AIBU in thinking that this is an unfair expectation on parents

[GumballWaterson]

DD12 goes to a weekly Musical Theatre class which costs us £200 per term.

This summer they are doing a performance, two weeks of rehearsals followed by a dress rehearsal and three performances across two days. It costs £150 per child to take part and tickets for the show are £16 each. We have to provide a costume. Driving her to and from rehearsals and performances (an hour round trip) has taken some juggling with work, younger DC etc but all fine, that's what we agreed to.

A couple of weeks back they sent out an email stating "we expect all parents to chaperone or help out backstage for at least one performance or the dress rehearsal. You must let us know which performance/s you will be volunteering for by completing this form by X date". No "please" or "if you are able to" or "we would be grateful if", just a straight up demand.

When I dropped DD off this morning I spoke to one of the managers and politely told her that DH and I are unable to help. I explained that DH will be at work during the dress rehearsal and first performance and I will be looking after DD's younger brother, then for the other two performances one of us will be in the audience and the other will be at home with DS as he would not be able to sit through the show due to SEND. She responded with what I can only describe as a lecture, about how they "do expect all families to make arrangements" because "it really isn't fair on the parents that make the effort" and if they don't have enough chaperones the performances can't legally go ahead and "it's the children who will suffer if parents don't support the show". This was all delivered unnecessarily loudly, I got the impression she wanted me to feel embarrassed by other parents and staff hearing.

AIBU to think I shouldn't be berated for not supporting a business that I pay £600 a year in class fees to, in addition to the nearly £200 it's costing us for DD to do this show + tickets? Not to mention DD has given up several days of her summer holiday to help out at their under 5's dance workshops, for which they also charge parents a small fortune!
I don't want to stop DD taking part in future because it's good for her confidence, but I don't feel it should be my responsibility as the customer of a profit-making business to ensure their events are appropriately staffed. The only way we could make this work is if one of us doesn't watch the show, and helps out backstage instead but DD would be disappointed that we hadn't both seen her perform, plus we've already bought the tickets.

Totally!
Competition outfits alone £200+ for one
Entry fees
Weekly dance class and comp squad (3 times a week)

You’ve been incredibly lucky so far then! I can promise I am not making this up. And as others have said, I was more or less told unless enough parents volunteered some of these activities simply wouldn’t be happening.

Mine didn’t do dance, but my nieces did, and it was incredibly common to be on a rota for chaperoning 2 nights out of the 3.

Was it really not possible to get someone to sit with your DS for one of the three nights, or just bring him and sit him with an iPad, headphones and some snacks? If completely impossible then I don’t blame you but the teacher may not have had this detail.

TBH a few responses here seem to me to suggest that you just don’t think this is something you should have to do. Maybe the teacher got that vibe too? If it’s impossible for you in the future maybe see if there are some other dance schools in the area that don’t put on shows or pay extra staff?

£600 for the year? £50 a month isnt bad tbh. I pay £40 month for football

I knew when I signed them up

This is key, because we did not.

I don't think I'm "above" helping backstage at all. I simply assumed that a business that charges such high rates for participation and for tickets would be able to staff it's events without depending entirely on parents. Turns out I was wrong.

I bet you are also one of the parents who doesnt listen to the chaperones instructions on how to pack the costumes, what type of food to send or not send and sending counterfeit items in like tiny fidgets and toys that children care about and cry if they get lost

This is weirdly specific and way off the mark. You sound very angry.

Was it really not possible to get someone to sit with your DS for one of the three nights, or just bring him and sit him with an iPad, headphones and some snacks?

If a local authority Education Welfar Officer turned up to inspect the show and found a disabled/SEN child who was not part of the company sitting backstage whilst their parent was chaperoning they woud close down the entire show.

Backstages are busy, frantic places. Often children with SEN had to be assigned extra supervision and accommodations made to enable them to cope. You cannot chaperone and have charge of any other child.

When dd did something similar for many years, we had to provide a female chaperone. No male adults allowed back stage.

In the rare event a family truly couldn’t provide a female chaperone, the male parent would be given an alternative role. There were not many of those so parents had to make arrangements for an exception.

There was no exception for a lack of volunteer. Like you I am a busy parent. I am also disabled and volunteering was physically extremely difficult for me. It took me days to recover and I often had to miss work. I still did it because otherwise my daughter would not have been able to participate.

This expectation is perfectly normal. Hiring chaperones would raise the costs exponentially. You would also run into trust issues with nervous children. Parents simply do a better job.

