Monday, May 20, 2013

F is for Fail

A few weeks ago I wrote a Grocery Store rant. I’m on a roll folks, today it’s a School rant.

Someone from the High School called me the other day. I didn’t realize it until later on when I turned my cell phone on and got the message. I think that the school thought I was getting divorced. The message was that they saw that I had taken my husband’s phone numbers off of all the school paperwork for the upcoming year and they wanted to check in to see if they understood that correctly.

Hell yes, you understood that correctly. And nope, it’s not anything going on with me, it’s what’s going on with you.


F is for Fail | www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics

Let me explain: I have a home phone. I talk about it here: DO NOT Call Me!. When I’m home, my cell is off or charging and I take calls on the home phone. When I leave the house, I grab my cell and that’s when I turn it on. So every year I fill out the school paperwork explaining that they should always try the home phone first. If they don’t reach me they can move on to my cell next. They should get me at one of those two places. If they can’t, in case of emergency, they can then try my husband’s work and my husband’s cell.

And every time they call, they call either my cell, my husband’s work or my husband’s cell. Over the years I’ve put my request in capital letters, written it in red, circled the home phone number, talked to the office, emailed, talked to my son’s advisor, you get the idea. And they NEVER call my home phone.

Sometimes the school sends out automated alerts. This happens when there’s a snow day, a change in testing or scheduling, or in the event of a lockdown. When there’s a snow day what do they do? They email me, email my husband, call home, call my cell, call my husband’s work number AND call my husband’s cell. ‘Cause we need to know six ways to Sunday that the crawl at the bottom of the TV news is right and we’re having a snow day.

But when there was a shooting in a local school and my kids went into lockdown, do you know how I found out? My brother, 1500 miles away, saw it on the news and called me. The school opted to call NONE of our numbers.

When the school left the message on my cell the other day, I was home making dinner.



Teriyaki Wingettes | www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe


Teriyaki Wingettes
(pictured  on bottom)

When my son had his cell taken away in class, the Vice Principal called my husband’s cell phone. Husband was at work. In a meeting. He had to leave the meeting to take the call, then call me so I could deal with it. I was at home, a half mile from the school. Yes, I’m rolling my eyes.

So after four years we’ve had enough. No divorce, just take my husband off of your list. How much do you want to bet they keep calling him anyway? Think Vegas’ll give us the odds on that one?

And by the way, if my kids followed directions as well as their educators do, they’d get an “F”. And probably detention.

Done ranting. Thanks, I feel much better. Carry on, nothing to see here.


Baking In A Tornado signature | Graphic designed by and property of www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics





Teriyaki Wingettes
                                     ©www.BakingInATornado.com
Ingredients:
1/2 cup Soy Sauce
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 TBSP molasses
1 clove minced garlic
1 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp dry mustard
Approximately 2 1/2 lbs of Chicken Wingettes 
Directions:
 *Mix all marinade ingredients together. Pour over the wingettes and marinate overnight.
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
*Spray a rimmed baking sheet with no-stick spray.
*Take wingettes out of marinade and place on baking sheet so all of the wings are on the pan, none are on top of each other.
*Bake for 30 minutes, flip wings over to other side and bake 30 more minutes.
*NOTE: I often make these ahead of time, baking 25 minutes per side and storing in the refrigerator. When I want to serve them, I heat them outside on the grill, but just a few minutes per side until hot.

32 comments:

  1. UGH! Don't you hate when schools don't listen to you? I've had words with my kids' school, because they do the same thing. It's nuts!

    They wouldn't let my son have chap stick at school, even though his lips were crazy dry and cracking. I spent an hour or so arguing with them about it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unfortunately I think the attitude comes from Administration and trickles down to school level. Those in Administration are too far removed and seem to have forgotten the value of the relationship between the school and the families.

      Delete
  2. this beyond frustrating and plain stupid. Seriously! I'm scared for when he starts kindergarten, think I ONLY want my cell and hubby's cell on the list.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Think carefully because for us once something goes on the list, even though they make you redo the list EVERY year, if you leave it off in future years, they'll still use it. Yes, beyond frustrating.

      Delete
  3. I was going to comment on your school rant but then I read your recipe and became completely distracted. Sounds sooo goood....
    Oh yeah, same thing here with our schools. If you put it on your forms it's there forever. Even though you have to update those forms every.stinkin.year.
    And my daughter just texted me and said the office told her they don't have any money from her for her cap and gown. For NEXT WEEK. The money that she gave them LAST WEEK. ~sigh~ Public school is my fave.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hear you. Feels good to get it out, though, doesn't it?

      And try those wings. They're amazing.

