Do school governors have perks?

[itsraining2024]

Parent governor at my child’s school gets to pick her kids up 5 mins earlier than everyone else and from a different side entrance. I’m not sure if this is normal. We all have other children to pick up and get late. I’d understand if she was a school teacher.

No, you are right, you got me. I just made it up for something to do this morning, obviously. Well done, Colombo! Have a cigar.

Or, it did. And I am just telling my experience of a really shit job I had once at a really toxic school where that was just the tip of the iceberg.

But yes, stranger on the internet, you have decided that my lived experience didn’t happen, so it didn’t.

If that makes you happy, crack on. But I can only comment on what happened to me.

Not a single perk. Instead, endless training, frequent meetings, learning walks, maths days, English days, science days, papers to read, preparation for Ofsted meetings, policies, curriculum responsibilities.

So this is why, at my previous school, we had an arrangement where a govenor collected their child early and from another exit. After the child had witnessed their mother being abused and threatened by another parent due to her governor role, the child was so anxious that they panicked in the playground when they heard raised voices or saw adults moving in an "aggressive" way.

The only way to support the child in attending school was to enable entry/exit away from the crowd (unfortunately no action could be taken against the abusive parent, who was banned from school property but used to wait outside the gate abusing adults).

I got to know the teachers first names, although I instinctively still called them Miss whatisface.

We used to actively recruit one parent governor who was familiar with the SEN provision. They were generally busy people who just got stuff done, careful not to let anyone down.

Personally, it really helped them see behind the scenes and how external agencies did/didn't work with the school. And then they could really cut through with parents who were just coming to terms with the idea that maybe the child wasn't going to catch up or grow out or anything else we get told in the early days. And be totally realistic about how the school could help or what was not going to work.

I worked with two governors with children with quite different but so challenging SEN. As parents, advocates, and human beings they were amazing. And I'm so fortunate that my parenting has been different.

I get reserved seats at the front for plays/special assemblies. Thats it.

It's not a perk. No one should want their child picked out of carpet time to miss the last few minutes of their school day every day, just for their own convenience. It's a necessary adaptation if the child can't cope with the bustle of main pick up, it's not better.

Shark attacks are correlated with ice cream consumption - that doesn't mean that one causes the other. Don't confuse correlation with causation and never assume anything from one single data point.

My Dad was a school governor. As far as I know there were no perks unless you count him shagging the headmistress as a perk.

I don’t understand why you think it is because she is a school governor when she has told you it was why it was happening and gave a different reason.

Must be a crime to ask a question on here

Hardly - you’ve had three pages of answers. They’re just not the answers you clearly wanted.

We used to be invited to the annual Christmas dinner at my son’s SEND school. It was brilliant even though the food was dreadful 🤣 Other than that, no perks, I suspect this child has SEND

Oh ok!

yea she’s getting perks for giving up her free time to help the school. Evil horrible woman. How dare she!!

Better?

Where did you read that 😂

Presumably not in any place known for the truth

That said how can any stranger know why your school has agreed to such an arrangement? Maybe you're right and she has got special treatment as a governor but if course its not a normal thing to happen

They probably don’t, but absolutely should get perks. Same as the PTA. I am all for people who so generously work for free to help all being given a perk.

maybe you could give up your time for free op, for some people it’s a full time job depending on the course, in return for use of a side door?

Ha! No.
except one very small one. The reception will save (good) seats for governors and their families at school concerts/plays.

Oh, full disclosure! My DD’s teacher once kept her in the classroom with her for 15 minutes because the interview panel I was chairing to select the new head teacher over ran a little. Sorry, I forgot that perk!

Gosh. I’ve been a governor at two different schools and never once did the headteacher offer me sex

Agreed. I was a co-opted governor at a primary school and some parents also became governors and soon left when they realised it didn't actually enable them to improve only their own child's school life, or the fact that it was very much like running a business and performance management, not just deciding on which play equipment the school should buy next.

Yes, we also had parent governors who
left after one or two meetings having had to be told firmly by the clerk that it wasn’t a forum for complaining about their child’s teacher or asking for the child to be placed in a particular class, or whatever: it was about the whole school. And involved a lot of reading and understanding budgets and statutory guidance.

This thread reminded me how much I don’t want to be a school governor ever again. Thankless task, uncooperative school staff. I did it for years to support the school but never again.

Why in god's name would teachers give preferential treatment to the kids of governors? For what possible reason?

Closest I got to a perk was missing my kids' bedtimes as I was at Governors meetings. I also had to send apologies once as I was in labour and couldn't make the planned meeting. It the most intense work I've ever done and I include my complex current day job in that. I lasted 6 years

Whole can of worms right there😲. I hope your mum found happiness in the end.

Yes she did! Been happily remarried to my stepdad for nearly 20 years now!

So you decided it was a good idea to describe completely inappropriate unprofessional behaviour by an obviously toxic, dysfunctional school as if it was perfectly usual and normal? You do realise that your narrative will now become “something I read” and make life even more difficult the many hard working volunteers who do so much to keep schools working?