I think if any of us who trained as teachers (especially with drama as a specialism, like I did) currently have our eyes so rolled back into our heads at some of these comments from parents that we are mostly typing out replies using touch alone.
I get it. In a totally perfect classroom, every child will have an identically large speaking/singing/dancing role. Every child will sing and smile and laugh in all the right places. All parents would be appeased at this communist ideal where everyone is treated equally & all parents will fawn & clap at the beautiful ensemble piece rendered before them.
Unfortunately, living back in the real world, this isn’t, and can never be the case. You have to chose kids based on their abilities. Some will be stronger singers in the chorus, others have the confidence to be a narrator or lead character. Some will want to do all the fun backstage stuff (even if, as in the old days, that was just turning the CD player on & off at the right time). Others will throw themselves into helping make props or painting sheep for the bit with the shepherds. If you know your class well (and most of us do for reasons well outside the remit of bloody nativity casting) you know the rough plan of who will play what. You may have auditions, or ask the kids themselves who might be good in a part. You could workshop the whole shebang for a week before casting & the old regulars may still get the ‘premium’ roles, because that’s where their strengths lie.
Teachers will know who will work best in an ensemble chorus. They know the kids that will have the support to practice a larger role. They know who would be absolutely terrified if they were made to stand in front of hundreds of people and, if I’m honest, wet themselves in fright.
And, unfortunate as it seems, the ones with the confident PTA parents will often take the confident, larger roles not through favouritism, but because those confident people have confident children. There may be exceptions to this rule of course (and good teachers will be adept at encouraging those who have potential to excel in performing regardless of who their parent or what their background is) but it is a simple observation.
A good teacher will know which kid will make a fabulous comedy donkey, a clear speaking Angel Gabriel or a strong but silent Wise Man.
Even as a drama specialist, you know you can’t do right for doing bloody wrong. There will always be the pushy parent who’ll insist their nose picking progeny is the next Laurence Olivier. But there will also always be that one spark in a child that doesn’t have the support or money or ideal home life that you can nurture & develop, even in a school nativity, which could help that child in so many more ways than I could write here.
That’s why we do that same, thankless task, year in, year out.