AIBU to think the school should have told DP about his kids parents evening?

[littlejessie]

A-ages since I last posted, but thought this might be the place to ask! My DP has two sons, has been very involved in their lives since separating from their mum when they were small. They are both in primary school. Pre-school, they were with us around 75% of time outside time spent with child minder, and since school has started, they come to us every weekend (mostly).

He's a good Dad, generous financially to XDP and very involved in all aspects of the kids lives.

A couple of weeks ago we heard through XDP there was a parent's evening the following week. This was a surprise as he's signed up to the Parentmail email system and we understood he'd get this kind of information directly (nothing had arrived).

He emailed the school, just in case there was some kind of issue:

Dear (school secretary),

I was informed tonight that there is a parent’s evening for DS1 and DS2 next Thursday.

I haven’t been notified of this by the school. Could you make sure I am receiving direct notification of any meetings about the boys and their progress?

Thanks,

(DP)

and this is the response that arrived:

"I will try (DP) but that information goes home via school bags, it's not something that is communicated by Parentmail as it is individual to each child. The boys appointments are 4.30pm for DS1 and 5.50pm for DS2. I will let their teachers know you need to be told of meetings separately.

Probably best for future years to keep an eye on the newsletter and when you see the dates for Parents' Nights pop up remind me and I can let you know what time is allocated - best if you do this as there's no way I'll remember! This is what we do for several parents in similar circumstances to yourself. We will try to keep you in the loop in future.

Kind regards

(school secretary)"

AIBU thinking this response isn't quite right? Surely the school have some kind of obligation to keep him posted about this kind of thing?

There must be many parents in your DP's position. Surely in this day and age schools could put newsletters and letters to parents onto the school website along with the school calendar?

My DDs' secondary school send out all letters by email or they put them on the parent portal and email a brief note to parents telling them where the letter is. It must save a fortune in paper costs.

The school have an obligation to provide two copies of the school report at the end of the year so their dad will get his own copy.

Sometimes schools send both copies in one envelope if they know it is an amicable set up so one will pass it on to the other.
in other situations, the report may be posted out to the non resident parent if they have requested this. Perhaps your partner should make this clear to the office in advance so there are no further issues.

Phew, thank you SaucyJack. It's not an unusual scenario, that kids have separated parents. that situation's not always going to be sweetness and light and communication is so easy nowadays I really don't see the issue in giving credence to BOTH parent's wish to be involved and informed about their child.

Thanks sunshinysummer , that's helpful. I'll let him know.

Thing is - if the notice has gone home in book bags, the school have no way of knowing which parent has it, and which still needs to be informed. If it had been in the bookbag on a day that your DH has his DSs after school, he would have been the one with the notice, and have needed to pass it on to his ex.

The school did inform a parent, just not your dp.

Honestly I think how they work it informally is fine, and the secretary was perfectly friendly and helpful about how to manage it in the future. Really all she's done is ask him to take responsibility of keeping an eye out for future dates and then just contact her. It's not an outrageous request by a long shot.

Just think logically for a second and think of how many children attend the school. Then think how many already have or will have separated parents? Then consider how any parents may have terrible relationships and would use something like parents evening as a reason to use the school as a battle ground for petty time changes etc.

The school will have hundreds of children's circumstances to consider, they can't all be catered for individually all of the time. This is not a situation that justifies deviation from their normal protocols.

Easiest all round if he and his exw could just tell each other but there you go.

I suppose that's where an email system should come in handy! Simple to set up and maintain for every child.

It seems to me that this will be a common situation surrounding many children, and there should be more provision to support NRPs to maintain awareness and involvement in their kids lives.

It's unrealistic to rely on XPs to pass things on as this will be so dependent on variable circumstances and a system which could so easily fail.

I have to say I'm pretty surprised by the number of indignant posts above, suggesting he's no business expecting to be kept in the loop - seems very unenlightened!

"Just think logically for a second and think of how many children attend the school. Then think how many already have or will have separated parents? Then consider how any parents may have terrible relationships and would use something like parents evening as a reason to use the school as a battle ground for petty time changes etc."

In these circs, parents normally get separate appointments... I really don't think giving children the benefit of both parents involvement is an unrealistic or unreasonable expectation, even when the relationship between the parents is acrimonious.

When your child starts school you are normally given a contact sheet to complete (ours is updated once a year) - how hard is it to include both parents on this? Answer: not hard at all.

Imnotmadeofeyes I've just re-read your post - that is NOT a reason to exclude a parent from involvement in their kids education!

Probably best for future years to keep an eye on the newsletter and when you see the dates for Parents' Nights pop up remind me and I can let you know what time is allocated - best if you do this as there's no way I'll remember

I think this is fair enough. Did your dp not see the newsletter either? Is that not sent out by email or posted on the website?

I'm just not getting the issue - he gets the newsletter, so he knows when parents evenings are yes? So the school is informing him? Or are you suggesting that in addition to putting the dates of parents evening on the newsletter which he and every other RP and NRP is receiving, he gets an individual email saying don't forget about parents evening?

Is he somehow not capable of reading a newsletter and making a note of the dates in a diary of some description?

