kids may not enjoy it, but these are hands on activities and if they are age appropriate they are great fun as well as being a learning experience.
Kibblekat, with regards to this, I think you're confusing your experience and mine. We don't receive e-mails from our PTSA. We receive flyers sent home in the kids backpack, but nothing identifies them as a PTSA flyer versus a school flyer versus an outside organization flyer. And then for each flyer, we have to figure out (ourselves) whether it was an assignment by the teacher (these I consider required), a PTSA activity (optional but closely affiliated) or an outside entity (not required at all). Some like girl scouts I'm familiar with. Others like science fair (which was a school activity when I was in school but extra curricular today) are ones I am not familiar with. Some are new to me and require more investigation.
I'm sure this all makes sense to people that are at the school frequently....and also makes sense to the kids who go to school everyday. It's us working parents, who are never at the school, and only see the ton of flyers & packets being sent home with the kids, that get overwhelmed.
It'll make sense by the end of the year and my complaints will stop.
Your school is unusual if the flyers don't identify themselves. Ours always say PTA if they are from the PTA. Teacher assignments are also clearly marked with due dates.
Wrong. Science has always been something many kids do for fun. Of course, some kids may not enjoy it, but these are hands on activities and if they are age appropriate they are great fun as well as being a learning experience.
Out of curiosity, did your kids do science fair? I'm not talking science, I'm talking science fair. Develop a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, collect and process data, draw a conclusion, and put it all together on a tabletop trifold display. That's what I'm talking about science fair.
It was probably the hardest project that I did in my K-12 education. There were other tough subjects, but no project was as difficult at the 6th grade science fair.
Last edited by tiredtired; 10-06-2016 at 06:18 PM..
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