Now maybe I’m just being an ungrateful, disgruntled parent.

But I don’t think so.

You see, I just sent an email to the Principal of my son’s school.  And it while it wasn’t rude or snarky, it was blunt and possibly something she isn’t going to like reading.  Scratch that, I can promise you that she isn’t going to like reading it.

Sigh. Let’s see if I can explain this.

I was invited to the end-of-semester award ceremony because the Munchkin was slated for an award. 

Of course I attended, but I was surprised to see the inclusion of a group of students who got what amounts to a “Student of the Month” award, although this school calls it something different.   I was confused as to why it was included with the academic awards because they had already gotten their awards prior to the ceremony. Anyhoo, the award is given for a sort of good citizenship type of behavior.  I’m totally down with that, good citizenship should be recognized.

But let me ask you this-

Is it fair that the good citizenship winners get a pizza party? And time out of class to be personally congratulated by the principal and have their names hung on a personalized certificate on the Principal’s office wall for the year? And that they got a rubber bracelet? (Yes, I’m aware that it’s just a rubber bracelet, but picture a bunch of kids on a stage being instructed to show the audience consisting mainly of their fellow classmates their special bracelets.) 

Now pretend that you are seven years old. 

I’m sure that you would be more than a bit envious of these rewards given for good citizenship.  Because if nothing else, seven year olds are all about pizza parties and time out of class, and yes, rubber bracelets.  They don’t care if things are technically kind of lame, they just WANT them.

Let’s move on to the academic awards. 

For being being the best and brightest in their class for academic excellence, which takes quite a bit of work, by the way, they got a piece of paper.

It didn’t even include the subject of excellence, nor the semester. It was actually an extremely generic award given to the school for free from the company that takes the school photos. I know this because their name is on the bottom of it.  It basically just says “award” and I am purposely putting that word in lower case because it’s all in lower case on the paper.

Why is there not a bit more equity between the Student of the Month winners and the academic achievers?  I personally don’t think that one is necessarily more important than the other, so why the discrepancy in rewards?

If you were a seven year old, would you rather get the award with the pizza party, eaten at lunch in front of the rest of the school, or the piece of paper?

It is a sad day when your kid tells you that they were disappointed because they “only” got the award for academic achievement.

So all of this was said in the email, albeit more briefly.

I am so NOT the Principal’s favorite person.