How would you invite the K class in this scenario?

[Anonymous]

DC is in K. We do not know any of the parents/families of the other kids in the class, and haven't received any communications, party invites, etc from any other parents so far this years.
We are starting to plan DC's birthday party, but I am at a loss as to the mechanics of inviting classmates. We have not been provided a contact list, have not been contacted by any kind of "room parent" or anything like that, basically zero contact aside from DC's teacher (no issues with that, BTW).
So I have no idea how to go about issuing party invites to classmates, which DC would very much like to do. Has anyone been in this situation (zero contact from other parents, etc)? Should I ask the teacher to distribute invites in their daily folders (hate to do that... it's not her job... etc)? Or ask the school office for a contact list? Not sure what the protocol is. I always assumed once we got to K there would be some kind of Class Parent to reach out to.
DC is not in any activities that involve these classmates. We'll probably invite some other kids as well... but I know how to get in touch with them

[Anonymous]

Also... would you be comfortable with your K'er attending an old fashioned home party if you've never met the parents (that's us)? If the invite said "drop-offs okay" or something like that... would you not attend, drop off, or stay?

[Anonymous]

Does your PTA put out a directory? If you ask the teacher, the teacher may decline - they don't distribute invites in our school. Also you have the problem
Of kids not giving the invites To their parents so it's not a reliable mechanism of delivery.

As to dropping off, lots of kids come to drop off parties at my house. But if I didn't know the parents, I would t drop off my young kid.

[Anonymous]

I did this last year. I basically emailed the teacher and asked what she preferred. She told me to send the invites in with my son and she would put them in the folders.

We invited half of of the class (12 kids). 5 of the 12 came. All of the parents stayed (it wasn't a home party).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did this last year. I basically emailed the teacher and asked what she preferred. She told me to send the invites in with my son and she would put them in the folders.

We invited half of of the class (12 kids). 5 of the 12 came. All of the parents stayed (it wasn't a home party).

While I think it's ok that the teacher was willing to put the invitations in the folders, I am amazed that she was ok with it given that you weren't inviting the whole class. Handing out invitations to only select kids is a recipe for disaster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is in K. We do not know any of the parents/families of the other kids in the class, and haven't received any communications, party invites, etc from any other parents so far this years.
We are starting to plan DC's birthday party, but I am at a loss as to the mechanics of inviting classmates. We have not been provided a contact list, have not been contacted by any kind of "room parent" or anything like that, basically zero contact aside from DC's teacher (no issues with that, BTW).
So I have no idea how to go about issuing party invites to classmates, which DC would very much like to do. Has anyone been in this situation (zero contact from other parents, etc)? Should I ask the teacher to distribute invites in their daily folders (hate to do that... it's not her job... etc)? Or ask the school office for a contact list? Not sure what the protocol is. I always assumed once we got to K there would be some kind of Class Parent to reach out to.
DC is not in any activities that involve these classmates. We'll probably invite some other kids as well... but I know how to get in touch with them

Does your school have a directory? That is what I used. Sometimes you have to join the PTA to get one or at least pay for it through the PTA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did this last year. I basically emailed the teacher and asked what she preferred. She told me to send the invites in with my son and she would put them in the folders.

We invited half of of the class (12 kids). 5 of the 12 came. All of the parents stayed (it wasn't a home party).

All the kids of the same gender in the class?

[Anonymous]

Just ask the teacher. Dear Teach: Jake's birthday is at the end of January and I'd like to invite the whole class. Is there a room list that has everyone's email and phone? Thanks so much.

I would bring my kid to your house party, stay a while to make sure you didn't seem crazy, and if my kid was comfortable with me leaving, I would get your phone number and go.

[Anonymous]

Our school is like this and it's been a big challenge (I have a kid in 3rd grade and one in 1st grade). No directory, no room parents, no contact lists, and teachers are only willing to let you hand out invitations if they are going to the whole class. We haven't found a great way to deal with it yet. We've had a little luck focusing on just a few kids who are close friends with my kids, sending in a note with our contact info and asking their parents to contact us or to send in their contact info in return (rather than sending in a direct invitation). But that relies on my kids passing off the note to their kids, then having their kids pass it on to the parents, and having the parents care enough to respond. To be honest, we've focused on inviting non-school friends to birthday parties o(friends we still have from preschool or other activities), and just had a couple of kids from school attend in the years we've been at this school. Oh, and the parents have typically stayed at our house for the birthday parties we've hosted. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our school is like this and it's been a big challenge (I have a kid in 3rd grade and one in 1st grade). No directory, no room parents, no contact lists, and teachers are only willing to let you hand out invitations if they are going to the whole class. We haven't found a great way to deal with it yet.[b] We've had a little luck focusing on just a few kids who are close friends with my kids, sending in a note with our contact info and asking their parents to contact us or to send in their contact info in return (rather than sending in a direct invitation). But that relies on my kids passing off the note to their kids, then having their kids pass it on to the parents, and having the parents care enough to respond. To be honest, we've focused on inviting non-school friends to birthday parties o(friends we still have from preschool or other activities), and just had a couple of kids from school attend in the years we've been at this school. Oh, and the parents have typically stayed at our house for the birthday parties we've hosted. Good luck!

