Thursday, our neighborhood school held its annual "Kindergarten Round-up" (not sure why they think it's appealing to compare our children to cattle, but it is public education, so who knows?). Kindergarteners and their parents were invited to the school to register, meet the teachers and take a short tour of the classrooms.
Well, except this event happened to be held on the one evening a week that I have a graduate seminar and can't be there. This was not a problem, the Voice on the phone told me when I called. Just bring in the enrollment form and some documentation and we can register your little guy any time.
So, I rushed through my morning routine today, planning a quick stop at the school on my way to campus. I walked in, enrollment form completed and in hand, all documents gathered and ready to go. Things were going well...until the individual "handling" the registration came back and told me that because my son was missing an immunization on his health record, they were not going to be able to register him. At first, I think I just stared at her in dumb disbelief. I think I then tried mumbling something about the child needing proof of immunizations upon starting school, not upon registration. As my son would not be starting school until August, I thought I had plenty of time. Not so, I was assured. No immunization, no registration. But you let me register my other two children without full immunizations, I countered. Well, that's because they had already gone to public school (albeit in another state).
Realizing argument was futile, I gathered my papers in a huff and stormed out, driving straight to my office to look up "Immunization Requirements" on the Arizona State Health Department web site. Sure enough, the site clearly states "attend," not "register."
So what had just happened? And why was I so angry about it? I realized that, due to several other encounters with this same school employee, I was reading this particular incident as a personal slight. I felt that this woman had placed a label on me, invisible to me but legible to everyone at the school, a label that amounted to "second-class citizen." Was it my lack of wedding ring? My seven-year-old car? Or had I inadvertently written "low-income working single mom" on my forehead before leaving the house today? I wasn't sure. But I felt it, in my core. She did not like me, and that combined with her position of power gave her the right to dictate the rules to me any way she saw fit, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Or could I? Reading the state website left me angry but vindicated, and I considered my next step. Surely, I felt, at the very least a letter of complaint was due. I called the school and asked for the employee's full name, including spelling, then politely thanked the office staff member and hung up. Not thirty minutes later, my phone buzzed in my pocket but I was unable to answer it; I was teaching. I checked the message after class was over, and surprisingly, it was from this same employee. She apologized, saying she had gotten mixed up and if I would just come back in, they could get everything straightened out.
My first thought came straight out of my frustration: Uh, no?!? I work for a living, lady. And then I wondered if my phone call to the office had caused her sudden change of heart. I hadn't said anything about the incident, nor asked to speak with the administration, nor complained in any way. But maybe I wasn't an powerless as I had originally thought.
For now, the plot thickens. I did not make it back to the school, and for now no longer want to enroll my child there. Not after today. I guess I'll see how I feel about it tomorrow.
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