2009/45: Happy Valentine’s Day

This is the card, that Sara got to hand out to her classmates yesterday. Sadly, they didn’t have a Valentine’s Party. I thought it was district wide, but then I found out from Amber that her daughter’s school is doing Valentine’s parties.
I e-mailed Sara’s teacher to ask why, and told her that Sara was really looking forward to exchanging valentines with her classmates. She wrote back, saying it was a decision made by the PTA and the principal, and that they had opted for an end of year party instead.
I’m sorry, but what is so special about an end of year party? The whole last week of school is pretty much a party… no one does anymore learning, the report cards are already printed, they have field day, and everyone is excited about summer break.
The next day, Sara’s teacher came up to me at the end of the school day to tell me that she talked to the room mom, and the students would be allowed to exchange cards during social studies time on February 13th. Yay! That’s all I wanted. I’m OK with not passing out candy, etc. but to not even let them exchange cards just didn’t seem right. I guess more parents complained, because just a few days later, another note was sent home (with ALL the students), saying that there would not be any Valentine’s parties, but the students would be allowed to exchange cards if they chose to. But, the kicker was that the PTA was asking the parents to help bake or donate cookies for all the teachers as some kind of Valentine’s appreciation thing (I forget the wording). What is wrong with that picture??? The kids are denied a party, but the teachers get one, cookies and all? Needless to say, I did not drop off any cookies. I would have gladly baked some for the students, though.

This picture was inspired by Kristie