Recap: Back to School Night – 2016

I had the pleasure of attending Munch’s Back to School Night last week and let me tell you this…I  need more organization. I do. I’m sorry. You can’t keep parents there without having a well laid out plan.

However, before I tell you my suggestions, I want to tell you three positives and three negatives from that experience…

Positives:

1. Very well attended by parents. It was really well attended by the parents. They broke it up the event into two nights. The first was K-5. You could sign up in advance to purchase food and babysitting services. How cool was that? This was a new to me. But, it made it easier. I didn’t purchase anything because Munch rode the bus home and my mom picked him up. He said he didn’t want to go.
2. Meeting the teachers. I got to meet three out of 5 teachers. I wish I could have met more, but time didn’t permit that to be the case. I liked the teachers I met and felt that Munch would be okay at this new school. They were happy and friendly and seemed excited to teach children so that made me relax a little.
3. Meeting the Principal and Vice Principal. I went to meet with both right after the introductions and dismissals to the class. There was a line to meet with them, but I waited and was thoroughly impressed with them both. They seemed genuine and concerned and I felt like Munch would benefit with their leadership.

Negatives:

1. It seemed unorganized and chaotic. The sound system wasn’t the best and parents were loud so I couldn’t hear at points. However, the principal should have just called the meeting to order and introduced the office staff and said I want you to meet your child’s teacher individually. Nope, he introduced every kindergarten through 5th grade teacher. It was a lot. We needed only a slide for the school mission and expectations for the upcoming school year. The welcome took over 30 minutes and that left us a little rushed to meet the other teachers.
2. Teachers should have only three slides and actually spend 10 minutes talking. The other 20 minutes should be used for parents questions. The first slide should contain the teachers name, email address and the homework url. The second slide should contain the daily schedule of the class. Classwork schedule of Monday through Friday. The third slide should contain the syllabus and what will be worked on throughout the year. That’s it and that’s all.
3. As a new parent to a new school, I had no map of where the classrooms were located. The language arts, art and music classes were housed in a different wing, but there were no signs that pointed me to that. I stopped a teacher and asked. Thankfully, I was able to meet both his music teacher and language arts teacher who were housed in the same hallway. It was a long line of meet and greets. It took over 20 minutes to meet with the language arts teacher.

That’s my recap which I will be sharing with the PTSA president so that they can try to be more organized next year. I didn’t get home until almost 9 pm and didn’t have the opportunity to meet everyone. But, I’m thankful for who I did meet and hope that it will be an amazing year.