Great job on today’s end-of-the-year award ceremony. I appreciate all the hard work that went into
planning the ceremony and everything seemed to go smoothly –until your closing
sentence. Thank you SO VERY much for
announcing to the parents –IN FRONT OF THE STUDENTS– that it was totally fine
for parents to sign their kids out early.
Really? Why on earth would you do
this? Oh, I know why. Because, even though there are still three
days for school administrators and teachers to get through until they can enjoy
a three month vacation, it would go by much smoother if some of the kids would
leave early. Way to go putting my
husband and me on the spot when my 7 year old ran up to us and begged us to sign her
out.
What you, Mrs. Principal, failed to
realize (or, did realize but don’t truly care) is that many of those parents in
attendance are not stay-at-home parents.
We work for a living and had to take time out of our work day by using
our lunch hours to attend a mid-day award ceremony. One, I might add, that could have been held
after school hours when more parents would have been able to attend. But, no.
That would have inconvenienced the 20 or so teachers and administrators
by having them stay late by an hour or two.
We just couldn’t have that. No,
we need to have the ceremony during the work day –forcing working parents to use
their lunch hours and/or/plus personal time off (which may be unpaid for some
people) to attend the ceremony. But I
digress.
What I’m most upset about is
the fact that you created a problem for some of us working parents who cannot
sign our children out early as we have to return to work and finish our
schedules/work load, of which you seem to be blatantly ignorant.
So there we are with our child who cannot comprehend why we
cannot sign her out and take her home, or even back to work with us. “But the principal said it was okay.” Yep,
way to put us on the spot and create a power struggle on the school grounds for
which I’ve taught her that the school officials are in charge and you follow their
rules. So, thank you again for forcing
me to be the mean parent that had to wipe away my child’s tears, look her in
the eyes and sternly say “I love you, but I cannot sign you out early, and that’s
final” before turning and walking coldly away.
(All the while, wanting to run back and hug her until she stopped crying
and hurting from my denial and the confusion caused by her wonderful principal.)
What a great way to end the school year and leave our child with
fond memories of the award ceremony.
