Sending the Nanny Instead

A Mom came up to me when Samantha was in first grade and said I had no idea that Sam was one of the best readers in the class! I replied Yes--but how do you know that? The Mom responded because I saw her color level when I came in to help administer the SRA’s (Scholastic Reading Aptitude tests).

Recently a New York City private school sent a notice home stating that they no longer wanted nannies substituting for parents at the book exchange or cafeteria duty or reading time. The school was of the opinion that it was in the best interest of the students to have in their mothers or fathers participating in the school’s volunteer activities and not the paid help.

My experience tells me otherwise.

I am of the opinion that parents have no business being in school at any time during academic hours. One reason is managerial-- the school’s administration is obligated to staff its library, cafeteria and classrooms with academically qualified or certified staff that has also passed a drug and background check. It’s why communities are taxed or tuition is paid. Another reason is societal-- stay-at-home parents as well as parents who work outside the home are spread so thin with scheduling and scheduling conflicts that adding/mandating volunteerism is an unnecessary burden. Parents have more than enough obligations (and guilt) to keep them running around like a hamster in a wheel—especially in the crunch months of December and May and June.

But the number one reason I am so opposed to parents lurking in the school building during academic hours is because of privacy issues. Parents—as opposed to their hired help who will be fired for doing so----snoop at every opportunity. Parents become privy to things outside of their right to know while in the school building and then think nothing about spreading the acquired information at the bus stop or playing field or the aisle in the supermarket. It is pervasive and wrong. And it matters not whether the gossip is positive or negative—it is gossip nonetheless and should not made so accessable.

Because in the best interests of a student lies not in how much their parent volunteers during the school day; but rather how engaged  a parent is in their student when the bell rings at 3:00—that is when the critical work begins---the time when the child’s sneaker hits the sidewalk and the unanswered blanks need to be filled.