School admissions perpetuating the patriarchy?

[Burntt]

Is it just my LA or is it normal during the admissions process to only allow one parent to be involved? I don’t see how it’s fair to refuse to share the information with more than one parent. This dumps the admin solely onto one parent…. Which is usually the mother.

How is this happening in this day and age? If parents are supposed to be equally involved they should actually be able to be so! This system dumps it all on one parent usually the mother, and then excludes the other/father who is given the ok/expectation that this life admin for his child isn’t his responsibility it’s the mums.

I think you have misunderstood me. Our school choice was a joint decision. His dad filled in the application. We have discussed our child’s SEN and had questions, depending on the answers we had agreed what we would do. it was me who contacted them with these questions and she refused to discuss my child’s with me, only ‘general policy’ which answered enough that I knew we would be accepting the school place and I was then told I wasn’t able to do this.

there is no parental disagreement. We are working together very well. We chose the school based on who we think would be dropping off most and the schools SEN support. I called today as my working week is quieter this week and dads is busy.

Shared email is definitely the way to go.

i get what you are saying about child benefit but I did actually look that up today as the LA person said child needs to go to the catchment school for that parent. parents decide between them who gets child benefit, it doesn’t have to be the parent who has the most time (some parents decide based on which parent is entitled to claim it) it’s only when they disagree it comes down to who has the child most. And not all children have a parent who’s claiming it

We have a different schools admissions system but it pisses me off that my kids schools can’t send the emails and texts out to both parents. If the bloody cubs can manage it surely the schools could too. We asked the primary school to add my partners email address too and they said they could only have one and they prefer it to be the mother 🤦‍♀️

Women end up doing it -- it's the patriarchy.
Men end up doing it -- it's the patriarchy.
Try harder.

One of the reasons why only one parent is required to give their details in an application is to ensure that the Admissions Code is followed - the sort of illegal discrimination that is theoretically possible from having space for two parents would include;

Single parents (through absence of a second contact)
Single parents (through having two contact addresses)
Unmarried parents (through not sharing a surname)
X Ethnicity parent (through assumptions made from surname)

You cannot ask questions that could be used to discriminate illegally against a child - hence one parent/carer puts in their details, a second one or an emergency contact can only be requested after a place has been offered and accepted.

If anything, it prevents the patriarchal attitudes towards women for not having a husband to approve the application from negatively affecting a child.

In any case, it's very common for fathers to complete the applications, sometimes because they're a parent, too, sometimes because they are more fluent in English, sometimes because they think their child might be discriminated against if they don't make it clear they're involved, sometimes because they're more organised and capable of making the applications and providing any further documentation or they're the sole parent - so your original assumption is somewhat off in the first place.

You are suggesting a system where the admin burden would pretty much triple (email from parent 1, from parent 2 and then pairing it up) for no advantage. Who do you think would be stuck with this huge unnecessary admin burden, which sex is overrepresented in school offices, admin roles etc. That's right - women!

By all means encourage schools to word sign ups in a gender neutral way, or fight a problem where there is one but don't create problems for no reason.

a system where one OR TWO email addresses are registered with a school application is what I think is best. So as not to discriminate against families who have/want just one parent doing the admin. But that allows families to have equal admin burden if both parents wish this.

so in our case having both our emails able to log into the one account for school admissions. Notifications set to both emails. Either of us able to log in and accept the school place/defer/appeal/wait lists etc. and if staff are speaking to a parent on the phone then both would be able to discuss their child not be told only the ‘main parent’.

it would be great for their medical stuff too to be honest. But at least out experience with medical stuff is they will talk to you about your child and give results/make appointments even if you are kit the parent the letter went to

How so?

the point I’m making is only one parent can do it in this example. Which will generally fall to women. This may not be the best example as it seems more of a process for us due to my child’s SEN. If the other parent cannot be involved in the process that presumption that the admin parent/mum do the admin continues if the father has been locked out at the early stage? Clearly I’m struggling to get this point across.

