Open House...Not YOUR House

Hello Parents. This is not the Principal, just a parent of a child at school Open House. But I have a few announcements to make.

Remember: This is Open House, NOT a conference. Open House gives the faculty a chance to provide a brief overview of curriculum and school procedures to everyone at once in a general, friendly group setting.

You'll notice the faculty repeatedly saying "Call us or e-mail us anytime with questions or concerns." That's a nice way of telling you not to hijack the entire night by asking specific questions about your child. That's why they have e-mail and voice mailboxes. And parent/teacher conferences. Look around. The room is full of other parents. They want to hear about school as a whole, not about your kid specifically. They don't care if your child is ridiculously ahead or behind or needs a special application of sunscreen every 2 hours.

And finally, remember you've been out of school for 20 or 30 years and things have changed. Please stop trying to convince the current faculty and staff to go back to to the 70's and 80's. They don't grade A's, B's, C's and D's anymore. Stop trying to come up with some sort of whack-job Metric/Kelvin/Dewey Decimal/Abacus conversion system to compare grades of today to your grades.  As part of the Open House, the educators actually explain quite clearly what the grades mean. But you have to listen instead of engaging in a back-and-forth that amounts to the equivalent of arguing balls and strikes. They can throw you out of a game for arguing balls and strikes, but unfortunately, that rule has not been extended to Open House.

So enjoy Open House. Meet the teachers. See where your child spends their day. Look at their work. Be proud of them. And if you'd like to argue balls and strikes or ask why your kid isn't in the super-duper class, do it at your Parent/Teacher conference. Just remember, conferences are 30 minutes. There are others waiting too. You teach your kids that there are other people in the world, so you might as well accept that, too.