I think the issue with the kids Mum being relied on to 'pass it on' is fine, if you have a good relationship with your XDP and you could trust and rely on them to do so. Not everyone will be in the position we are in which leaves the door open for exclusion from these kind of events and meetings.

But maybe those people have a different system of being informed. It doesn't apply to you at all as your dh's XDP does inform you in advance of meetings. So I don't really understand why you contacted the school.

I've just checked Parentmail and there's no newsletter so presumably this was school-bagged too. Which means, actually, that he didn't get ANY info from the school about this at all. It's not on their website either.

Lordy! I am not looking for a fight.... Perhaps you're right and he should crawl under a stone and not bother in future .

I just think in this day and age, this doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be an issue.

Aventurine communication is good now, but it's been an issue way in the past, and I think the idea was just to remove the potential for information not being passed on.

Sorry littlejessie, I don't think they are excluding nrp.

Letters in bags aren't an unusual way for schools to
communicate. There are definitely other ways that perhaps should be suggested to the school (emails/texts) but it's not some madcap way of communicating that has never been attempted before.

I don't see where anyone has suggested he has no business wanting to know about his children's education, all that's been asked is that he takes a little responsibility to ask the school for further details because of his specific situation.

Sorry if I've missed it, but I'm not sure why it's not possible for the children's mother to keep him informed of specific appointment times? Doesn't she tell him about plays, assemblies that are specific to the children's classes in case he wishes to attend?

Your boyfriend is a grown man! He is perfectly capable of looking on the school's website and writing key dates in his diary. If this is too complicated for him then he can call the school and ask! Your boyfriend's ex wife is not his secretary and it is not her job to run after your boyfriend.

Schools are busy places with hundreds of children. Your boyfriend is adding to the workload.

Yes, they have his email. They will also have several hundred other email addresses. At our school for example, there are 420 children and therefore 840 parents.

They can't be expected to send out appointments by email for each individual child, and it can't be sent as a group email for all parents since then every parent would get a list of every child and appointment in the school!

We don't get anything through parent mail about individual children - the school admin office emails separately outside of parent mail if there is information specific to our own children.

You are expecting the school to spoon feed, which I think is unfair, and unnecessary in this case since your dp and his ex are capable of discussion information between them.

Not generally, but she's been good about informing him about parent's evenings by and large.

I think my point of view is that he shouldn't HAVE to rely on her doing this - because he's their parent too.

All I can say is thank God for the helpful, enlightened, egalitarian approach my DD's school take, which isn't defined by administrative complexity, but by what is in my child's and BOTH her parents interests...

littlejessie has anyone said he should crawl under a stone and not bother? No. But a lot of people have pointed out that he has lots of ways to keep himself informed about what is going on at school. He can talk to his ex partner, he can ring the office or maybe he could ask his ex partner to just keep a copy of everything that goes in to the book bag and pass it on at the weekend. It really isn't that tricky.

I don't believe it should be that tricky for the school to treat separated parents equally... Yes he can and WILL ask for future dates of parent's evenings so he's aware in advance, but I think not to have invited him on this occasion was wrong, particularly as he had been in touch at the start of the year specifically to express his high involvement with the kids, to ask to be on first point of contact lists and to be informed of parent's evenings.

I'm just amazed that so many people are uncritically supporting the school on this and suggesting that it is too much to expect for them to have systems in place to deal with separated parents and keep them informed. Sorry, not only is it reasonable to expect this, my understanding is that it's a legal requirement where both parents have parental responsibility: it would be absolutely wrong for the school to choose only to communicate with one parent but not the other, or to decide that it's none of their business if letters don't reach one of the parents.

I assume that this school would have consulted with parents to identify convenient times for their respective appointments? If so, they had no business setting up an appointment with one parent without checking that it was OK for the other. Again, they simply can't assume that the parents will sort it out between themselves for very obvious reasons.

As has been pointed out, this is absolutely not an unusual situation, and in any one class there are likely to be several children with separated and divorced parents. Most schools take this totally in their stride, and have a system whereby notifications are sent out by post or email to the non-resident parent. IT being what it is, this is absolutely not an onerous task: standard letters can be sent out by email to a massive group of parents, including separated parents, with one click. If you're sending things by post, again it's one click to print a load of labels.

If a school relied on one parent to tell the other, or a vague hope that the non-resident parent might pick up that a parents' evening was happening and contact them to find out more. there is a real risk that that parent would be excluded from very important decisions about his children's education, and the school would be laying itself open to legal action.

He can talk to his ex partner, he can ring the office or maybe he could ask his ex partner to just keep a copy of everything that goes in to the book bag and pass it on at the weekend. It really isn't that tricky.

But that assumes that separated parents communicate with each other. What do you suggest should happen if the relationship has broken down so badly that that doesn't happen? Should the non-resident father phone the school every day on the off-chance that there is something he needs to be told about?

Oh I'm sure the school has nothing better to do than inform all parents in duplicate. I don't see why nrp in an amicable relationship can't just talk to each other. Obviously schools need to communicate in different ways with parents who are separated with contact issues.

That school Secretary made a real effort to help your partner yet you see "no need to be grateful"?

You sound as though you're just looking for something to complain about.