To think this school mum is off?

[propernot]

DS starts reception in Sept. Via a Facebook group I am on I was invited to join a whatsapp group for parents when children starting that school in September.
The mum 'X' who started the group already has 2 children at the school and her third is starting in reception. To my knowledge, she chose to start the group of her free will, presumably because she wanted to, and wasn't forced to do so.

The title of the group is 'school name intake 2022'. But its becoming really obvious that X actually only wanted this to be for school mums. When people said 'can I add my husband/partner' they were told 'not yet due to security reasons', and after a couple of weeks she finally relented and let dads join. X has a notes document which she updates and shares on a regality basis as new people join the group, which has the names of the children and their mum next to them. X says she is too busy to put the dads name on the document as well.

Dads are getting arsey now making passive aggressive comments about 'the March to parental equality' and some are raising that they are SAHD who do all the drop off and pick ups, so if there can only be one named parent on this group then it should be them...

AIBU to say that X is going around this wrong and feel sorry for the dads who are basically being sidelined? And to say that if X is finding the group too onerous to run she can stop?

Eh?

As a Reception teacher. School parent WhatsApp groups are the bane of my life.

We get dragged into problems that arise in them, information gets shared that isn’t correct. It’s a constant battle to remind parents that we have nothing to do with it and if you information hasn’t come from us then don’t believe it! It happens every year!

No one NEEDS to be on it. Its a parents WhatsApp ran by a parent, there's no obligation to be on it at all. If your kid's lost their jumper ask the school. I cant think of anything worse!

Isn't starting a dads' group kind of defeating the object. It's a group for parents and guardians presumably.
What information or ideas does this woman have that others don't. Why doesn't Action Dad start another group for exactly the same thing where there is equality and inclusion....make himself the Administrator. Of course he has to be prepared to put the work in

There are unofficial class WhatsApp’s for both my children’s classes.
I (mum) am not in them because my husband is a stay at home dad and does all pick ups and drop offs and the vast majority of school admin.
they are invaluable as like most schools the communication is often rather lacking or unclear. There is no bitchiness or gossip mostly checking whether it’s PE day and things like that. I’m sure the school doesn’t really want 30 phone calls
asking the same simple question.

However the stereotypes run deep with some people. My husband has a male name which is never used for women and yet the idea that it could be a man in the group who was commenting was so unlikely to one of the mums that when she met me at a party she called me by my husbands name.

Why do some parents want/need a class WhatsAp ? (Didn’t have any at DT’s school). Schools issue any information you need?

@Parker231 some school unfortunately are crap at giving out information and some kids are especially crap at making sure letters get home.
It's just a handy way to keep communication going.