Saturday, September 12, 2009

Trouble In Paradise...

or perhaps this is trouble before paradise?

Chi's school sent home the usual back to school forms, with one exception. The most important document the school collects, the emergency card, arrived in Espanol. That's right, I received a "Tarjeta de Emergencia." Yes, I took the required foreign language courses in high school and college, but I am no where near proficient... and I really don't plan on ever being bilingual.

I sent the classroom teacher a very nice note via our shared school/work e-mail service and instead of a polite reply in the same manner, I receive the same Tarjeta de Emergencia with a blue sticky note that read "Please read carefully." And the form was high lighted to show me - the obvious idiot here - that next to words like "Maestra" were the English equivalents written in italics (ie: teacher). So, I tried to be a cooperative parent (this is, after all, the first week of school and a new teacher) and I attempted to fill out the form. Then I tried to read the bottom where it asked for my signature. No English translation and completely, 100 percent en Espanol. I flipped the form over and found the legal code of parental responsibility for our state written in - you guessed it - Espanol. And it asked for two more signatures. Ummm.... This idiot doesn't sign what she cannot decipher and I shouldn't have to hire a translator for school documents written in what is still considered a foreign language.

Ultimately, so as not to cause trouble, I picked up a form at my own school in English and I filled that one out. Really, though, is this what the year is going to be like?

1 comment:

Joy Howse said...

UGH!!! That is totally frustrating! I hope that is just one hiccup with no more to come this school year.