Kevin decides he wants to take action to make more connections with other members of our school community. We cannot join the PTO because it is the one night a week he has class, and joining the PTO doesn’t actually help us get to know the parents and children involved directly in our child’s daily life.
We schedule a meeting with the principal to talk about a sense of community and the school. We attempted to get a feel for the school’s interaction with the general community. We hear a lot about legal issues, liability, and transportation funding cuts.
The principal excitedly tells us about their math groups and literacy programs, and is clearly engaged and energized by this aspect of her work with our community of children. Most, although not all, of what she says about education resonates with me and is pleasing. It’s hard for me to get as enthusiastic about test scores as she does, but hey.
I leave the meeting early to get Carter. Kevin stays to present his idea for a morning gathering for parents and kindergartners. The principal suggested playground play, or finding a community place to gather. Later, he tells me he needs to check with various school faculty to find space, but is optimistic that we can have some sort of morning gathering place before the bell rings, calling children to hang their coats and backpacks.
Kevin continues to ask the office administrator about space and receives rejections regarding using the librarian, the art classroom, the music classroom, the gym and the cafeteria. Eventually, he receives the answer of “No, I spoke with other principals and it’s not a good idea.”
Kevin showed up for a meeting that apparently had been cancelled by voice mail (my bad, I misunderstood the voice mail) and decides to go the community route. He contacts the church across the street and has arranged a generous space (no God strings attached) within minutes.
We compile a flier to send to parents, announcing our Kindergarten Breakfast club. We learn that in order to distribute anything, we need office approval. We forward it to the principal and don’t hear back. After two email reminders, we receive a terse message to Mr. and Mrs McKice (a-hem) saying “we cannot support this.”
Kevin goes in for one last discussion, mostly because he wants to know how the decision was reached and how to improve communications. During that discussion, the concept of a “conflict of interest” was brought up regarding my personal business phone number and the fliers.
I was quite distraught to think I had included my work number on a personal invitation for a get together and quickly sat down to compose an apology. When I pulled up the flier for reference, I discovered that it was our home number on the flier, not my work number. No conflict of interest there.
My letter of apology turned into a letter of requesting clarification on her “conflict of interest” statement. The response I received did not address it, adding that our phone numbers are somehow confusing, and that we should fork over the three dollars for a school directory, which we did already, I’m just too sloppy to know exactly where it is.
