Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, that’s not what we said at all. Just do a signup genius! No need to demand cash from parents ever. We have great fun parties with just sign up genius and room mom doesn’t need to go broke.

And if parents do not sign up for SignUp Genius, you can send out an email saying that the party will get cancelled due to lack of participation. I think this is a better way to engage parents.

That doesn't work. And, our teacher tried that and my child came home really upset. We were happy to donate what ever was needed and did. Problem solved. You don't do that to kids. If no one signs up, room parent can do cupcakes or cookies and bottled water. Or, they can do more. We've done it a variety of ways. Usually you can get 4-5 parents to sign up for the absolute basics and the room parent fills in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a room parent and we ask for each family to contribute a certain amount at the start of the year. This covers teacher holiday and end of year gifts, costumes for the school play and all crafts/food for parties. Pizza alone runs roughly $135 per party. We have about 55% participation yet 100% of the kids get crafts, fed at the party, and costumes for the play. We sign the teacher gifts from the class. It's January and we are out of money once I set aside for end of year gifts ($25/teacher). That means no more parties for the rest of the year. Do I email the class asking again for those who haven't donated to step up? For those of you who don't contribute, how do you feel about your child taking part in the parties, etc when you've not helped? And for those in a financial hardship, I get it.. but I'd venture in our school that is not the primary driver.

Sounds like you need to stop with the bs pizza parties, costumes and. Rafts. Clearly it’s a financial hardship for some families, so let it go

Usually its one or two parents paying for the pizza so how is it a hardship? We've always had 1-2 families volunteer. Its never been an issue. Usually about 1/3-1/2 the families donate something and the room parents fill in, if needed and done. Never heard of costumes.

I don’t need or want you to feed my kid pizza and other junk food on the regular. How about one party per semester? Or let me donate to specific things - I would happily give more for costumes and teacher gifts than for class parties.

Anonymous wrote:OP, that’s not what we said at all. Just do a signup genius! No need to demand cash from parents ever. We have great fun parties with just sign up genius and room mom doesn’t need to go broke.

And if parents do not sign up for SignUp Genius, you can send out an email saying that the party will get cancelled due to lack of participation. I think this is a better way to engage parents.

I will contribute maybe $20 for nebulous "parties."

I absolutely will contribute 1-2 *specific* items/volunteer hours per event via SignUpGenius. Tell me/show me exactly where my money and time are going, don't just blanket ask for money for parties.

(Because obviously, there are some people like OP who don't know how to manage them.)

OP, that’s not what we said at all. Just do a signup genius! No need to demand cash from parents ever. We have great fun parties with just sign up genius and room mom doesn’t need to go broke.

Anonymous wrote:I am a room parent and we ask for each family to contribute a certain amount at the start of the year. This covers teacher holiday and end of year gifts, costumes for the school play and all crafts/food for parties. Pizza alone runs roughly $135 per party. We have about 55% participation yet 100% of the kids get crafts, fed at the party, and costumes for the play. We sign the teacher gifts from the class. It's January and we are out of money once I set aside for end of year gifts ($25/teacher). That means no more parties for the rest of the year. Do I email the class asking again for those who haven't donated to step up? For those of you who don't contribute, how do you feel about your child taking part in the parties, etc when you've not helped? And for those in a financial hardship, I get it.. but I'd venture in our school that is not the primary driver.

Sounds like you need to stop with the bs pizza parties, costumes and. Rafts. Clearly it’s a financial hardship for some families, so let it go

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. For those of you who are saying I am spending too much on Pizza, for the record, Dominos was $120 for the last party. That included the small individual pizza for one child with allergies. I ordered the amount the teacher requested and she said it was all gone. I need to use Dominos because 1) it has to be delivered since I work full time and can't take a day off to deliver pizza and 2) it works menu-wise with the child with allergies. So I am not being extravagent; I am doing what the teacher requested.

This makes no sense. Maybe someone else should take over.

+1. Someone who can deliver a costco cake to school, and can say "pizza doesn't fit in the budget and special snowflake doesn't need a 20 dollar pizza of his/her own."

This! You could probably do Costco pizza and postmates for half the money. And how old are these kids? Are you buying elaborate pizzas? Most kids like cheese or pepperoni. Both of which are sold at Costco. And I'll be honest, the kid with the allergies may not get their own pizza or you just don't get pizza at all.