My niece goes to Stagecoach

They are expensive and capitalise on optional expensive extras, but they do not behave like this.

My DDs Stagecoach do not charge for tickets to see summer Scheme shows. Do not charge for any costumes. Do not expect parents to help out.

We've had loads of dance over the years at various dance schools and I have never come across this three line whip. If most people pitch in when they can then mostly it works out. The dance school doesn't really want to be losing students because they have disabled younger siblings and no grandparents able to help.

Best practice says 1 chaperone for 6 ‘pre-teens’ so certainly not every parent. Shrug it off OP.

Parents do NOT do a better job than traied, licensed independent chaperones.

As I've said, the only people we can depend on to babysit are my parents and they will be out of the country. Due to DS's SEND I couldn't safely leave him to his own devices in an unfamiliar environment, he needs to be supervised and even the Manager I spoke to agreed it would not be feasible for him to tag along.

I have no issue with them asking for volunteers, it's the way they demand it and don't take people's individual circumstances into account that I have an issue with. I doubt she got that "vibe" at all anyway, since I actually opened the conversation by apologising to her, and then politely explained why we're not able to help on this occasion. At the time I genuinely felt quite bad, but her reaponse has made me reflect and now I feel differently.

I think the expectation that a parent with health issues push themselves so much to volunteer backstage at a show they have to take time off their actual job is completely unreasonable. I can see from responses on this thread that in some dance/drama schools it's considered normal for parent participation to be mandatory, but surely it can't be normal for parents to expected to prioritise helping out childrens clubs or activities over the jobs that keep food on the table and a roof over their kids heads.

Ok well I think in that case the only answer is to have another chat with the leader and work out if you can reach a compromise. I assume in the future the grandparents might be around and it was bad luck that they weren’t here, so if you know the dates of shows well in advance you could do some chaperoning next time?

If they do resist or aren’t happy then I think it might be time for you to find a new group and ask at the outset what expectations on parents are- as this isn’t going to go away if this is the school’s expectation. As others have said, more expensive outfits like stagecoach could be an option.

Yes, it's 200 a term so 600 a year, but it's not on for 4 months of the year.

We pay £30 a month for football and they do training all year round. I think it's really good value for what DC get out of it.

Tbh it's not the fees I object to as that's what we agreed, it's the expectation of an additional time commitment on top of that and the fact it's very much framed as a demand not a request.

This is actually ridiculous and not at all the norm. I can't believe you did that to yourself.

It feels less like volunteering, more like coercion! You've explained why you can't, you're paying a substantial amount and shouldn't feel forced to contribute more than you already are.

Hasn’t this been posted before?

Not by me. I'd be interested to know if other parents have come up against a similar policy and how they've dealt with it though. There seems to be quite a mixed bag of opinions as to how normal it is.

I feel like the people posting this is reasonable are missing that you paid £150 for the performance plus costume. It’s totally different to scouts, community theatre or whatever.

I think either it’s a community thing and you expect parents to give up their time OR you pay your £150 per child and that includes all the parent volunteer stuff.

That’s how it’s always worked for my DC’s clubs. Also I thought ballet was pushing it charging £100 per child for the show - and that included the costume!

I'd be inclined to suggest that DD giving 5 days of her time to the school over the summer helping with the younger ones is a fair compromise in terms of voluntary commitment from our family. They may not see it that way though.

They have ridiculous expectations. Also taking advantage of the volunteers to save a few quid and add to their profits. I’d be outraged.

The fees are (relatively) cheap because they rely pn parent chaperones and help. DS’s classes sound very similar but cost nearly £1000 a year but that covers enough staff to chaperone for the big production.

your point about your dd volunteering is well made and I would definitely be pointing that out

I think that is a good idea, the "third way" that essentially lets them back down without losing face.

They do ask a lot of their teen helpers for free. I like to think such volunteering helped DD get a summer job at 16 though.

Sorry I should have said, they don't use parent helpers for the weekly classes at all. It's one paid member of staff, and sometimes one older teen helper, per class. It seems it's just for the shows they are reliant on parents. I had incorrectly assumed that one of the reasons they charge £150 per child to take part in the show was to ensure they could staff it, but it seems it's not enough.

I'm more than happy to facilitate DD volunteering with the little ones because she really enjoys working with young children and as you say, it's good preparation for if she wants to do a part time job or work experience later on. It is quite a commitment though and I have wondered whether some of the parents might feel a little put out that they're paying £75 a day for their kids to be looked after mostly by 12-15 year old girls. The kids do seem to love it though!