      Delete
  4. Love the chicken wings and had a similar experience about the calls. SUPER frustrating.
    Husband calls me "at home" and says, where are you? LOL I'm home. Why didn't you answer when abc called. duh, they didn't. No text, no cell phone call either. His work number is the LAST number listed AND they don't have his work number, but they had the time to look it up and call him. sheez!!
    soap box rant

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's a new one on me, looking up a number rather than calling one they're given. Now that takes some effort, would have been so much easier to just look up the info that they insist we supply each year (on about 4 different forms, no less)!

      Delete
  5. And we all wonder why our school system is a mess here in the USA. Total fail on their parts. All these things I keep hearing nowadays makes me think home schooling is the way to go.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It makes me really sad. I wish there was a way to fix the system, but there's no accountability. Why would a Principal advocate for a student, if supporting the school system's stance (of saving money instead of providing services) will get him promoted?

      Delete
  6. Schools suck. What the hell is wrong with them? Reagan is really screwed because I refuse to answer my home phone and my cell phone the majority of the time.
    I'm gonna have to break that when she gets into school! Ugh!

    ¤´¨)
    ¸.•*´
    (¸¤ Lanaya | xoxo
    www.raising-reagan.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, when they're not with you, you'd be surprised how fast you run when the phone rings. Just in case. And how angry you can get when they should call you and they don't.

      Delete
  7. I get so much automated crap calls from my son's school--highly annoying. I'll bet you're right---they're still going to call your husband's cell next year!!! And btw, the chicken wings look so good I want to reach into the computer screen and grab one!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It just drives me crazy that when there's a lockdown I have to find out from my brother, but for stupid stuff they send 25 emails and institute 15 robo-calls. ALWAYS during dinner!

      Delete
  8. Oh boy do I understand the school communication conundrum! It honestly drives me crazy {especially as a class mother}!! Another tasty recipe though by the way - Keep em coming!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know, I was a class Mom too. It just feels like when you spend so much time in a school helping out and making sure they know who you are, that it would make communication easier. You'd think. . .

      Delete
  9. There is nothing that gets under my skin more than people NOT following simple instructions. It doesn't seem all that complicated to me for them to have called your home and then your cell. I think you're making the right move taking his #'s off everything. Why don't you just send this blog post to the school office and tell them this will explain everything. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Honestly, they don't care, and that's why they do whatever they want.

      Delete
  10. Wow, I can't believe that your school can't follow directions, it really is too bad. It would irritate me to no end if this happened to me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I have to admit that after 13 years I've pretty much had enough.

      Delete
  11. Sheesh! I can quite understand your frustration! Maybe they just have a fixed idea that people will always answer their cell but not their home phones? Who knows!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Honesty, I'll never know. It's written in capital letters, in red and circled. How they ignore that, I haven't any idea.

      Delete
  12. Ah, beauracracy. Gotta love it right? I'm sure there's some distric policy somewhere that delineates and "EMERGENCY" vs an "emergency" and how many phone numbers must be called to inform the parent. Classic!!
    Vicky
    www.thepursuitofnormal.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unbelievable, right? I just don't get it. How hard is it to go to the records to get a number and call the one with the big red circles around it?

      Delete
  13. We fill out 67.3 forms at the beginning of every year. Nothing ever changes; yet the school always calls the wrong numbers. Yes, you should definitely call my husband who works an hour away to come pick up my sick son; I live 4 houses away from the school.... Next year, leave it all blank. Then, they'll look back to see what number you left and THEN finally, they may read what you wrote. The school lockdown would have made me go MAD. You know though, I'm already there...
    The teriyaki wings look delicious!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I like that, leave it all blank. I don't think they'd even notice.

      The wings are delish. Making them again tomorrow to have around for graduation and Memorial Day.

      Delete
    2. Please congratulate your son for me. I know you're off to a busy weekend, so I'm sending you love. If you get frustrated with the world, e-mail me. I have at least nine unbelievable stories to tell.

      Delete
    3. I will. Thank you for the good wishes. Graduation is Saturday. Emailing you NOW!

      Delete
  14. So, I love your Rant!!! Makes you want to scream... "Can you just follow simple directions???" Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

    BTW: The wings do look amazing.

    Have a great "rest of the" week, Slu

    ReplyDelete
  15. I can't believe they contacted to you to see "what was going on as far as your personal life" - just removed the dog gone number. The "why" doesn't matter. Hopefully, they won't call your husband at work again to notify him of the last day of school. Hang in there it's almost over!
    Jae Mac, I'm Just Sayin'...(Damn!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have one more year. And I bet they keep calling my husband at work all year long.

      Delete

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