Or just a costco cake. Theres no need to serve pizza.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. For those of you who are saying I am spending too much on Pizza, for the record, Dominos was $120 for the last party. That included the small individual pizza for one child with allergies. I ordered the amount the teacher requested and she said it was all gone. I need to use Dominos because 1) it has to be delivered since I work full time and can't take a day off to deliver pizza and 2) it works menu-wise with the child with allergies. So I am not being extravagent; I am doing what the teacher requested.

This makes no sense. Maybe someone else should take over.

+1. Someone who can deliver a costco cake to school, and can say "pizza doesn't fit in the budget and special snowflake doesn't need a 20 dollar pizza of his/her own."

This! You could probably do Costco pizza and postmates for half the money. And how old are these kids? Are you buying elaborate pizzas? Most kids like cheese or pepperoni. Both of which are sold at Costco. And I'll be honest, the kid with the allergies may not get their own pizza or you just don't get pizza at all.

Our last class party, two joint first grade classrooms, had 27 parent volunteers. OK, it was during the shut down so there were probably a few people there who wouldn’t have been there normally. But there were 7 stations, each manned by two parent volunteers. They have never had a problem getting parent volunteers for this party. And the classes raisd $1,500 for three teacher gifts at the holidays.

An email went out asking people to chip in if they could and to volunteer. People signed up and were cool with it. I suspect that there would have been some serious backlash if people were told how much to contribute or shammed because they didn’t.

I think some of the folks who struggle as a room parent are over thinking things and making parites more extravagent then they need be. The chill approach seems to work well at my kids ES.

I appreciate what the room parents do and I wish I could do more to help. I volunteer when I can and bring in what the teachers ask for. I would love to go to the coffees at school or read books on a weekly basis or help with Grace Art but I can’t. I appreciate the people who can.

I also appreciate that the room parents at my kids chool seem to get that not everyone can, or wants, to contribute and that things are not blown out of proportion.

Oh, ad for birthdays the kids are encouraged to brign a used book for the class room which the teacher will read. They get a special birthday braclette (Live strong type dealiio) and the kids sing to them. It is special but no treats and not a major disruption.

I am a teacher and I never tell the room parent what to do. That is crazy that the teacher tells the room parent she has to order pizza for parties. It isn't a lunch. It's a party. Use Sign Up Genius to ask for a few treats (cupcakes, cookies, etc), a few salty treats, water or juice and maybe some cut up fruit. That is plenty. There is usually one activity like bingo or a simple craft and that's it.

At our elementary in Bethesda we were asked to donate $20-25 per child at the beginning of the year. We ended up getting around $400. We sent a few emails to collect funds in the first month of school and offered paypal and venmo as payment options.

We spent $75 on the Halloween party and have budgeted $60 each for the Valentine's day and end of year parties. Plus spent $100 on the class holiday gift and will spend another $100 on teacher appreciation week.

The food at the halloween party was fruit, juice, water, popcorn/pretzels and mini cupcakes. We had games, decorations and prizes.

I'm detailing all of this to say that even at a school of upper middle class families, there is not a huge budget for these events and we're definitely not ordering pizza.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never heard of pizza at a class party. Only seen snacks, which parents volunteer to bring using SignUp Genius. You need to have said no to the teacher. If you are not able to communicate, then do not volunteer for the job.

Thanks for piling on.... I will take all the criticism here and do what I should have done: quit and let someone else take on this thankless job. But next time I hear "no one ever volunteers for anything" I will recall how I got sh*t on for doing it. And I don't feel bad about doing nothing from now on. Truly a thankless job. F you all very much, I am out.

You really like being the martyr. I have a feeling your atrocious attitude has seeped through most of your interactions with parents and they are not donating, in part, because you are such a pain.

On the off chance that you are right that no one would step up after you abdicate - well life would go on without a party, something you seem to have missed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never heard of pizza at a class party. Only seen snacks, which parents volunteer to bring using SignUp Genius. You need to have said no to the teacher. If you are not able to communicate, then do not volunteer for the job.

Thanks for piling on.... I will take all the criticism here and do what I should have done: quit and let someone else take on this thankless job. But next time I hear "no one ever volunteers for anything" I will recall how I got sh*t on for doing it. And I don't feel bad about doing nothing from now on. Truly a thankless job. F you all very much, I am out.

This is definitely not the job for you!

Is this a public or private school? Pizza for ES seems over the top.