Why do schools ask us to do so much extra crap?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have boys. They never want to participate in that crap. If the flower was for the teacher then I’d do it. They don’t dress up.

My sons are the same way. Not a care in the world.

My 9 year old son is the same. Just doesn't care enough about what he's wearing in general to tailor it to dress like your favorite book character or whatever. And I'm not involved in what he wears each day. But I feel for the kids (and parents of kids!) who DO care and whose parents don't have time for that s**t. When I was his age I would have felt left out if I didn't dress up and everyone else did, so I get it.

Also we are at a FARMS school and they still do multiple Spirit Weeks a year. I do notice its overwhelmingly the white kids who come all decked out.

[Anonymous]

I cared about doing this stuff when my oldest started school. By the time the third child started school all I cared about was getting everyone to school on time. I ignored all that extra crap. My kids didn't mind.

[Anonymous]

I hate spirit week and teacher appreciation week. My older child really cared about participating, but luckily my younger one doesn’t want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a wealthy school district issue. My guess is bored SAHMs drive these things- they like getting the pictures, they like coming up with "fun" things to do at school, they like forcing ridiculous fund raisers and events so they can sponsor over the top assemblies, they like throwing elaborate school parties that require parents to either contribute a lot of money or sign up for something dumb. Social media drives it too. I went to a top public school in the 90s and we didn't do any of this and our mothers weren't making chalk posters for us to hold on the first day of school.


Again, just a guess. High(er) FARMS schools don't do any of that. Likely bc it will be ignored by most parents.

x100000

Bingo.

[Anonymous]

I never seem to know what's going on at school. We're in Kindergarten so this is all new to us (and we went to private school). It's a mix between zero communication from the teacher and then a ton of paper/DOJO messages/parentvue. I don't understand why the school just can't email us? Stop the dumb dojo app, stop putting stuff on parent vue that I need to check and stop printing paper that my kid loses. What's wrong with emails?

And yeah a lot of the stuff is difficult to source. I get told the night before that it's "dress up like a book character day" or Dr. Seuss day or 100 things glued to your shirt day or wear your favorite sports team day. My DD has no sports jerseys, why not princess day since we have a million of those? (I'm being sarcastic, but I do think the dress up days appeal more to boys).

They spent all day Wednesday making elaborate Leprechaun traps (like preschoolers would!), but half the class still doesn't know their letters and can't write their names.

[Anonymous]

We did what worked for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a wealthy school district issue. My guess is bored SAHMs drive these things- they like getting the pictures, they like coming up with "fun" things to do at school, they like forcing ridiculous fund raisers and events so they can sponsor over the top assemblies, they like throwing elaborate school parties that require parents to either contribute a lot of money or sign up for something dumb. Social media drives it too. I went to a top public school in the 90s and we didn't do any of this and our mothers weren't making chalk posters for us to hold on the first day of school.


Again, just a guess. High(er) FARMS schools don't do any of that. Likely bc it will be ignored by most parents.

x100000

Bingo.

Like others have said, high FARMS schools do this same thing. Usually people will pick a flower from the yard, or wear a piece of green construction paper cut into a shamrock, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I actually structured my whole adult life so I would always have time for stuff like this. My parents both worked high powered jobs and I was always acutely aware that there wasn’t time for anything. Like if I broke a glass, it wasn’t that they were mad at me for breaking the glass, but now we were going to be late and I could feel the stress.

Here are some options:
1) don’t wear green. Teach your kid to say “I didn’t have any green clothes but I have green snot today” or something, whatever. You don’t have to do this.
2) find something green like a hat or a Christmas stocking and make that work.
3) pick a flower from your yard
4) pick a flower from your neighbors’ yard.

I mean for goodness sake it’s daffodil season.

It sounds like you are time-poor. It’s easy to get that way but it’s not terrific for kids.

Exactly. It must be exhausting to live life with no time. Everything must be so stressful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a wealthy school district issue. My guess is bored SAHMs drive these things- they like getting the pictures, they like coming up with "fun" things to do at school, they like forcing ridiculous fund raisers and events so they can sponsor over the top assemblies, they like throwing elaborate school parties that require parents to either contribute a lot of money or sign up for something dumb. Social media drives it too. I went to a top public school in the 90s and we didn't do any of this and our mothers weren't making chalk posters for us to hold on the first day of school.


Again, just a guess. High(er) FARMS schools don't do any of that. Likely bc it will be ignored by most parents.

Why did you feel the need to throw in a misogynistic dig there? Are you feeling particularly insecure today? I'm a SAHM and at our school, it's the type A working VPs that spearhead all this crap. I hate it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a wealthy school district issue. My guess is bored SAHMs drive these things- they like getting the pictures, they like coming up with "fun" things to do at school, they like forcing ridiculous fund raisers and events so they can sponsor over the top assemblies, they like throwing elaborate school parties that require parents to either contribute a lot of money or sign up for something dumb. Social media drives it too. I went to a top public school in the 90s and we didn't do any of this and our mothers weren't making chalk posters for us to hold on the first day of school.


Again, just a guess. High(er) FARMS schools don't do any of that. Likely bc it will be ignored by most parents.

x100000

Bingo.

Yep. Hate this nonsense. Thankfully once my kids got past elementary they really didn't care. But so infuriating because the selfie-obsessed moms with too much time on their hands wind up creating a burden for all the rest of us, and it's especially unfair to disadvantaged kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a wealthy school district issue. My guess is bored SAHMs drive these things- they like getting the pictures, they like coming up with "fun" things to do at school, they like forcing ridiculous fund raisers and events so they can sponsor over the top assemblies, they like throwing elaborate school parties that require parents to either contribute a lot of money or sign up for something dumb. Social media drives it too. I went to a top public school in the 90s and we didn't do any of this and our mothers weren't making chalk posters for us to hold on the first day of school.


Again, just a guess. High(er) FARMS schools don't do any of that. Likely bc it will be ignored by most parents.

x100000

Bingo.

Yep. The long-time principal at my kids' ES was a single mom. And we had very little of this stuff going on. It was also extremely rare to have an event where they wanted parents to show up at school during the day. It made for a very working-parent-friendly environment.

[Anonymous]

I’m confused by why you had to buy a flower? Just pick one on your way to school? There are lots of flowers blooming at the moment. For colours/themes, only make an effort with stuff that’s already in their wardrobe. Wear green can be green leaves on a shirt with a picture of a flower.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a wealthy school district issue. My guess is bored SAHMs drive these things- they like getting the pictures, they like coming up with "fun" things to do at school, they like forcing ridiculous fund raisers and events so they can sponsor over the top assemblies, they like throwing elaborate school parties that require parents to either contribute a lot of money or sign up for something dumb. Social media drives it too. I went to a top public school in the 90s and we didn't do any of this and our mothers weren't making chalk posters for us to hold on the first day of school.


Again, just a guess. High(er) FARMS schools don't do any of that. Likely bc it will be ignored by most parents.

x100000

Bingo.

Like others have said, high FARMS schools do this same thing. Usually people will pick a flower from the yard, or wear a piece of green construction paper cut into a shamrock, etc.

No they don’t. Not to the extent OP is complaining about and that many of us are familiar with. And it isn’t that the parents don’t care about school. They dont. But they don’t care about twin day, getting the Kraft brothers to come, and bunches of other non essential tasks PTA likes to make up

[Anonymous]

I can't keep track of the spirit days. If my kids want to participate they need to do it on their own. They can ask me for help if needed.

[Anonymous]

What is twin day??

But yeah some of this annoys me too, although DC’s teacher this year is pretty good about sending emails.