Parents cleaning their dc school

[dizzybiatch]

My dh and I are having a debate.

This is more of a are 'they' being unreasonable.

So due to council cut backs our little school has had the cleaners hours cut. Teachers say she does the best she can in the time but its not enough and school needs a good spring clean which the parents have been asked to do.

My dh is outraged, thinks its a basic requirement and the council/school need to sort it out. I think if that is the situation I am happy to clean with the other parents.

How would you feel? My dh thinks the abu to ask the parents.

FallenCaryatid
"I think that the older children should be organised into groups and taught how to clean properly, they could have a shift a week. Gloves provided.
Surely it fits with all the other lifeskills schools are now expected to include in the curriculum?"

This has made me LOL (really), I get phonecalls from parents about their DC being made to wash up after FT, Parnets complaining about their DC having to pick up litter. The grief that this would cause would be immense. (nice idea thought)

JumpingThroughHoops
"Someone will come and correct me - but schools get a budget to spend as they see fit. If they are cutting a minimum wage cleaners hours, there is something seriously wrong with the budget spending."

The problem is just what do you cut?
The school may only run a small office.
Every trip that is classed as "educational" has to be paid for and if not enough donations are found does the school cancel the trip or pay for it form their budget?
The School may have had to replace equipment, books, furniture.
There are far too many variables to say that the school is badly managed.
Badly funded maybe but not badly managed.

I don't think it's the council's decision, as someone said above the school controls it's budget so it's the schools responsibility to ensure the cleaners have adequate time and resources.

So the poor cleaner gets their hours cut and The Big Soceity steps in?
What larks! All getting together for a jolly good spring clean and setting up a socially responsible rota.
And school cleaners get phased out altogether.
Never mind they can fill their time helping out at their local school, doing a bit of voluntary cleaning.

Oh hang on..

BoneyBackJefferson

Newsletters go on line rather than paper copies.

And a very simple one that often costs 000's is staff using directory enquiries rather than google to get a phone number.

Phoning parents on mobiles rather than land lines.

Lots of little ways to save pennies that could cover a cleaner.

Isn't dirt meant to be good for children ?

Boosts their immune systems and all that.

too much contact with cleaning fluids and breathing in air-freashners is the root of many an exma outbreak and asthma attack.

I'd go for maintaining a much higher level of dirt and general grime, no need for two and half weeks of cleaning anywhere , (looks around lounge with deep sense of satisfaction _)

My mum had a very similar situation under the last Tory govt.
The school received it's own budget but it wasn't enough to cover everything. When she went through the balance sheet for how the council/govt had arrived at the amount they had, next to the line labelled 'Cleaning - time and equipment' they'd written 'Zero'.

In the end, she cut down a lot on lots of things, including books and pencils for the classrooms, rather than choose something to ditch completely.
And did quite a lot of it herself with the other staff.
I just wanted to respond to the poster who wrote that if schools have their own budgets it's bad budgeting that leads to this situation.
It isn't always.

I had to send a clean towel in with DS to sit on.
He has atopic eczema and I think the carpets were only hoovered once a week.
The dust mites tortured him.

How the hell are they allowed to do that?!

Tis a shame when people are crying our for jobs.

That's dreadful Mrs DV, all joking aside.
His room should have been hoovered daily, and why couldn't he sit on a chair?

I think the government abvu! That is crazy that schools can't even be basically cleaned. It's disgusting how little they care about normal people in society.

'How the hell are they allowed to do that?! '

The more autonomy schools and academies have, the more decisions they can make about all sorts of areas.

When times is 'ard we should all muck in. Where's your community spirit?

I was, until changing schools recently, a governor at our little local primary. As chair of the PTA with very supportive parents we raised lots of money for the school facilities and trips. When I joined the governors I was asked to chair the finance committee. I was shocked atthe lack of financial management, the over staffing at a professional level and understaffing at a support level. I've never had a problem with mucking in with what's required but would question the school budget management with the governors if a basic essential such as regular cleaning has been cut. In the county I am, within Wales, you can see schools budgets for the last three years online and there is some information about how the budgets are established. You may be able to do a quick google and see if the budget has actually been cut or if the governors are wanting to spend the money on other things.

