Kid's school has some odd "rules" (bullying, teaching, parents)
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First off, I have to say, I think the school is great curriculum-wise and my kids actually like the school and so do I. My oldest attended there and my almost nine year old has been going since Kindergarten. There are some things that I have issues with though, I guess things were alot different when I was in school...
First off they only get 20 minutes for lunch. Once that 20 minutes is up, whether they are done or not, they have to stop eating and they are made to put their heads down on the cafeteria table for ten minutes, in silence, until their teachers come to get them to go back to class. My son always get out of school starving and usually has a half eaten sandwich and half eaten whatever else is in his lunch.
They have assigned seating for lunch, so they are not allowed to sit with their friends.
They have a dress code of solid collared shirts and pants. Color doesn't matter. Which is fine. They started this last year at the beginning of the year AFTER we had purchased striped collared shirts for our kids and after school started. Principal said it was no problem, and actually preferred the stripes, as I usually buy them a bit bigger so they will fit them for a couple of years and then my oldest hands down his if they are still in good shape. Anyway, one day my oldest came out of school wearing a different shirt then what he went in wearing. He was made to go to the nurse by his teacher and change his shirt to a solid color. God knows who had it on before him. I freaked. Why? Because I see kids going into that school wearing dirty sweatpants and looking like they haven't showered or brushed their hair in days, pants with holes, camo pants and wearing whatever they feel like. My kids always look neat and clean, hair washed and brushed and clothes fitting properly. The other kids never get sent home or are made to change. Spoke to the principal, she said she is sick of seeing the sweats as well and was very apologetic for the issues with my son's shirt and to this day my other son wears his striped shirts and will continue until he has grown out of his brother's shirts. But still...don't make my kids change his shirt because of three stripes on it when you are going to allow these other kids to walk around looking like homeless people.
They get "points" for the most miniscule things...my son has gotten points for the wrong kind of top on his water bottle (kid you not, didn't know there was a rule about them), The wrong type of water...he had flavored water one day and his teacher threw it away and gave him a point, but let his friend drink the same thing without a word. A small patch on his sweatjacket because it wasn't solid (solid everywhere else but the small patch on the front with a skateboard on it, and the teacher took it from him), quietly reading a book at his desk when he was done his test after handng it in, he got up to help his friend in class who had spilled her entire pencil box on the floor and he he got a point for leaving his seat, and talking to his friends when he gets there in the morning. Aren't kids supposed to socialize anymore? They all gather in the cafeteria, have assigned seats, and they are not allowed to sit with their friends there either. He walked in with his friends and chatted with them for a few minutes before sitting down. I mean, I get that there have to be some rules in place, but these seem just...Ridiculous.
I talked alot when I was in school, before and after, at lunch, and yes sometimes when I wasn't supposed to (didn't we all?), but I think the fact that they can't sit with their friends, or talk before school or after school and barely have time to eat, is insane. And these points are just crazy. I have spoken to other parents who are fed up with it as well. They send home these point cards at the end of each week whether there is a point or not, and it says what they are for, and if he gets a point, which is rare, it is never for something valid and I do let the teacher know what I think if it in the most poilte way I know how, but I really just want to throw it out without signing it.
This is a public elementary school as well.
Anyone else have strange rules or weird things their kid's school does?
Do you get a Handbook at the beginning of the year? Are these rules in it?
Those sound crazy to me, especially the 20 mins eating and 10 mins "resting".
I think it would make sense for a group of parents to request a meeting with the principal and politely ask the purpose for these rules.
Don't forget, these are YOUR children! YOU pay their salary!
If you are too busy to be involved with the PTA/PTSA, then it might be a good idea to reach out to the PTA President and express your concerns. They usually have a lot of access to the staff as well.
Do you get a Handbook at the beginning of the year? Are these rules in it?
Those sound crazy to me, especially the 20 mins eating and 10 mins "resting".
I think it would make sense for a group of parents to request a meeting with the principal and politely ask the purpose for these rules.
Don't forget, these are YOUR children! YOU pay their salary!
If you are too busy to be involved with the PTA/PTSA, then it might be a good idea to reach out to the PTA President and express your concerns. They usually have a lot of access to the staff as well.
