Venty Rant

DublinMama · June 2014

One of my biggest pet peeves is when parents send birthday invitations into school with their kids for ME to hand out to the students invited to their kid's party. And 99.9% of the time, only a select few people from the class are invited. I do understand that in today's climate, it's not always feasible to have a birthday party with 18 kids invited. But I don't think it's appropriate to make me be bear the burden of explaining to students with hurt feelings that not everyone is getting an invitation. I put the invites in cubbies during lunch when kids are out of the room, but they always inevitably pull them out and open them in front of people, and the drama starts. I can't put them in their bags and not tell them, because then the parents have no way of knowing it's in there, and not every parent checks the bag religiously. And I certainly don't think I should have to hide invites, then email select parents to let them know to check their kid's bag.

What really gets me is that when I was in 2nd grade, all my birthday invites came and went in the mail, and my parents had wayyyy less means of getting addresses than parents today. There was no e-mail or texting or anything like that to exchange addresses. Yet somehow it got done.

Next year in my opening letter I will be writing flat out that birthday invitations will not be dispersed in the classroom unless there is one for everyone.

TarheelMama202 · June 2014

DublinMama said:

Next year in my opening letter I will be writing flat out that birthday invitations will not be dispersed in the classroom unless there is one for everyone.

THIS! That is so obnoxious that you are asked to disperse invitations. I have never heard of a teacher doing that. Ugh.

nlp1990 · June 2014

Where we are you are absolutely not allowed to bring birthday invites to school. There was a letter that went home at the beginning of the year asking if it was ok to put your child's name and address on a class list for this reason. Most parents don't have a problem and then everyone gets a copy of the address list.

Poppy523 · June 2014

That's so obnoxious and it is definitely NOT your job. I hate how inconsiderate people can be, there is no excuse for those parents to not find a better way to disperse those invites than to make you hand them out.

tamarar5 · June 2014

This was actually school policy at C's private school! It was party of the parent handbook and guidelines. The school gave out a guide that had all the phone numbers/addresses/email address (info volunteered by the parents) specifically for this purpose.

DublinMama · June 2014

There is nothing in our school handbook about it. Which is why I am putting it in my letter next year. If the school has no policy on it, then I can't be faulted for creating one for my own classroom management purposes.

TarheelMama202 · June 2014

DublinMama said:
There is nothing in our school handbook about it. Which is why I am putting it in my letter next year. If the school has no policy on it, then I can't be faulted for creating one for my own classroom management purposes.

YEP! Genius. Dubs makin' it werrrrrk.