Public School Event Held at Private Swim Club - Is this allowed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Omg they are excluding families that don't like to swim. How dare they.

Not everyone who enjoys swimming joins a club. I have a child who is year round team and we are not in a swim club.

[Anonymous]

Is it mandatory that teachers attend? Strongly encouraged? Or teachers just volunteer to go?
If it isn't mandatory that teachers attend then there isn't an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here from a Title One school. What's wrong with a Back to School popsicle pool party at a swim club for the members/guests of the swim club? If it is in place of an open event held previously for everyone, that is not cool. Does the school host their own BTS event? If not, why not?

The concern is its sponsored by the school for members only so non-member kids cannot attend. Gross.

Where does it say it's sponsored by the school?

In my former 'hood, many teachers and students belonged to the same pool. I've never been to such an event as the one OP describes However, if I'm a teacher who belongs to the pool and I have colleagues with whom I'm I friends, they may enter as my guests.

Neighborhood pools host parties, people. And guess what? Teachers belong to pools.

[Anonymous]

The people who aren't members can probably go for 5-6 bucks

[Anonymous]

There’s nothing wrong with a private club having a theme party.

If you don’t belong to the club then don’t worry about it.

Everything doesn’t need to be an offensive act.

[Anonymous]

No different then a family hosting a party and not inviting the whole class.

[Anonymous]

When we were at at a Bethesda public ES the school used a private Yahoo group for ALL school notices. Everything from PTA stuff to official letters home from the principal. I thought this was horrible. There were special education people from OOB and many international families and they missed all the info because you had to opt in to get the info, since the school minimized paper communications. So many of these people completely missed the info, had no idea about the lists. Public means just that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here from a Title One school. What's wrong with a Back to School popsicle pool party at a swim club for the members/guests of the swim club? If it is in place of an open event held previously for everyone, that is not cool. Does the school host their own BTS event? If not, why not?

The concern is its sponsored by the school for members only so non-member kids cannot attend. Gross.

I'm the OP.

Yes, I guess that is my issue. Seems a little 'gross' that only members of the Swim Club can attend. It sounds like they're very deliberately trying to leave out people who can't afford the Swim Club membership. We've got a decent number of lower-income families at our school (of all races, so I don't think it's a race issue) that definitely can't afford to be members. If it's supposed to be for kids to interact with their teachers, then this particular event is leaving out a good percentage of students.

Then don’t go. We attended such a school and were middle income and having to do everything to accommodate the poors and it just sucked and a lot of the events sponsored by the school and PTA were just lame.

It sounds like this swim club event may be excluding the middle income families as well as “the poors.” Hopefully those middle income folks are as understanding as you are about non-inclusive events.

Yep, that would be fine with me. Not every event can be for every person.

Exactly!
Also, a $500 pool membership is not exclusive.

[Anonymous]

I would complain to the principal. In the OP it says the event is "popsicles with teachers and staff." It's particularly inappropriate to have a meet and greet type event with teachers that isn't open to all, but I would complain about any publicly advertised event for the school that isn't open to all.

[Anonymous]

This seems like it is a Teacher Appreciation event, not a "Meet and Greet."

Which...I think it is really nice of parents to leverage their privilege (and a pool membership is a privilege) in order to support teachers and staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Exactly!
Also, a $500 pool membership is not exclusive.

It excludes people who can't afford $500 for a summer pool membership. Which is a lot of people, particularly in an area that has a Focus school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Omg they are excluding families that don't like to swim. How dare they.

My Vampire-American family would also feel excluded unless the event was held after sundown and the sticks removed from the popsicles in advance. They look stakey otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Get over it. There will always be things others have access to that you don't (sometimes expensive summer camp or clothes or technology, sometimes expensive trips). It's a private club having a party. Our pool does this for anyone at the pool who wants to. It's definitely not mandatory for teachers, definitely not sponsored by the PTA, a bunch of parents thought hey, there's a bunch of us here so why not...

I am at a W school, probably considered in the 1%, although maybe 5%, and there are things others do that we cannot. It's ok, you will survive and so will your kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we were at at a Bethesda public ES the school used a private Yahoo group for ALL school notices. Everything from PTA stuff to official letters home from the principal. I thought this was horrible. There were special education people from OOB and many international families and they missed all the info because you had to opt in to get the info, since the school minimized paper communications. So many of these people completely missed the info, had no idea about the lists. Public means just that.

Same thing still happens all the time to non-Facebook people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here from a Title One school. What's wrong with a Back to School popsicle pool party at a swim club for the members/guests of the swim club? If it is in place of an open event held previously for everyone, that is not cool. Does the school host their own BTS event? If not, why not?

The concern is its sponsored by the school for members only so non-member kids cannot attend. Gross.

I'm the OP.

Yes, I guess that is my issue. Seems a little 'gross' that only members of the Swim Club can attend. It sounds like they're very deliberately trying to leave out people who can't afford the Swim Club membership. We've got a decent number of lower-income families at our school (of all races, so I don't think it's a race issue) that definitely can't afford to be members. If it's supposed to be for kids to interact with their teachers, then this particular event is leaving out a good percentage of students.

Then don’t go. We attended such a school and were middle income and having to do everything to accommodate the poors and it just sucked and a lot of the events sponsored by the school and PTA were just lame.

It sounds like this swim club event may be excluding the middle income families as well as “the poors.” Hopefully those middle income folks are as understanding as you are about non-inclusive events.

Yep, that would be fine with me. Not every event can be for every person.

Exactly!
Also, a $500 pool membership is not exclusive.

Wow! Our school does Coat Drives for kids in the winter. And we have a program for kids to pay for field trips if they can’t afford them.

$500 is actually a good amount of money to some people! Not everyone of us is DCUM rich. But, I guess that is how the organizers of this event feel. That $500 is NBD.