If I didn’t fully trust my ex and work 100% as a team with him I would be incredibly uncomfortable with being excluded from this process. Well clearly I’m upset I’ve been excluded hence this post but if I didn’t trust my ex I’d have insisted I was ‘main parent’ on paper just to ensure I had access to this decision and the information. That would exclude my ex and if he didn’t fight me over it (which he wouldn’t as not best for the child) that would be how it continued mum having the power and therefore the burden.

it’s not that the man did it this time so it’s the patriarchy. It’s that the man did it this time and I’m experiencing the other side of having the admin burden and that’s to not be informed. I can see why some men just leave it for the mum to handle and I can see why some mum’s push to be main parent and then have to take on the mental load of the admin.

a system where one parent is excluded will pit parents against each other if they both want to be equally involved.. and that is not the road to equality

But do you not see how your system would allow somebody other than the person that made the application to overrule it or cancel it? So hypothetically an ex that never sees his kids could cancel an application just to piss off the other parent. The school/LA can't get into the details of every family on application. It HAS to be whoever applied. It's the only way that could work.

But they can do that now anyway?! The LA even have a policy for if there is dispute they don’t allocate a place at all they require a court order. The system isn’t stopping parental disputes it’s just blocking one parent out

It doesn't generally fall to women where there are two parents involved - it initially falls to the parent who completes the application so that single parents (who are mostly women, but by no means all) cannot be discriminated against for being single. If two contacts can be added, that means that only having one entered implies that there isn't a second with all the prejudice that entails.

It's for the most basic part of the process - the bit that boils down to the name, address, date of birth of the child and a single point of contact. As soon as an offer has been made and accepted, plenty then don't just notify a second parent (and preferably a third contact for emergencies), they switch the priority.

To have double the contacts doubles the amount of emails generated, which has a massive effect upon the mailing system - over a certain number of emails sent, organisations either experience throttling of the system or have to pay for additional capacity. It increases the likelihood of the emails being erroneously identified as spam by internet service providers, meaning nobody using Outlook/Yahoo/whatever receives emails. Sending out that many can and does overload the exchange servers, meaning that people don't receive their emails - these are why different areas get their outcome emails at different times of the day on National Offer Day; the volume is such that even with just one parent contact at that point, it's impossible to send them all at once, especially when there will also be people logging in and using the app servers, contacting the local authority by email, phone and at times in person, and is why outages are not unusual on the day.

It then has a knock-on effect upon school messaging apps for the same reasons. Somebody has to go into every single record (once they are imported) to check addresses, check priority, tick as having parental responsibility (and this is assuming that nobody has ticked it when they don't have it). They have to manually enter a second address and that they also wish to receive correspondence.

There's double the data to upload to the payment system. Double the letters to generate. Double (if not more) the numbers of people to support in entering their user name and activation code. Increased costs because the payment system suppliers will encounter the server and bandwidth/sending demands. It takes longer to export double the data.

Then there's twice the paper (as there are always people who won't activate accounts). Twice the number of questions about term dates and uniform lists and start times and class choices because they haven't noticed they've already been sent them by email or it hasn't been received. Double the number of 'I can't find my login/forgot my password/what does this email mean'.

Every electronic act has a cost in human time and in environmental impact - doubling the demands by starting from a point of two people always contacted for everything doubles the costs.

Oh, and if you are considering a joint email address for one parent's record, make sure there are two separate email accounts as well - because once one provider fails to whitelist the school/local authority contacts as bulk emailing but not spam or if somebody loses their password, accidentally (or deliberately) blocks it or otherwise is unable to access it or recover the account, the school will need a second to deal with the inevitable bouncebacks and resend items manually.

Exactly, and what if mum submits a form with different information from dad's form? Should breakfast club/football/dancing clubs etc insist both parents complete a form? Now if they said only dads could sign form because only males are intelligent enough to make important decisions, that would be patriarchal.

For school applications: use a shared e mail. Both use it . School applications is an admin process. Both parents are allowed at open days, induction meetings etc.

