Off Topic: Privacy in Schools

One of my volunteer activities at the kids' school is as a reader for a big grade-wide writing assignment. The children write a story. It gets typed and formatted. And I'm the final stop. I read every single one from that grade for accuracy before they go back to the kids. If you have a child in school and they have an assignment like this, I have a few words of advice. Do not threaten, chastise, thwart or punish your child in the months preceding their writing project. Your beloved offspring will rat you out in a heartbeat. In previous years I've read numerous variations of "The Day Mom Yelled" and "When Daddy Was Mean to Me." This year they're a little more generous. This week I've read about 60 of these essays and learned a lot about pets and Disneyland. Few schools have a privacy policy attached to this sort of activity and if your kid is indiscrete at least three other parents (possibly more) are going to read about it.

When my kids were in preschool one of the classrooms drew pictures of their family and they were taped up in the hallway. One really caught my eye. The child was clutching Mom's leg. There were arrows pointing to Dad and Mom's boyfriend. The stick figure Mom was visibly pregnant. Every time I saw it I hoped that if Dad dropped off or picked up his child he was in the loop about the baby and the boyfriend or he could be in for a real shock.

I'm not sure how schools can enact guidelines to prevent untoward family circumstances from being broadcast but I wish a little more thought went into projects like this. If you are a parent you might ask if there are privacy policies in place when parent volunteers are involved in assignments that might reveal personal information. Because while my eyes are crossed from all that reading, my head is ready to explode from all the information I didn't want to know.