Who wrote that note?

No matter how advanced the world of communications has become, there seems to be a constant. The school note, at least for grade schools, is still the principal method of sharing information between teachers and parents.

I am all for written information, but the school note has its drawbacks, the main one being that there is no way for the teacher to know whether the parent actually saw the school note. In fact, there is no way for the parent to know that there actually was a note.

Do you know how many ways there are for a child to lose a note on the way home from school, or even between the classroom and the car? Do you think that a child can even remember whether there was a note?

I remember when notes were pinned to the child's shirt or jacket. That was okay if the child didn't climb any trees on the way home, or take off his jacket, or find a large dog to pet. (Dogs have an affinity for school papers whether they are on their way to school or from it.)

The preferred method of transporting notes these days, I think, is to put notes in the child's backpack or folder, which may be slightly more effective than using carrier pigeon. Who knows?

Not only is there a communication gap when notes don't get from school to home and back again, but there is also a gap when one or the other of the parties doesn't write what they mean or has forgotten what they learned in school, including how to spell, thereby leaving some notes open to multiple translations.

Here are a few of the kind that children bring to school that I have read online. You can decide for yourself whether they were written by a parent of a student.

“Please excuse Roland from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip. “

“Please excuse Pedro from being absent yesterday. He had (diahre) (dyrea) (direathe) the runs.” At least this parent knows what he doesn't know.

“Dear School: Please exscuse John being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33.”

Speaking of excuses, sometimes the notes coming home from school have some issues with spelling and grammar as well. which is to say the least, inexcusable. And then, there is the content of some of the notes themselves which leads parents to wonder “who is thinking what at that school?”

A friend of my daughter's got a note from school last week informing her that this last Wednesday was school picture day and that the photographer's backdrop for the pictures was going to be green, so the children should wear any color but green for their pictures. My friend's little girl cried for two days because she wasn't going to be able to wear green on St. Patrick's Day.

Now I'll be the first to admit that St. Patrick's Day is about the biggest non-holiday there is, but there aren't any other appreciable holidays in the month of March, and who knows what holiday a kid is going to appreciate.

Another mother I know was presented with a two-paragraph note from school that went something like this:

“There have been a few cases of head lice among some students at our school. Please carefully observe patterns of cleanliness at home and don't allow your children to share personal items so that we may be able to minimize the chances of an outbreak at our school.”

The second paragraph of the same note reminded parents that the following day was “pillow and pajama day” and that the children could participate by wearing their pajamas and bringing their pillows to school.