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

[Anonymous]

Your kids sound young OP. Once you've been through it a year or two, you know what is coming. Green shirt on the 17th should not have been a surprise. I'm in a wealthy district but its not the PTO - its the admin doing all the sprit weeks, etc. I like it and so do my kids. But we still skip things. For example, my girls don't have "sports jerseys" for sports jersey day (a frequent spirit week day at our school) so they just don't. Its fine.

[Anonymous]

FYI "twin day" means you pick a friend and dress the same as them. All of these things are optional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I generally agree with you but your examples are weird. Why on earth did you drive 20 minutes to buy a flower? Do you live in a rural desert? And wearing green on St Patrick's day has been a thing for as long as I can remember.

Not that pp, but our house is one of the in our neighborhood that actually has bulbs planted. Most people here don't seem to have time for gardening or don't want to. And then you have all the people living in condos and apartments. And you have retail deserts out there too.

Op here. One time they asked us for a flower, we did pick from our yard. We don’t have any flowers right now. Gosh, they sure do ask for flowers a lot at this school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate is pajamas day and Hats day. Call me snobby, but you just don’t dress like this to school and hats indoors are rude. No wonder so many adults think its totally ok to wear pjs to the grocery store…you don’t see this stuff outside US.

+1. My DC refuses to wear PJs to school. The environment is public and gross for intimate sleeping apparel. Also, PJs tend to be thinner material.

[Anonymous]

Op, Why do children take a flower to school? Are they dissecting it to learn about the parts for science? I seriously have not heard about this one. But, I, too, think spirit days are bizarre and I’m happy that my DC does not want to participate. In particular, who wants to wear a mustache all day long for mustache day! Or, wild hair day? I grew up in this country and I never heard of such nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, Why do children take a flower to school? Are they dissecting it to learn about the parts for science? I seriously have not heard about this one. But, I, too, think spirit days are bizarre and I’m happy that my DC does not want to participate. In particular, who wants to wear a mustache all day long for mustache day! Or, wild hair day? I grew up in this country and I never heard of such nonsense.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, Why do children take a flower to school? Are they dissecting it to learn about the parts for science? I seriously have not heard about this one. But, I, too, think spirit days are bizarre and I’m happy that my DC does not want to participate. In particular, who wants to wear a mustache all day long for mustache day! Or, wild hair day? I grew up in this country and I never heard of such nonsense.

I’m going to guess that they are Catholic and it was part of a St Joseph’s altar.

Consider yourself lucky. You could have been asked to bake bread in the shape of fish OP….

[Anonymous]

I dislike “twin day” and I have twins. Whoever thinks twin day is fun, please stop suggesting this.

As for the other stuff, plan ahead if you can or just don’t do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is twin day??

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

National Twins Day is December 18. Just a one day celebration for twins.

There is also the Twins Day festival which is separate from National Twins Day. The Twins Day festival is usually the first full weekend in August (this year it will be August 5-7) and is a 3 day festival in Twinsburg, OH. It's like a huge carnival that has a midway, food, games, and a celebration of twins. People come from all over the country (not just multiples, but many people come just to celebrate and have fun) to attend.
https://twinsdays.org/

That’s not what we mean. Twin day means dress like someone else (so a pair dressed alike) for a day. It’s a great way to see visually who has no friends.

This exactly. Even if other kids don’t see it that way, it definitely feels that way to a kid who doesn’t have any close friends.

[Anonymous]

Agree. The single flower is a particular pita.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s sad all the kids who “don’t want to participate in spirit day.” It’s meant to be fun! It breaks up the long year od drudgery. I get why a child wouldn’t participate every spirit day, but not at all? That seems sad to me - in need of further investigation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate is pajamas day and Hats day. Call me snobby, but you just don’t dress like this to school and hats indoors are rude. No wonder so many adults think its totally ok to wear pjs to the grocery store…you don’t see this stuff outside US.

+1. My DC refuses to wear PJs to school. The environment is public and gross for intimate sleeping apparel. Also, PJs tend to be thinner material.

We did this in England. Pajama Day, Twin Day, dress like your favourite book character day, etc. Not my favourite either but I don't think it teaches children that it's normal or acceptable to dress like a wizard at the Tesco.

[Anonymous]

SGAs do this (student govt assoc), has nothing to do with bored housewives or PTAs. The KIDS pick the spirit day categories - one of the few things they CAN be in charge of.

[Anonymous]

It builds school community. Its a small ask.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SGAs do this (student govt assoc), has nothing to do with bored housewives or PTAs. The KIDS pick the spirit day categories - one of the few things they CAN be in charge of.

Since when do elementary kids have student government?