My sons go to a small Catholic school. This school relies heavily on parent involvement, both because it's good for parents to be part of the school community, and because having volunteers take care of various jobs around the campus keeps costs down.
I am all in favor of participating in my children's schools, but recently I've been feeling a little overwhelmed by the requests for help.
At least once a week, I get asked to substitute for teachers who are ill or who have a conflict during the school day.
While I am happy to help out in my kids' classrooms, I have drawn the line at subbing in other random classes where I don't know the kids or the teacher or anything about what is supposed to go on during the day.
I am also happy to sub when the teacher can give me a few days (or, ideally, a week's) notice, but more often than not, the school calls me at the last second to ask if I can come in.
In the school's defense, they have a hard time finding parent substitutes because so many of the parents work or have younger children at home.
Both of my boys are in school, and I work from home, so in theory I am footloose and fancy free (or at least more flexible than someone who actually has to show up at an office).
On the other hand, my husband works long hours and I am solely responsible most days for the house and the food and the kids, including supervising their homework and shuttling them to whatever after school activities we have that day.
Oh, and somewhere in there, I'm supposed to be working.
I've been practicing saying no to the requests to sub, but I'm wondering if I need to ask the school to take me off their List of Moms We Call When We Need a Sub.
Do you volunteer in your child's school? If so, are you clear about your boundaries, or are you willing to do whatever needs to be done?
Riding the parents
The week before last, Jared's teacher sent home a note about two upcoming field trips. She wanted to know which parents were able to go and how many could drive other children.
We conferred with some of the other parents and made plans for Jared to ride with one of the other parents from his preschool and figured I would drive him on the other.
Unfortunately, the slip of paper got overlooked the next day and the teacher didn't get it. When we realized what had happened (when the Wednesday folder came home last week), we were somewhat upset.
There was no more room for me to go on the second field trip, so Jared would have to ride with a parent that we didn't know. (Neither of the other two parents from Jared's preschool were driving on that trip.)
This generated some discussion after the kids went to bed -- were we okay with Jared riding with someone we didn't really know?
Sure, they have kids too, but who knows how they drive, or how they treat their kids in the car, or what sort of language they use -- there are so many potential issues to worry about.
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