No rules in the handbook, just expectations of behavior, no bullying, etc. Luckily the principal is wonderful and understands the insanity of the rules. It's the individual teachers that have some strange expectations at times and the whole lunch thing really gets me.
Most of those rules sound a bit over the top! BookLover beat me to the suggestion of getting a group of parents together to meet with the principal. Have your specific points written down, and perhaps one person designated as the primary speaker (to avoid chaos).
Do you know if these rules apply only to your children's school, or to all of the elementary schools in the district? Were the rules written by the school board, or by the principal, or ??? If it's the school board, those are elected officials (anywhere I've lived at least) so they need to listen to the opinions of the parents.
Does 20 minutes for lunch include the time standing in line to purchase the lunch? The 10 minutes of resting sounds crazy. It would do their bodies more good to use those 10 minutes for running around outside for recess (do kids still get recess these days?), and then maybe if they wanted the kids to come in from recess and put their heads down for 2 or 3 minutes just to unwind and calm down, I could see that.
While I'm glad that your kids get to wear the striped shirts you already bought, it doesn't make sense if the rules say they have to be solid. So right there you have selective enforcement of the rules (along with the flavored water thing you mention).
The shirt thing sounds like the kind of disorganized nonsense I'd expect from my children's charter school. They can't ever seem to make up their mind what they are going to enforce that week. Now, they'd don't have much of a dress code at all which I am fine with, but I think they should draw the line at 15 year old girls in hoochie clothes, personaly. Anyway my son had a leather bracelet with little (rounded tip) spikes. He wore it ALL the time. He'd had it since 9th grade or maybe 8th. In his last year at school, about a month before he graduated, they decided to make an issue out of the bracelet, saying it was potentially a weapon. Of course he pointed out to them that ANYTHING was potentially a weapon. But I mean, really, my son was the sensitive artist of the school, never even been in an argument with another student and everyone knew him.. it made no sense to suddenly bring this up.
Just this week they changed rules again without telling any of us. My wife went inside to pick up DD (10) who has tutoring every day until 3:45 (school lets out at 3:15). Normally she waits outside but on this day she went into the lobby area of the elementary portion and was talking to the school nurse (someone we've known forever) and it was 3:40 at this point. This school employee, I think they call her an "academy leader" which basically means an overpaid, overgrown hall monitor, she came into the nurses office and very rudely addressed my wife saying "You need to get out of here. You need a pass from the office to be in here." Wife kind of lost it on her.. but we've been involved in that school for close to a decade and my wife did an education/teaching internship there last semester, and this lady was acting like she was some stray teen! Apparently they've changed the rules about who can access the lobby and we got a note home about it days later.
Communication is HORRIBLE. The other day we had wind storms and the power went out. They ended school early but told the high school kids (it's k-12) that they could choose to stay or go because shortly after making the announcement about the closure and calling parents, the power came back and many of the high school kids take the city bus. The younger kids were still all going home though. Well, our high schooler (15) of course wanted to go check on his sister, the 10 year old, to make sure we were coming to pick her up and that she wasn't in limbo but they wouldn't let him over on that side of the building! Then when he pressed about where his sister was, this same "academy leader" woman told him "Outside somewhere!" so he was in a full panic looking around outside trying to find her. He had to get a high school teacher to sort it out for him.
Sorry, I am getting carried away. The issue with their school is not dumb rules but general incompetence.
The silence thing you mentioned was part of why I didn't want the kids in the standard public schools here. It is very common from what I have seen and what I've heard from friends with their kids in local schools. My older son spent one year in a neighborhood public school for 1st grade, back when we lived in a different part of town with supposedly "GREAT" public schools and he still remembers it as being the place where they were never allowed to talk or play and had to do tons of worksheets. They would go outside to the play area but they weren't allowed to run in case they fell and got hurt and when they walked through the halls they had to keep one finger to their lips and one hand behind their back. Lunch was silent.. I tried having lunch with him a few times and it was horribly depressing.
This whole prison-like atmosphere is my major issue with public schools in general. I know they have the bad apples ruining it for everyone else, hence the need for this "hyper control", but sheesh. So I chose incompetence over strictness I guess. Some of the schools even LOOK like prisons, all stark and architecturally severe with no trees around and few windows. It makes me sad.
