Okay, so back in August I went and grabbed the sister, brother-in-law, and their two kids. Since then they've been living in our house with my partner and I. Sis has a good job, brother-in-law has a good job, and things are starting to look up. Tyler (9 and in 3rd Grade) and Kaliann (7 and in 1st Grade) started school at one of Sacramento's best public schools, just 1 block from the house.
Uncle Dan (me) took them (along with their mother) to the Ice Cream Social before school started to meet the teachers. In the last month, I've bought four hula hoops, a football, and a basketball for the classrooms. Parent-Teacher night was Uncle Dan and Mommy going to the school and meeting the teachers again. Then I had to go down to the district office, pay $62 and get fingerprinted for a DOJ background check. Following that was a TB test at my doctor's office.
Last month I got a call when Kaliann was involved in a fight with another girl (a third grader!). Then there was the time Tyler was pushed and hit his head on the asphalt (again I got the call).
Today Tyler's class (a third/second grade mix class) went on their first field trip. Naturally the school doesn't have funding for buses to take them, so it was up to parents to take the kids (hence the background check and TB test). I had four kids in my car as I drove them to the Pumpkin Patch. Now I'm left wondering...what the hell is wrong with parents these days? We are at the pumpkin patch, right? Kids running around everywhere and every kid as a different favorite. What were the parents there doing? Watching their own kids!! What about watchign ALL the kids? That got left to the teacher and to me. *sigh*
Although the teacher did like all the neat little things I bought for her to use in decorating the room. they'll work for both halloween and thanksgiviing. Kaliann's field trip to the Crest Theater is in three weeks and I'll be driving there too. Oh, and did I somehow commit to driving three kids to Karate class next week? Wait, how did that happen?
Okay, maybe I'm looking forward to my sister and her husband finishing up saving money and getting their own place, but the problem is that it's going to be in the same neighborhood and the kids are going to be going to the same school, and Tyler's teacher already made a comment about how she's got my cell phone now and I don't have to have a kid in her class to take kids on field trips next year...
I hate being a pushover...
Let's see...another gripe about parents. I heard this on the parent-teacher night from several parents in both classes. In order to drive any kid except your own kid, you have to get the TB test and get fingerprinted for a DOJ background check to make sure you don't have a criminal history. The school district charges $62 for the fingerprinting and background check. That way they don't spend tax money on the process. The fees cover the process (even prospective teachers have to pay for their own test). It's fair, and it doesn't take money out of the pockets of our kids. We live in a fairly affluent neighborhood, middle to upper-middle class (my partner and I have an average household income for the area and we're at $130k per year). I seriously doubt many parents who live in the neighborhood can not afford $62 for a background check. More, these same parents, all part of a hyper-active PTA program, insist that anyone who comes into contact with their kids have a background check done, but they don't want to pay for THEIR check, or wonder why THEY have to checked.
I listened to this one mother tell her husband that no one should come into contact with her son at school who didn't have a background check. She even commented how the school shouldn't pay for the background check, but the person wanting to get near her kids should pay. Then she complained that she shouldn't have to spend $62 on a background check for herself to drive the kids to a field trip. I was speechless for a second until I found my voice and asked her why I should let her near my niece when she hasn't had a background check done. So I didn't make a friend, but the teacher did do her best to not laugh in the woman's face. It seemed the teacher had another child of that parent's two years before and hated the woman.
What really gets me about this school is that when I walk the kids there in the morning (which I usually do 2-3 times a week), I see the same group of hyper-involved parents standing around the playground, watching their kids while sipping on coffee and talking to each other. They are the first to gripe at PTSO (their version of PTA) meetings, gripe about their kids not receiving enough student-teacher time (classes range in size from 15 to 20 at the most), and they gripe about no one helping teachers with things like classroom supplies, toys like balls and hula hoops, etc. for the kids. I hear 'Why don't we have more balls for the kids? My daughter couldn't get a hula hoop yesterday! Why couldn't my son find a purple scarlet crayon yesterday?
They gripe about these things but are not the ones who go to Toys R Us, or the craft store, or the grocery store for snacks. No, parents (and certain Uncles) take their kids to Toys R Us over the weekend to get recess materials for their classrooms, or rush to the grocery store before work so they can pick up a box of Goldfish for all the kids in the classroom, or go to Michael's on their lunch break to get poster board so the kids can do Arts and Crafts that afternoon. Funny how the teachers seem to know which of us are the pushovers and will go out of our way to do stuff for ALL the kids in the classroom and not just our own.
*sigh*
Topic: Ack! How the heck did this happen?! (Read 2480 times)