My Dc were 50/50 parented. I had a Dc who had numerous complicated hospital surgeries, stays, a range of outpatient appointments. There was never any difficulty about which parent would be attending, talking to medical staff etc etc

As others have said, the idea of having two email addresses and two people to correspond with becomes problematic if there is a dispute between parents. It makes sense that everything goes via one application. I can see your point about it would be fine if an email stating the school was sent to both, but the issue then would still be over which email is more important and would there still be something in place that would mean one contact is the priority contact and the other receives the information only but cannot act on it (accept or reject).

It sounds like some of your questions may be better suited to the schools you have applied for (the general gist seems to be concerns regarding sen). Did you not discuss any of these issues before applying with the sendcos within the schools you visited?

Also as others have said, schools are usually good at sending information to both parents. Usually school details are sent via an app. The only thing that does sometimes get missed and you might want to ask is that two paper copies of any letters are sent home (but then to also consider that the staff might do this when they hand out the paper copy and it is the other parent not passing on the second copy and to not always expect staff to know what day is a mummy/daddy day).

I understand the concern about only one person becoming responsible for all school admin. You can pick from countless threads on MN from someone whose DH/DW or DP does little or nothing in the way of organising bill payments and other things you need to do for the house and basic living.

I would support the local authority on this though. There are too many instances of separated or divorced parents where one or other takes out their ill feeling towards the other parent in the way they go about childcare responsibilities. Usually behaviour of the non-resident parent, and in the majority of cases that is a man. Given that, you can imagine no response to an offer, or turning it down out of spite.

School admissions perpetuating the patriarchy?
I can count on 1 finger (and that’s being generous) the number of applications we usually get from Dads! So not sure how it’s perpetuating the patriarchy? This sounds more like a relationship issue if your husband is applying and refusing to share the details with you?

As a single parent, I wholly agree with you, OP. When my youngest daughter (teen) became a school refuser, school would only send the truancy texts to one parent, namely me. I was working full-time and could have broken down with the stress of it, but kept going. Ex husband told me to deal with it, as ‘that’s what I pay child maintenance for.’
He was an arsehole at that time. But had he also received the texts, he wouldn’t have been able to turn a blind eye.
This is Scotland, if that’s relevant. And my daughter is thankfully happy at college now and doing really well.
But those were dark days for me, so your post really resonated.

Surely these are questions you ask before you put your choice of schools on the form.

There is only 1 applicant because there is only 1 child. If the parents cannot coordinate the application process, that’s their problem! If you were applying for a child’s passport would you expect both parents to be involved? What about a hospital referral? Or a sports club? Or a financial assessment for University?
you’re seeing issues where there are none.

How is this perpetuating the patriarchy?? Your child’s dad filled out the application (which is rare enough), and now you (the mum) are insisting YOU need to be involved as well. If anything, YOU are perpetuating the patriarchy - if the two of you have a good relationship and are co-parenting well, why on earth can he not do all this himself?!

Of course parents can disagree and the system doesn’t stop that disagreement. But it prevents the LA being unable to do their job or being the arbiter of that dispute. And a shared email address would have made no difference to your discussion with the LA - the system still requires a name and if you aren’t that person the fact the email address is joint would have been irrelevant.

@Burntt No parent is solely 50/50 as one parent must be the resident parent for benefits and indeed school applications. I really don’t get why parents treat dc like a cake to be cut up. For a school application, home address of the resident parent matters. They cannot use two “equal” addresses and parents need to grow up and realise their role is not to spout all
this 50/50 nonsense. Just follow the rules and decide what you will do before applying where one parent matters more than the other.

both parents can. its simple. You set up an email address which both parents share and that's the one you give to the school. Simples!

The admin around school admissions is applying for a school, then accepting/rejecting it. One parent is perfectly capable of doing that, and it avoids confusion for the LA potentially hearing different things from different parents.
After a child starts school it’s perfectly normal for both parents to be included in comms from the school, and admin can be shared.
This is a non-issue.

Like Moon up says - it's a system IT issue. Choosing online is so new so it'll take time to allow more than 1.
But it's a good time to for parents of Reception children to discuss who will be no 1 contact and to appreciate what that means in terms of mental load as you will be the one rung.
Will you both read newsletters etc or 1 read and act as PA. Or split emails and newsletters.
Don't just put mum first.