Ulsoor School ..Delayed update on Parents' meeting and other updates

Hi All,

Megha's prodding worked. I finally decided to share abt the Ulsoor School.

As per the school dev Plan, we want to have 3 parents' meetings a year - basically get them to get their kids to study..find out abt their problems with reference to kids and school etc.

Generally the turn out is low for such meetings, so this time, we sent a circular to all the kids' homes saying that we will give notebooks this year, but the parents need to come and collect it. Basically we did the NBD on a working day. and got parents to come.
The school has 90 kids..and we had arnd 45ppl at the meeting. That’s a high turnout, by Govt.school standards. That's like having 150 ppl at the Tamil School parents meeting.

Anyways, I spoke to the parents..addressing in kannada and tamil..and said that we're there to help the kids have a great future..and we need their support. Told them that we only want them to make sure that kids attend school on time and regularly and that they sit in front of their books for an hour atleast, at home. I told them that even if they don't know how to read and write, let them just see if the kids sit in front of the books. Asked them to come to school and check with the teachers on how their kid is progressing. They listened to all this, and said they would put in some effort...atleast quite a few said so.

Then we got onto discussing their issues and they asked for uniforms for the kids. and then I said " Almost all of you pay Rs.100 a month for cable tv subscription. When the Govt. gives you cloth, cant you pay Rs.100 to get it stitched" ..and then much to my surprise..they started clapping!! Anyways.. then it was decided that whoever could, would get it stitched..and whoever couldn’t, would ask us. I've not heard back so far.

anyways..some of the 'seniors' of the community who came were of the opinion that more such meetings will help in getting parents to get kids to study.We decided to meet on a Sunday next time though.

In other updates, we start Pygmalion next week. We got the school to get their Electricity sorted out etc..but now we have 'current' but no computer.So I'll be lugging my laptop to school from next week. If anyone of you can get me a comp, nothing like it!