Same As Last Year (and every year before that!)

Why must parents be given homework on the child's first day of school? Every single, flipping year my kids come home with a million papers for me to fill out. Nothing has changed. Fill out this form with your address and phone number. Fill out this form with your child's allergy list. Fill out this form with your emergency contacts. Nothing has changed! We live at the same house with the same phone number. My children have not developed any new allergies and if you can't reach me or my husband at any one of the 90 phone numbers I have listed then you can still call my father. He's still my emergency contact.

Now if something changes, I'll let you know. Why can't they send the forms home with a disclaimer: Does not need returned if previously received information has remained the same. If I were to change doctors, my medical records would be sent to my new physician. Every year during open enrollment to receive benefits we only have to fill out an addendum form.

This year my younger son brought home a worksheet that I had to fill out for one one of his teachers. I remember having to do the same homework for Austin. I had to list Jesse's strengths and weaknesses. I had to list his interests. I had to list what he is not interested in. Now that may sound like a great idea in theory. But in reality, these teachers have 25+ students per class. They teach probably 6 classes a day. That's 150 lists of likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses that they have to review. Please don't even begin to tell me that you're going to take them all into consideration. You're going to remember what applies to each child and take steps to incorporate them into your lessons plans?? I don't think so. And the best part, if I didn't fill out these forms, my child will lose points. We're not only grading you on your own merit, we're going to grade you on how well your parents can fill out the same form every year!