Too much damn paper coming home from school!!

[rbnyc]

Last edited Sat Jan 21, 2012, 01:38 AM - Edit history (1)

I didn’t send G to school today with a poem in his pocket because I missed the note that it was Poem-in-your-Pocket Day. G was very upset.

Every day my 2nd grader gets home from his after school problem and my husband and I get home from work around 6:30. G’s bedtime is 8:30. His folder has a “Come Back” pocket and a “Stay Home” pocket that (between school and after-school) has between 5 and 15 sheets of paper in it, some with one time-sensitive or important piece of information buried in the third paragraph of a four paragraph memo.

Honestly, I find it deeply mentally distressing to get home from my job (where I have intense responsibilities) and have to absorb this density of ill-presented information in the midst of all the other things that need to get done by bath time. Usually while I’m waiting for something to defrost, or bake or boil, I scan everything – make sure I understand what his homework is, check his work and help him study. When I come across one of these two-page letters, I know I should be so happy that his school is trying to communicate with me, but I’m just thinking, “Send me fucking bullet points!!!”

I guess I could be reading every bit of that information carefully right now – I mean this is the time I have to sit down, but I’m actually fucking tired and the last thing I want to do is absorb all this god damned paper from the school. By Saturday, the pile is so overwhelming, I just recycle it.

So I missed that it was Poem-in-your-Pocket Day. My son is upset and I’m just pissed. I’m not sitting around here all day organizing school memos into a binder. I need one email every week that tells me everything I need to know for the following week. If the local soccer program wants to advertise to me, they can have a box in the sidebar – no more 200 flyers in the folder to obscure the Poem-in-your-Pocket memo. Put everything in one well designed, color coded, comprehensive and succinct email.

OR at the very least – cut me a wee little bit of slack and give me some large font bullet points.