The kids’ school called the house last night to inform us of the new “activity fee” they’re imposing on sports and arts programs. This whole situation has me riled. Perhaps it’s caused by something that I just don’t understand, but it merits complaint regardless.

After an interesting discussion with the Habari folks about what could improve education in the US, I’ve basically solidified my opinion that paying the teachers more - what I hear most as the solution for improving education - won’t improve things. I’m not saying teachers shouldn’t be paid more, but rather that doing so won’t improve education in our country. And to further clarify, neither will all of this testing, but what is primarily at issue for me is the money, especially as it relates to extracurricular programs.

I’m still wondering what happened to resolve the strike back in 2008. I assume we’re simply paying the teachers more, as they demanded, but without disclosing that to the taxpayers immediately. And instead of taxing us more directly, they’re cutting funding of extracurricular programs, to replace that funding with a mandatory “activity fee” for students that participate in those activities. Yeah ok, nevermind that it’s often the extracurricular activities that keep poor, at-risk students interested in school at all – Something else much more mundane has me riled.

Why can’t the school district send out class assignments before August?

I'm sure there's some excuse like wanting to evaluate the best place for students in the coming year, and finalizing which teachers will be in what classrooms for the year, and waiting for staff to be in session. But come on. Does class assignment really take all summer? Couldn't they do the bulk of it at the end of last year, and then make adjustments for any changes that occur over the summer? For the inconvenience it causes the majority of parents who are trying to plan and gather required materials for the school year, you think they could instead inconvenience the people that are the supposed cause of the delays in the first place.

In case it’s not clear, in addition to the “activity fee” they’re imposing, we’ve got to buy supplies that the teachers require the kids to have for their classes. All of the sales for school supplies are going on right now. By the time we get the class assignments, the sales will be over and the only supplies that will be left will be crap that the teachers don’t want. I’ll have to special-order all of the weird junk that would have been in stock and on sale two weeks ago, which will cost me more. The school is costing me even more money. Sure, I could guess at what the teachers want the kids to have, but then, again, I’d end up spending more money than I want to on school supplies.

And then there’s this stupid Pay-For-It plan. It’s an online tool for funding student activities, including school lunches. We haven’t had Abby’s student ID number since she was in kindergarten. We’ve had to send cash with her into school for four years. The stupid website for the payment system is very unfriendly (oh, don’t get me started about the main school site, which uses Sharepoint and does this completely inexplicable scrolling thing in my browser) and we’ve been unable to recover her account all this time. I’m looking forward to getting Riley’s login info, simply because that’ll be one kid working in the program properly.

All I’m asking from the school is for a little consideration. Maybe the problem is that class assignments get mailed in alphabetical order, and we just don’t get ours until last. And that’s still kind of pathetic. Maybe let me call the school to obtain the classroom assignment earlier. Or something.

Instead, here we are. Still waiting. Just like every year. They can call about the additional activity fees, but still no class assignments? Grr.