I am soooooo grateful you all are helping out on the 12 Days of Petmas thing. One, it’s super fun. Two, it distracts me from all the other garbage going on in my life. And thirdly, I have a stunningly awful case of laryngitis so I can slack off a little bit here even though laryngitis has nothing to do with my ability to type.
The laryngitis is mostly caused by a cold, but I’m pretty sure stress and yelling exacerbated it. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m my daughter’s kindergarten art docent. For the most part, it’s been smooth sailing and everyone is having a lot of fun. I don’t exactly have oodles of free time, but I’m happy to spend the 5 hours a week or so it takes to organize the project and then go teach it. It’s a nice break from my job.
We have a rather austere art supplies closet. Requisitioning items takes weeks, if not months. And most classrooms get around this by having the parents chip in for a classroom fund. In this area, schools cannot ask parents to furnish supplies for their kids- it’s been the topic of lawsuits- so parents ask each other. It’s one of those don’t-ask-don’t-tell things. If you can’t or won’t chip in, no big deal.
I sent out a letter last week, whose wording I agonized over to make it clear this was optional and was not coming from the teacher. Yesterday, as I’m glove deep in an abdomen, my receptionist comes in and says the school principal is on the phone.
Thinking “Oh my God, what happened to my daughter?” I scrub out and go answer the phone, where I am politely but firmly rebuked for this travesty. Apparently one disgruntled parent took the letter, and instead of taking it up with me, the teacher, or just ignoring it, went to the administration. So now, not only do we have no fund- I’m supposed to return any donations- a note has gone out to all the classroom parents in the school essentially shutting them down.
Between this and the dog poop debacle, I’m pretty sure I’ve set some sort of land-speed record for getting on a school principal’s blacklist. I swear I had the best of intentions.
This is not helping the small but persistent streak of misanthropy that led me to pursue a career in veterinary medicine to begin with. People sure are rotten sometimes. Give me dogs over people any day.
And all this because of one immature, bored little scrooge that had nothing better to do than gripe to the administration to get you in trouble, obviously jealous of your generosity and ingenuity with problem solving?? Is she upset that someone else cares about her kid? Sounds to me like SHE doesn’t even care about her kid. What an idiot.
And it’s situations like this that underline exactly why I want to help animals instead of people– in my opinion, there are more dogs worth saving.
I’m secretly wishing she would get visited by three ghosts.
I’m echoing the scrooge comment from mrs.brent. This person obviously knew what she was doing, going above everyones’ heads, and that’s what really bothers me. And it’s not like you were asking for money for something that wouldn’t benefit the children like a soda machine or something shiny and unnecessary. I’m a very big supporter of art in schools so this really boils my buns.
It’s disheartening and terrible, IMO, but at least the majority of the response- all of it, really, has been in support of what I was doing.
I think you should get good ole Brody to leave some presents right outside the principal’s office, and maybe that parent’s car if you can find it… š
LOL don’t tempt me!
I’ve noticed that Americans are really touchy about nearly everything. Anything that could possibly be offensive is taken that way. I don’t see how it’s any different that paying for a field trip, it’s something educational and beneficial to your child that’s completely optional. I can see why you’re having a less than stellar week, I can’t stand people who are all full of false self-righteous indignation.
You’re Canadian, right? When I travel overseas I sometimes pretend I’m Canadian so people are nicer to me. š
Aww, sorry about this but you know, you still have to deal with the pet’s owners — sometimes rotten people! LOL! Sorry humans, no offense. I am one too.
Now what is the poop incident with the school? I don’t think I’ve heard it. Is there a school incident poop post somewhere?
You missed the famous poop incident?
http://www.pawcurious.com/2009/09/sometimes-the-solution-is-worse-than-the-problem/
This story is just so odd to me; when I was in CA (in the glorious sun and warmth), pretty much the whole “elective” section of classes (art, music) was supported by fundraising/parental contributions. There was just no money for it otherwise. And the school/individual teachers asked upfront at the beginning of the school year for a monetary amount for science/art, etc. It was clearly stated as a donation; nevertheless, it was also clearly requested. Was my school district unusual? Is what your talking about the norm?
It’s the norm now, thanks to lawsuits. The PTA can and does ask for donations quite aggressively, so any projects need to be appropriately requisitioned through them. Asking the other parents in your kid’s class to chip in for crayons/gift for teacher/ etc though, is not OK. Criminal.
This post was a big, fat, WTF for me. What kind of a GIANT jerk gets offended by something like that? I actually sat here with my mouth hanging open.
That’s so, so ridiculous. Urgh. I’m sorry.
My mouth was pretty slack when I heard the news too. The reaction was so aghast I wondered if someone had accused me of posting inappropriate photos or something similarly distasteful as opposed to….trying to get some art supplies for the kids.
Ugh. What a scrooge. That makes me so angry. I say this all the time at work… I hate people. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers. I had a jerk come in on ER once with a dog obviously in Eclampsia after having given birth, (this is a totally fixable lack of blood calcium in dogs who have just given birth for the lay people). They guy refused to treat the dog with anything more than a shot of calcium and he took her home.
Sorry that was kind of unrelated, but yeah, I hate people who feel the need to ruin it for everyone.
Remind me to tell you the story sometime of the guy who kept talking about his Range Rover, while refusing a $150 cbc/chem for his elderly dad’s pet.
We had a woman come in just the other day to euthanize her GERBIL for rabies testing. She refused to listen to our statements that it was really, really, REALLY unlikely that her GERBIL had rabies. She made us euthanize it to send off the head to the health department. I think she just wanted to get rid of it because it was her daughter’s pet who is now away at college. It made me sick, especially because I have a soft spot for gerbils and totally wouldv’e taken in tin had she just relinquished it to us.
That seems extra-evil to me, since I imagine once that magic word is spoken, liability wise one would have to let them do it. Did she pay for the testing?
Yes, she did pay for everything – exam, euth, and county pickup for rabies testing. It just sucks, because we couldn’t lie; technically any mammal can carry rabies… but a gerbil that’s lived in someone’s house it’s whole life and never come in contact with a wild animal? Unfortunately because of the liability part we had to honor her wishes. Poor gerbil.