If its more like a big annual clean to blitz weeds in the playground and pull out every cupboard and desk to give it a proper clean then I don't think that's unreasonable.

JumpingThroughHoops

Newsletters go on line rather than paper copies.

most schools do this, even to texting information home and only sending letters to those with no contact information (and most times the letter is sent by pupil unless for a sanction of some sort).

And a very simple one that often costs 000's is staff using directory enquiries rather than google to get a phone number.

isn't this the other way round? But lots of parents are Xdirectory.

Phoning parents on mobiles rather than land lines.

It still more expensive to ring a mobile than a landline.

In addition to these schools use online payment which optimises office staff for other duties.

TBH, it would save more money if schools where better able to take the best quote from contractors instead of being tied in to set contract lengths.

ANTagony

Could you explain further over staffing at a professional level please

Genuinely curious.

No times is only ard for us poor normals.
They would be less ard if more people could work, maybe as a cleaner!
They would be less ard if money were put into important things like education rather than bank bailouts and tax cuts for millionaires.
Indulging is this big society bullshit is eating right out of their eton educated hands.

I don't think they are being unreasonable to ask and at risk of being flamed I am going to say it would be a bit selfish not to participate.

The logic for my reasoning is that teachers are there to teach and are probably overstretched as it is. Having a nice clean and tidy school is important to make children feel pride for their school and to value it. Lastly, in the state school not much is expected of parents, they don't pay for education and they don't have to be a member of the PTA - if they don't want to they don't have to do anything to support their school. My question to your DH would be is it unfair to care so little about the establishment where your children are getting educated?

But are they not supporting their school and paying for education through their taxes....

Oh dear, Krumbum.

"So due to council cut backs our little school has had the cleaners hours cut. "

Sorry don't buy that at all.

The council don't provide the school with a cleaner, and then tell the school that it is not having the cleaners for as many hours as before.

The council may have reduced one budget or another, but it won't just pay for cleaning.

It looks to me as if the school have decided to spend less on cleaning and ask parents instead. Which could be seen as very clever. And if the school's actual wording is "our little school has had the cleaners hours cut" then they are being very clever. They are also taking the piss.

And they need to think very carefully how they are going to stop all their volunteers being nosey parkers who are looking at all the other children's work to compare it with Ptolemy's.

Most of the cleaners are on PT contracts that don't run over the summer break. So, I suspect that they are not cutting cleaners jobs, the school is unable to do is pay for an external comapny to come in and "deep clean" the school during the holidays.

If this was Japan, you'd find the kids cleaning the school. They have 20 minutes set aside at the end of the day to clear up and clean out. Each pupil gets allocated an area and tools and they get on with it (well mainly).

Really this just needs a change of vision, there isn't enough money in the national kitty so we need to muck in and get our hands dirty. I will happily lead the charge and set an example for other responsible parents to follow.

boney I used to work for a school in horrendous deficit. To the point of bankruptcy.

It still did paper news letters, the Head was 'old school' and by his reasoning if every pupil - and staff member got handed a paper copy - no one could deny receipt of it. His rationale was, not everyone has a PC at home, so you would leave out 5 or 10% of parents.

There was also over £200 of directory enquiries calls by staff for non work related enquiries - eg deliveries, utilities, bank numbers.

Most parents leave home, work and mobile numbers - so use the work or home number, last port of call is the mobile. (I did get that round the wrong way in my previous post)

Not to mention dreadful equipment maint contracts only and idiot would have signed up to.

The list was endless regarding waste you or I would have stopped if we were looking at our own personal and household accounts.

There were two stories - maybe urban myth, maybe truth - that circulated in the 80's. PriceWaterhouseCoopers saved a million a year on NOT providing complimentary biscuits at meeting. Ditto BA by removing the olive from the centre of a pizza.

Small things that no one notices save a lot of money.

Queenofpirates - it's all well and good talking about 'mucking in' but this 'mucking in' gives a lot of people their jobs. Im all for community spirit and everyone helping out, but people do the jobs others don't want/have to and we shouldn't take those away.

There is enough money, it's just being spent elsewhere

My DS's school manages to have two daily cleaners and a caretaker on site every day. It's the fourth primary I have experience of, and they all have had the same. Is that not usual?