Why do schools alienate Dads?

[Dadsrule1234]

It has come to light during lockdown that my kids a school run a parent 1 and parent 2 system. I have asked them previously to email us both, but everything still comes to me only addressed to me. I am getting a complex because despite our 50/50 partnership as parents and both working full time I get every negative email about uniform and now home school. Is this normal? Why alienate the Dads they place a huge role. I don’t know how to approach this? The email about home schooling was really awful. I find it so strange that schools don’t value their parents anymore. Unless it’s just this one.. thoughts please.

What a pile of shit.

How about you engage your brain?

Set up one email address for school that you can both access. Put an auto forward on it to your personal email, if you only want to be dealing with one.

All you’ve shown here is that you chose to disengage from your child’s schooling.

My friend has the busier job in her marriage - they have always put dad’s details in, he deals with all school related admin. Emails, last minute costume requests... all of it.

Ours is set up to mail all parents on the system or specific ones for year groups etc but our old system only mailed 1 parent. We mail from the school website though.

We can also see who has opened the mail too which is handy when they say they never got the email and blame us for not sending one which is pretty often!

I don't know about your school but my DC's school have a main contact and secondary contact in terms of parents but really don't make this clear. So when they asked for two email addresses I put mine and DH's in a random order on the form. It turns out they only use the whichever email address you put first which was DH's and it all ended up in his spam filter. I can understand why, presuming you live together, they'd only email one of you but I can't see why they would automically make that the mum.

We have two dc so are each the main flag for one and secondary for the other. Although dh doesn’t bother himself passing on messages etc so it mainly falls to me anyway.

It's not unreasonable to expect, in a time where we are supposed to be striving for equality of the sexes (hah!), that systems are set up to email both parents at the same time.

The trouble is, sexism is just ingrained in those who are developing the systems and those administering it, and people on here insisting "that's just the way it has to be, get over it" when it really doesn't have to be like this just reinforce the status quo.

We should raise the bar, it really wouldn't take that much effort or cost anything more to develop systems better.

DS's school send everything to his dad. I've asked countless times to add me in to thier mailing list.
Recently after asking for the about the 5th time, I have been receiving the e mails personalised to me, ie starting Dear 17, direct from the head teachers account, not the general admin one.
They must have found it impossible to add a second contact to thier system, so this poor head has to take time to e mail me separately.
What a rubbish system some schools seem to have.

Why don't they "cc" parent 2 when emailing parent 1? No need for messages to be passed on then.

Alienating Dads?? How bloody ridiculous. Just change the details round if it bothers you that much. What an easy life you must have if this is all you have to worry about.

@17bluebirds
What a rubbish system some schools seem to have.
It’s not necessarily a rubbish system as you describe. Schools buy into automated email/text systems that pick details up from the SIMS register. Some companies charge “per contact” so the systems can cost huge amounts if they add both patents.

@trappedsincesundaymorn

Why don't they "cc" parent 2 when emailing parent 1? No need for messages to be passed on then.

Because that's more effort.

It's unreasonable to expect schools to stay on top of every family permutation.

But it is also unreasonable of them to use systems which are difficult for families, such as the 'parent 1' system, because there are better alternatives.

Putting every parent/guardian who requests to be on the distribution list is very low effort and makes life easier - for the families obviously and also for the school as good communication brings benefits to all parties.

Sticking with an antiquated system that does not permit this, is not a good choice and fortunately that tyke of system does seem to be dying out.

@Laissonslesjoliesfemmes

Could be worse. There's a class WhatsApp group at my DC's school but it's 'managed' by a group of Stepford Wives who refuse to allow fathers in the group.

Someone sent a meme to our group praising all the mums and telling them how well they’re doing.

It made me really feel for that dads on the group, particularly the single ones, so I sent a shout out to them too.

[quote LadyPenelope68]@17bluebirds
What a rubbish system some schools seem to have.
It’s not necessarily a rubbish system as you describe. Schools buy into automated email/text systems that pick details up from the SIMS register. Some companies charge “per contact” so the systems can cost huge amounts if they add both patents.[/quote]
But that IS a “rubbish system” and service users (schools) should be pushing for systems that are developed to have 2 contacts per child as standard.

The developers are out for profit. But if service users (schools) begin to demand this they’ll go where the demand is.

The trouble is ingrained sexism - if not enough people complain and ask for this, it’s easy to dismiss.

It can change, but it takes effort from parents, from schools, and then up to the chain to the developers. Do schools want an excellent “home-school partnership”? (They’re always saying so.) in that case they need to invest in it.

I put my H down as parent 1 as I'm a teacher so hard to get hold of.

Just set up a shared email address that you both access then, no big deal 🤷🏻‍♀️

Schools can’t always win this one. They email my ex husband and myself at the same time. We are both listed as parent 1. Since he has precisely zero to do with their schooling it’s a waste of time and expense (in my view only of course) and ultimately it’s a source of conflict between us. Because he’s a dick. And likes treating me like his PA. In situations were the ex is controlling and abusive I could see it causing quite serious problems so I can see why some schools operate a different system.

I work in a nursery. We have a system to e mail as many parents as we want, we just select 'parent'in the box and off the e mail goes. No cost, as it's part of our management/tracking system.
This is an off the shelf nursery management system, I'm sure it's very similar to those used in schools. It cant be beyond the capabilities of the developers to work this out.

Separately, we do get charged per text, so considered only send them to 1 parent, but they are only used in an emergency, so we thought it was worth paying for the few times it is used.