My 3-year old is going to preschool. Two days a week. Two hours a day. Our other two kids went to preschool. Fill out a registration form, write a check. Send ’em off. Simple. Right?
Nope. I have a virtual mountain of paperwork. So much, in fact, the packet included a handy checklist to make sure I completed everything and 3-pages of instructions to guide me in filling them out! There’s the registration “contract”. The Enrollment Record. The “Getting to Know You Form”. A Consent Form. An Employment Form (It’s a co-op, so parents have to volunteer once a month or so). A state health form for my son. A state health form for me. I even need a chest X-Ray or TB test. A Home Orientation form. I think I lost the DCFS brochure that I apparently had to sign to indicate I read it. They also need a copy of a birth certificate. That’s a new one.
Public grade school is a dream in terms of paperwork. I don’t even think they asked for a certificate to prove my kids were born. Funny thing is that all this paperwork is presumably killing trees in order to make sure my son has a safe and secure environment. I have no problem with that at all. I do find it a little funny that not even one line on one of the forms asked how he would be transported to or from the preschool. Not even on the form asking for consent to allow my child to be transported on field trips…
We didn’t have as much paperwork as you do, since I won’t be working there, but omg, I know, there is nothing on safety when traveling.
What scares me more is that parents do the transporting on field trips.
I’ll be the first in line signing up to drive, I can tell you that!
I just went through that with daycare. It took me an hour and a half to fill out the paperwork for my almost two year old daughter to attend a grand total of… eight hours a week.
There was a section to fill out regarding transportation for field trips. I asked them to contact me prior to any trips so I can approve (or disapprove) the travel arrangements.
I know of people who put their OWN form on file with the preschool, and require the director and child’s teacher to sign it, indicating what kind of seat has been provided for the preschool and that the parent is requiring it be used on field trips.
Personally I just disallowed field trips unless I was driving; I did not trust that they would be able to install her Radian or even her Uptown correctly!