How schools work against working parents

My husband and I moved to our current home, in part, because of the reputation of the local school district. Our community boasts a highly rated public school system that attracted us to buy a home and pay outrageous property taxes. What we didn't consider, however, was the school's attractiveness to a working parent.

While the community does have some after-school child care programs available, none are on site at the schools. I've heard from parents in other school districts about wonderful programs right in their child's school that provide structured activities, at a very reasonable cost and with much flexibility.

To make things worse, our district has just announced some decisions targeted at reducing costs. One such change involves student bussing to babysitters or day care centers. Since the school does not provide after-school care, many parents rely upon the bus to transport their child from the school to a babysitters home (often another parent in the school district) or to a day care center (all within the school district). Starting next year, our district will no longer bus a child to any location except their own home. The district states that this change will allow them to better 'maximize efficiency.'

It seems to me that this is just another decision that makes life more difficult for working parents. While after much thought I can see that they might be able to save a little bit of money, the headaches they are causing working parents are well beyond the small cost savings this provides. The district is looking to pass a new levy next year and my best guess is that this is an effort to make life so painful for some residents that they will pull out full support for the levy.

This is yet another example of evidence that while we have made some progress in the workplace, in general our communities are not friendly to working parents. I've been told by friends about PTA's that only meet during the day, teachers who are only available to meet with parents during school hours, and other signs of lack of flexibility to meet the needs of working parents.

While some communities have made great progress in providing support for working parents, it seems that some communities still count on a majority of parents (mostly moms) to stay at home in order to manage daily life.