Could you drop everything at work with a day's notice for a school event?

[Schoolirons]

School are holding an event for parents of certain children this week. It is important to attend.
Usually we get a list of key dates but my son and non of the other parents I have spoken to have received it this term so we aren't sure if it was not sent out or if it was only uploaded to the website which I only noticed at the weekend after another I parent mentioned it.

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They have been inconsistent with this in the past so many people had stopped checking.

The event on the key list isn't labelled as parents evening but as a progress evening and is on a mixed list of events for two years and doesn't specify which year it is for.

Apparently according to someone else the children have been told today that the staff running it will think about it tonight and will be told tomorrow if their parents have to come in on Thursday .

Aibu to think if they already knew about it they could be giving more than less than 24 hours notice of whether you need to attend?

It's an important year and important to attend but I know many people who couldn't get time off work with a day's notice.

Yes, easily, unless there was something really important going on. But I work in a profession with a high degree of flexibility and without much oversight. I can decide to work from home on a given day at a moment’s notice or finish early and make up the time later in the evening if I want. Even if I couldn’t go, my dh is self employed so he would go (or we both would).

But I acknowledge that’s highly unusual and we’re very fortunate to have these sorts of jobs. Seems a bit silly on the part of the school though and doesn’t sound like they’ll have good turnout. I know only about 30% of parents could make it to an evening meeting at our school the other week and that was with about 2 months notice.

Yes I could. I know I'm very lucky.

Yes I probably could but often don't - in my experience School meetings are rarely worth the effort of rearranging work diary etc. Dc School are pretty good with comms though and will rearrange if you can't make an event.

Yes I could, but only I work part time and can change my hours/days at the drop of a hat.

No. I teach part time so on the days I'm in, I'm in.

Fortunately we have family and good friends locally who could drop everything in an emergency (and have done so occasionally).

Even when I was a SAHM I still had to miss key dates for my DDs school because you couldn't take younger children and I had no childcare for DS..... even if DH took the time off then still only one of us could go.....

No chance.

I work in a school and would need to request any time off in writing well in advance, it would need to go to my Line Manager then to the Head and even then it's by no means guaranteed it would be granted. DH can work from home occasionally to allow him to attend appointments/events but this also has to be agreed in advance with his Manager and is not always possible depending on what he's got on that week.

In my experience PP's are right that some schools seem to assume every child has a SAHP. This is something I try to be very mindful of in my work with parents, if I ask to see them then I see it as my responsibility to facilitate a meeting that fits in with their jobs not just expect them to drop everything. Unless it's an actual emergency of course.

I don't think so. I have dropped everything and run home for a crisis but I can also work from home and catch up. So if it was say an hour's meeting I could probably sweet-talk my boss into letting me work from home and go to the meeting. If I had a bit more notice than 24 hours I could just swap my homeworking days around.

Generally though there is a policy that we have to give 2 weeks' notice for leave, and I need cover for my role so if I needed a full day off at a busy time I might even need to give more notice so we could arrange the cover.

My job is quite flexible, and my line manager has school age children and understands that schools have a habit of doing this. So if my diary was clear and it was a quiet time of year then I might be able to. Unfortunately school did this several times last June when we were rushed off our feet and I couldn't attend.

Dp has the kind of job where they need to find cover, so he needs to give them much more notice.

Well it's currently a few minutes to noon and we still don't know. Ridiculous

Many jobs have dealines to be met and limited or no cover. Out of my department of 6, 3 people are off sick, 1 is on holiday. The 2 of us remaining cant cover for each other as we have very different roles.

The only thing I could drop work and run for would be a genuine crisis. Just glad my DCs are all grown up so mainly manage their own crises!