The Yearbook Story

Usually stories start at the beginning, I'm starting with this story from the last week of school.

Our PTO has a Facebook group as it's a great way to get info out to parents, answer questions, etc.  Back in April we announced that yearbooks had arrived and would go home to those students who had prepaid.  We had a membership option at the beginning of the year where parents could pay for everything in advance:  yearbooks, blue pops, t shirts, membership, Fall Festival Wristbands, etc.  We kept track with the use of a highlighter on several different rosters.

So, this mom who has had issues all year---too many kids are sick in her kids' class & why is this???? Her kids' Square One art project was messed up.  Our Treasurer who also handled Square One offered to help.  Another mom posts on FB that Treasurer was AWESOME in helping her fix the Sq1 problem.  Yearbook mom's reply?  "She does her best."

Um, excuse me?  Our Treasurer works a 40 hour a week job.  Granted, she works from home so she does have flexibility but those hours she's at school helping?  Take away from her work time so it's not uncommon for her to be up at 11 pm finishing her work day.

"She does her best" became our catch phrase for a few weeks.  Don't give us fodder as we will run with it and beat it like a dead horse.

So the final week of school this mom posts that she KNOWS she ordered a yearbook and PREPAID but her twins haven't received their one copy yet.  I send her a FB message apologizing, explaining our tracking method and tell her that it would have been better if she'd contacted us sooner than the last week of school.

She says
They are only supposed to get one year book. I didn't know when y'all gave them out so I didn't know they were missing one until they brought home a note Friday saying when autograph day was for them. I thought when we made the purchase we wouldn't need to remind anyone to get it to them.


Okay, we'd only been advertising yearbooks for a MONTH when she says this to me. And really, you didn't think you would need to remind anyone???? Um, excuse me?

And of course, this is over a weekend because apparently I really do live at school and can check everything as it happens. I tell her I'll check the membership forms the next morning after Sunshine's 5th grade breakfast because darn it, there will be one week where my child's activities come before anyone else's. We've been selfless for too long!

OH! BTW, she is a 4th grade parent. At our school it's tradition that the 4th grade parents do the work for 5th grade activities. Breakfast, shop for cook outs, help with graduation/reception. Has she offered? Heck no!!!

So I pull her membership form and guess what? No yearbook has been paid for. I sort through the individual yearbook forms & no yearbook for her kids.

I'm not even going to lie---I snapped a pic of that form & texted it to her after doing the crazy happy dance around the PTO room. My reply that went along was almost snarky:

I attached a picture of your form to this text. As you can see you did not purchase your books. If you would like to do so so the twins can have it autographed on Friday please send in $45 and we will get it to them when we're here this week.

She countered with how she was positive her husband had paid for one & that she would check her receipts.

I checked with the teacher over the next three days and guess what---no money was ever sent for the yearbook.

Needless to say, she still hasn't replied to me.

I get that it's frustrating to think you've taken care of something when you haven't. But what I don't get is the consistent rudeness. Our volunteers are at that school helping EVERYONE's kids. Believe me when I say that our kids aren't getting special treatment---if anything they're judged harder because of the parents' involvement. Maybe a free t shirt here and there or something but the fact of the matter is that everyone else's kids are the ones who benefit.

Moral of the story? Be nice to people who can help you. Especially when they're volunteers.

Hey You!

I think we know each other.  From a long time ago when I had time to myself.  Before I got sucked into the vortex that is known as volunteering as a career.

So. . .

Sunshine graduated from 5th grade at SuperAwesomeSchool this past Tuesday.  My mom flew down from Vermont to celebrate with us which was great.  Sunshine received Principal's List (all A's and good behavior), was the #3 reader in the school (in all fairness, #1 & 2 participated in Reading Bowl competition and read more books.  Sunshine did the Nutcracker. ) and participated in Broadcast Club which she loved.   She  has been recommended for AP Math next year in middle school.  We couldn't be more proud of her!

Ballet has become our obsession.  She danced in the Inaugural Spring Gala with the ballet and had a blast.  She'll continue to dance twice a week over the summer as well as go to 2 Science camps at the local university.

Hunter got "voluntold" that he would be Vice President at the pool we join each summer.  He has put in SO MUCH work over the last month trying to get the pool ready for opening tomorrow.  I told him that he's being groomed for President next summer.

My volunteer career is over, for the most part.  I've been asked to handle a project for the Nutcracker in December by the ballet and I'm going to do it.  The moms who do the bulk of the volunteering are normal (believe me, you never think "are they normal? Do I like them?" until you start volunteering with an organization) and I enjoy their company.  Plus, I'm not running the whole shebang.  That's major right now.

I may or may not help with a couple things at Sunshine's new school.  We'll see if any requests come home.  But, I will NOT run their PTO.

Super Bookatarian and I had our final post-Book Fair margarita/wings party this past week.  Five years of a wonderful partnership has come to an end.  I'll miss seeing her every day but time marches on.  Plus, we'll still get together to knit, drink coffee/tea, etc every now and then.  She was one of the reasons why Sunshine wound up at SuperAwesomeSchool in the first place!

One thing she and I talked about over cocktails was my blog and that she missed reading my posts.  Thank you, K!!  I've missed blogging knowing that not a lot of people in my real life don't read this so I could always share things that I couldn't on Facebook for fear of people being butt hurt.

Butt hurt stinks.

So, now that my tenure on the PTO board at SuperAwesomeSchool is over I feel that I can finally get some things off my chest.   The funny stories, the sad stories & the plain stupid things that parents do because your time as a volunteer is never as important as theirs.

Or because they just plain suck.

I'll let you decide.