On Wednesday morning, I received a reply from Dee Dee’s teacher informing me that my assistance will not be required on the upcoming field trip that I volunteered to chaperone.  “Unfortunately I can only take 4 chaperones and drew randomly 4 other names.”  Apparently, randomly drawing names of those who volunteer is how the teacher is selecting chaperones for this field trip.  I was left wondering what reason I might be given for not being selected the next time I volunteer. I had a hunch that I wouldn’t be taken up on my offer to chaperone due to some things that happened last year. 

News travels quickly around schools.  Last year, I had some trouble with both of the teachers Dee Dee had for first grade.  The teacher who started the year informed us before the year even began that she would be retiring in a matter of weeks to look after her dying husband.  Her classroom management style could be described as, “Because I said so!”  She was replaced by a younger teacher who liked unicorns and the color purple.  Unfortunately, we learned that she also employed the “Because I said so!” approach. 

As politely as I could, early in the year with the first teacher, and later with the second, I let the teachers know that their techniques were not appreciated.  I let Dee Dee know that “because I said so” is not an adequate reason that she should ever accept from anybody.  I sent many emails to the young unicorn teacher asking for help understanding what was going on in Dee Dee’s classroom and even CC’d the principal.  I had difficulty getting the teacher to respond to my emails, and never received any satisfactory answers to my questions.  The Purple Unicorn is not teaching at the girls’ school this year.   

Schools are like very small villages, and I was sure that word got around that I was a horrible parent for a young, inexperienced teacher to deal with.  So, I wasn’t a bit surprised when I was left off the list of chaperones for the field trip by Dee Dee’s young, inexperienced teacher.  But, on Thursday afternoon, my wife spoke with another mother of a kid in Dee Dee’s class who was informed that she had been chosen to chaperone the field trip.  Apparently, she said something to my wife about how she was one of the “names drawn out of a hat.”  Also, this mother’s kid is a little on the rambunctious side.  So, given that the teacher gave the same, but slightly more interesting story (I was not aware of a hat being employed in the process) to the parents selected to chaperone, I’m starting to wonder if the selection process had less to do with excluding me and more to do with including parents of kids who the teacher didn’t want to deal with on his own during the field trip.