And Here We Go…

Last night was the parents’ information meeting regarding our soon-to-be kindergartners from the Class of 2020 (how’s that for making you feel old – and I usually refer to myself as a girl… but that? I mean, that aged me about ten years just hearing that). Given that I would have put The Princess in Kindergarten last year if they’d have let me, I’m very excited about this fall, and very excited as she begins her school journey.

Hubby and I enter the little multipurpose room (thank goodness they didn’t make us sit in the kindergarten sized chairs!), and start counting faces of people WE went to school with. We live in the same small town we went to school in (though, I have to point out because it’s really worth noting: I didn’t move to Michigan until I was 13, and so I didn’t start out my school career with the same folks I graduated with – as Hubby did). As people filed in, a girl that was one of my closest friends in high school (and a college roommate for roughly 3 months before she moved back in with her mom) sat down next to me. We had been so close. Really – she was like family to me for a time… But… I had NOTHING to say to her. All we have in common now are where we’ve been, and the fact that our kids are going into kindergarten together.

The Principal, who has been Principal for roughly one hundred years (my best friend has a story about how when SHE was in kindergarten he spanked her… way back when that sort of thing was not frowned upon, apparently), gave a little spiel about the school and about how in kindergarten, “half the day is spent getting ready for lunch, the other half is spent getting ready to go home.”

A few more people shared a few more details, and then we were released to roam the halls, interrogate the teachers, and scope out the classrooms. I notice my old friend hovered in a group with the same folks she has always hovered in groups with. And to be honest, it made me remember what these people were like when they were sixteen and seventeen and from just looking at them, it didn’t seem that they had changed too much.

That WORRIES me. These are the folks I’m going to be in PTA meetings with (because you know I am SO joining the PTA). These are the folks I’ll be sitting on sidelines with at sporting events. When it comes time to plan the Senior Party (you know, in the year 2020)… It’s these people I’m going to be arguing about stupid party decorations with. Cringe. In the thirteen years since we’ve graduated, they haven’t seemed to change at all, and I can only hope that they all MOVE.

About sarah

Sarah is a book nerd, a music lover, an endorphin junkie, a coffee addict. Oh, and a goof ball. She writes, she tweets, and she sings off key.

Comments

  1. I am currently in my fourth year as a mother with elementary age children and I have never been a part of the PTA and I never will be. I can’t handle most of those women, I’m nothing like them and they about drive me crazy anytime I’m with them for more them five minutes. I have way more important things to do with my time than sit around planning fundraisers that most of the parents get irritated with anyway.

    However, that said, I probably spend more time actually in my children’s classroom than most of the PTA moms do. I’m in each of their clasees weekly helping their teachers. I’m in there, where they (my children) can see me taking part in their education. The teachers love having someone come in and help because it frees up their time for more stuff. Over the years I’ve done everything from sitting with individual kids with reading issues, playing math games while sprawled out on pillows at the end of a hallway, making pounds of homemade hot chocolate mix at Christmas for the kids to take home, shown up at school at 7 am to collect cakes for that nights cake walk at the fall carnival (that I did nothing to plan, just did what they needed help with), sat at cafeteria tables and eaten some interesting lunch fare with my kids and their friends, read book after book to entire classrooms, cleaned out cabinets, cleaned fish tanks (yuck), made probably 50,000 xerox copies of worksheets, cut letters out, taken bulletin boards down, put new ones back up, bound books, pulled apart book order sheets, sorted book orders and placed in backpacks, wrapped 100’s of gifts at secret Santa workshops, put bows in hair and bowties on necks for class shows, and countless other things.

    The look on my boys’ faces whenever I walk into their classrooms tells me that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing instead of sitting in someone’s living room drinking coffee and eating cookies while discussing how we can make even more money next year and pull even further ahead of the poor city school kids (of course these meetings always seem to be at a time of day when someone who works partime can’t seem to be able to get there, and if you work full-time forget it, you don’t seem to count).

    See, there is no reason to join the PTA other than to say your on the PTA. You can be just involved if you aren’t on the PTA. Consider not joining if you really don’t like the thought of it. I know I never will and I know their teachers appreciate me just as much because they tell me so.

    Okay, done ranting!

  2. I don’t doubt that I’ll be active in the classroom – already I’ve gone on her class field trips (preschool field trips – what fun!). And with Stepson, Hubby and I have been involved with volunteering in the classroom (when Stepson was in kindergarten, we would go in once a month and work with the kids – reading, and so forth). I know I will find my ways to be active without subjecting myself to the Mommy Mafia – of all those girls I didn’t like then, and am not wild about now. ; )

  3. Farm Wife says

    Down with the Mommy Mafia!! You’re making me very happy that I did not grow up around here…but at times it also leaves me at a slight disadvantage. There are only 28 kindergarteners at BabyGirl’s school, & most of their parents know each other.

    Get this: Not a singel note sent home about PTO meetings ALL YEAR LONG!!! Not one. And next week is the carnival…am I being snubbed? Uncle E told me not to bother when we were discussing it last night. He said it’s easier to help out than help plan (he’s been PTO for more than 15 years now).

    It would be a little hard to drag all 3 kids to PTO meetings since Husband works nights & my babysitters are members too…maybe next year. I do want to be involved.

  4. Speaking of notes home, the Principal stressed “backpack communication” – being sure to check your kid’s backpack for notes from school – that is their primary way of being in touch with the parents. That totally offends my conserving paper sensibilities! Maybe my part will be making sure the classrooms have a way to RECYCLE all that paper! Sheesh!

  5. weavermom says

    Well (without meaning that I think you should) – can I just say that this post makes me SO glad that we are homeschooling?? 🙂 he he

  6. The amount of paper that comes home in backpacks in crazy. Since I not only have two kids at the school, but two in the same grade, we get everything in twos. It’s such a waste… paper, ink, energy. We don’t need two menus, two newsletters, two field trip reports, etc.

  7. Anonymous says

    I second weavermom. I’m happy to leave the school politics and everything government run behind to homeschool our kids!

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