See bold. Consider volunteering to be the parent who heads up the creation of a school directory. Yeah, that doesn't help OP in the short term, but maybe OP and this PP can get this going in their kids' schools. Unless there is blanket objection from most parents on privacy grounds, you should be able to do this pretty readily. Maybe post on here, or on other forums for elementary kid parents, to ask how other schools do it. It's pretty common to have a school directory in elementary schools. If your school bans it for some reason (and maybe OP's does too?) I'd inquire about why.

If no school directory is in the works or you don't want to take it on, then ask why there's no room parent and volunteer for that if you have time and if the teacher wants it.

Those of you with no room parents, is that because the teacher or the school as a whole doesn't work that way, or because no one stepped up to do it? Whether or not the room parent provides contacts to all parents, the room parent can be a big help in other ways. Just curious at the lack of room parents and the lack of any directories at some schools referenced here.
--parent of a high schooler whose 2 elementaries both had directories that were heavily used by us all....

[Anonymous]

OP here, thank you all! I was kind of stumped because at the open house at the beginning of the year, the teacher had a sign up sheet for various things... volunteer in class, help plan parties, etc. I signed up for "send stuff home with my kid and I will do it" - teacher said it would likely be prep work like "cut out these 8,000 paper leaves" or whatever. Haven't heard 1 peep about that. But I digress... pretty sure there was a room parent category and I'm pretty sure I saw someone signed up.
I think this is impetus for me to finally send in the damn PTA form. We'll go from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school is like this and it's been a big challenge (I have a kid in 3rd grade and one in 1st grade). No directory, no room parents, no contact lists, and teachers are only willing to let you hand out invitations if they are going to the whole class. We haven't found a great way to deal with it yet.[b] We've had a little luck focusing on just a few kids who are close friends with my kids, sending in a note with our contact info and asking their parents to contact us or to send in their contact info in return (rather than sending in a direct invitation). But that relies on my kids passing off the note to their kids, then having their kids pass it on to the parents, and having the parents care enough to respond. To be honest, we've focused on inviting non-school friends to birthday parties o(friends we still have from preschool or other activities), and just had a couple of kids from school attend in the years we've been at this school. Oh, and the parents have typically stayed at our house for the birthday parties we've hosted. Good luck!

See bold. Consider volunteering to be the parent who heads up the creation of a school directory. Yeah, that doesn't help OP in the short term, but maybe OP and this PP can get this going in their kids' schools. Unless there is blanket objection from most parents on privacy grounds, you should be able to do this pretty readily. Maybe post on here, or on other forums for elementary kid parents, to ask how other schools do it. It's pretty common to have a school directory in elementary schools. If your school bans it for some reason (and maybe OP's does too?) I'd inquire about why.

If no school directory is in the works or you don't want to take it on, then ask why there's no room parent and volunteer for that if you have time and if the teacher wants it.

Those of you with no room parents, is that because the teacher or the school as a whole doesn't work that way, or because no one stepped up to do it? Whether or not the room parent provides contacts to all parents, the room parent can be a big help in other ways. Just curious at the lack of room parents and the lack of any directories at some schools referenced here.
--parent of a high schooler whose 2 elementaries both had directories that were heavily used by us all....

This is the PP. Our school just isn't set up like that -- there have never been requests for room parents, and only one of the teachers (of five my kids have had) had a sign-up at the beginning of the year asking if anybody wanted to volunteer regularly, although they do all ask for volunteers for specific events like room parties (which the teachers organize themselves). I'm active in our PTA, which has very low parent participation. I would love to have us do a directory, and have raised the idea in previous years, but the current set of volunteers are spread too thin with the other stuff we are already doing (and the administration was lukewarm about the idea and not forthcoming on how we could get the information). I will try again to see if we can get somebody to take it on and post here if we need ideas. Thanks for the encouragement.

[Anonymous]

In our k class, parents mostly (maybe always?) stay at the party. If I couldn't stay, I'd probably ask a parent who was going to stay to keep an eye on my kid. I've gotten invitations in the backpack as well as through the school supplies email list.

[Anonymous]

This is pretty weird and I would also be at a loss about what to do. Honestly OP I probably wouldn't have a party

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did this last year. I basically emailed the teacher and asked what she preferred. She told me to send the invites in with my son and she would put them in the folders.

We invited half of of the class (12 kids). 5 of the 12 came. All of the parents stayed (it wasn't a home party).

All the kids of the same gender in the class?

No, it was a mix of boys and girls.