I talked all the time in school. That was the 70's though. I was even paddled for talking excessively! More than once!
As for the lunch thing, that does sound really short. I mean, you *can* eat in 20 minutes if you don't do anything but eat but it probably leads to rushing, not good for digestion!
Do they get free time/play time/recess where they can socialize and talk?
After reading this again, why do the teachers get to make up their own rules? The principal has no control over them? Or is weak and unwilling to confront them?
Most of these rules sound like they are for the convenience of the teachers and not for the students - especially that silence thing.
If you get a meeting with the principal, I would ask a pointed question about when the kids have the opportunity to practice their social skills.
Most of those rules sound a bit over the top! BookLover beat me to the suggestion of getting a group of parents together to meet with the principal. Have your specific points written down, and perhaps one person designated as the primary speaker (to avoid chaos).
Do you know if these rules apply only to your children's school, or to all of the elementary schools in the district? Were the rules written by the school board, or by the principal, or ??? If it's the school board, those are elected officials (anywhere I've lived at least) so they need to listen to the opinions of the parents.
Does 20 minutes for lunch include the time standing in line to purchase the lunch? The 10 minutes of resting sounds crazy. It would do their bodies more good to use those 10 minutes for running around outside for recess (do kids still get recess these days?), and then maybe if they wanted the kids to come in from recess and put their heads down for 2 or 3 minutes just to unwind and calm down, I could see that.
While I'm glad that your kids get to wear the striped shirts you already bought, it doesn't make sense if the rules say they have to be solid. So right there you have selective enforcement of the rules (along with the flavored water thing you mention).
Yep, I agree with you, these rules are odd.
Yes it includes waiting to buy lunch. I'm not sure if it is other schools in the district, but I will say no since I have friends whose children go to other schools and they have never brought it up. He has recess BEFORE lunch. Also an odd thing to me but only 20 minutes.
I can't afford to go out and buy all new shirts for my kids after I had gotten the striped ones already and my older son could hand down his old ones. They should have sent something home at the end of the year prior to that and I would have gotten only solid, although they are very hard to find with long sleeves and I refuse to pay $15 per shirt to get them from the school or anywhere else for that price. But as I said, that is a school board thing, not the principal, she agrees with us and ok'd the shirts.
I don't feel public schools should have a dress code anyway. I mean nothing unreasonable should be allowed, but these kids are hard on dress pants and should be permitted to wear jeans...although some kids are allowed to wear those everyday too . But when I send a note in the one day my son had to wear black jeans because all of his school pants were stuck in our broken washer, you would not believe that the nurse called and said we had to go pick him up becasue his teacher said he was not in dress code. My husband promtly called the principal and the superintendant and that was handled. he had a note for god's sake. They were brand new black jeans. You could barely tell they were and she probably would not have even noticed if I hadn't sent the note in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sally_Sparrow
The shirt thing sounds like the kind of disorganized nonsense I'd expect from my children's charter school. They can't ever seem to make up their mind what they are going to enforce that week. Now, they'd don't have much of a dress code at all which I am fine with, but I think they should draw the line at 15 year old girls in hoochie clothes, personaly. Anyway my son had a leather bracelet with little (rounded tip) spikes. He wore it ALL the time. He'd had it since 9th grade or maybe 8th. In his last year at school, about a month before he graduated, they decided to make an issue out of the bracelet, saying it was potentially a weapon. Of course he pointed out to them that ANYTHING was potentially a weapon. But I mean, really, my son was the sensitive artist of the school, never even been in an argument with another student and everyone knew him.. it made no sense to suddenly bring this up.
Just this week they changed rules again without telling any of us. My wife went inside to pick up DD (10) who has tutoring every day until 3:45 (school lets out at 3:15). Normally she waits outside but on this day she went into the lobby area of the elementary portion and was talking to the school nurse (someone we've known forever) and it was 3:40 at this point. This school employee, I think they call her an "academy leader" which basically means an overpaid, overgrown hall monitor, she came into the nurses office and very rudely addressed my wife saying "You need to get out of here. You need a pass from the office to be in here." Wife kind of lost it on her.. but we've been involved in that school for close to a decade and my wife did an education/teaching internship there last semester, and this lady was acting like she was some stray teen! Apparently they've changed the rules about who can access the lobby and we got a note home about it days later.
Communication is HORRIBLE. The other day we had wind storms and the power went out. They ended school early but told the high school kids (it's k-12) that they could choose to stay or go because shortly after making the announcement about the closure and calling parents, the power came back and many of the high school kids take the city bus. The younger kids were still all going home though. Well, our high schooler (15) of course wanted to go check on his sister, the 10 year old, to make sure we were coming to pick her up and that she wasn't in limbo but they wouldn't let him over on that side of the building! Then when he pressed about where his sister was, this same "academy leader" woman told him "Outside somewhere!" so he was in a full panic looking around outside trying to find her. He had to get a high school teacher to sort it out for him.
Sorry, I am getting carried away. The issue with their school is not dumb rules but general incompetence.
The silence thing you mentioned was part of why I didn't want the kids in the standard public schools here. It is very common from what I have seen and what I've heard from friends with their kids in local schools. My older son spent one year in a neighborhood public school for 1st grade, back when we lived in a different part of town with supposedly "GREAT" public schools and he still remembers it as being the place where they were never allowed to talk or play and had to do tons of worksheets. They would go outside to the play area but they weren't allowed to run in case they fell and got hurt and when they walked through the halls they had to keep one finger to their lips and one hand behind their back. Lunch was silent.. I tried having lunch with him a few times and it was horribly depressing.
This whole prison-like atmosphere is my major issue with public schools in general. I know they have the bad apples ruining it for everyone else, hence the need for this "hyper control", but sheesh. So I chose incompetence over strictness I guess. Some of the schools even LOOK like prisons, all stark and architecturally severe with no trees around and few windows. It makes me sad.
I talked all the time in school. That was the 70's though. I was even paddled for talking excessively! More than once!
As for the lunch thing, that does sound really short. I mean, you *can* eat in 20 minutes if you don't do anything but eat but it probably leads to rushing, not good for digestion!
Do they get free time/play time/recess where they can socialize and talk?
Wow...so I am not the only one going through it. The hands on the lips thing is crazy!!! Yes they have a 20 minute recess prior to lunch, but they even send them outside in the rain, which I have a problem with. The school itself is very nice and colorful with a nice playground outside and as I said, I do like it other than these crazy rules.
Do you have any options to send your kids to another school?? When my son was younger he headed to Middle School at a Charter School. The Academy really wanted to rule every movement. Son didn't do well but didn't want to leave his friends. After a disastrous 7th grade I pulled him out of the Academy and put him in the regular District Middle School. He blossomed became a great leader and earned some scholarship money for college.
Do you have any options to send your kids to another school?? When my son was younger he headed to Middle School at a Charter School. The Academy really wanted to rule every movement. Son didn't do well but didn't want to leave his friends. After a disastrous 7th grade I pulled him out of the Academy and put him in the regular District Middle School. He blossomed became a great leader and earned some scholarship money for college.
Yes, I can send him to any school in the district, but this is the feeder school and honestly it is the best elementary school in the state. Academically, the school is wonderful and my son is doing amazingly well, advanced everything well above his 3rd grade level. Plus, as I said, we like the school in general. My son's friends go there and he has been there since kindergarten.
BookLover, I don't know why, but they have their own "classroom" rules which is crazy. I have spoken to the principal on many occassions about the various things mentioned above and she is very accomodating and understanding. She is a very nice older woman who seems to think the district rules are nonsense and has spoken to the teachers about the issues I have brought up.
I understand the need for rules for the safety of the kids, but some are just way off the mark.
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But I mean, really, my son was the sensitive artist of the school, never even been in an argument with another student and everyone knew him.. it made no sense to suddenly bring this up. 
. But when I send a note in the one day my son had to wear black jeans because all of his school pants were stuck in our broken washer, you would not believe that the nurse called and said we had to go pick him up becasue his teacher said he was not in dress code. My husband promtly called the principal and the superintendant and that was handled. he had a note for god's sake. They were brand new black jeans. You could barely tell they were and she probably would not have even noticed if I hadn't sent the note in.
