Dismissal Time and a Freebie

We love it, we hate it. It's known as dismissal time. I'm not sure how things are run at your school, but in my opinion our afternoon dismissal process is cah-razy. It stresses me out like no other.

Last year we had 2 dismissal times because we still had half day K. This year, the only kiddos dismissing at 11am are pre-schoolers! Hallelujah! This is so nice, peaceful, smooth, calming, and easy! I can see my parent pick-ups coming from a mile away and not squished up in our lobby like sardines in a can, like it is at afternoon dismissal. (I promise you I'm not exaggerating.)

If we are dismissing from the play ground, as my kids and I usually are if the weather is nice, then a speck of the stress is diminished because we are not funneling from two hallways into one line to go through our cafeteria and out to the buses.

Now, I need to do a little stage setting for you here just so you can feel some of my stress. Our lobby is small and the parents are forced to stand in the school entry way until they see their child coming, at which point they push, shove, fight, find their way to the tables (that are keeping them in the entry way) to sign their child out. I'm not sure how the other teachers feel about this, but I can barely see to tell if my parents are standing out there and no pre-schooler wants to leave their teacher to sit on a bench and wait by themselves in this chaos. (Nor do I really want them to as their teacher)

All of my students ride mini-buses, small buses with bus aides and car seats--which line up ON THE OTHER SIDE of the parking lot from the kindergarten buses. If we could go through the front lobby to get to our buses our lives would be easier, but given all that I just mentioned, that doesn't happen.

Enter the next part of this process--every class "funnels" (it really feels that way) into the cafeteria and around the tables out the side door and around to the buses. My kiddos and I must continue allllll the way down the side walk, back to the front of the building where we find our buses.

We are close to where all the teachers stand once they have put their kids on the bus, and some more parents who have opted not to be treated like sardines in the entry way. This is the point where I feel stress. I worry about my parent pick-up students seeing their loved ones and darting from our line without myself, or our para, making contact with their pick-up.

After having a lot more parent pick-ups this year than I did last year, I have decided to create little cards for the children to hold. When they see their loved one, they give them the card. Then their loved one returns it to myself or our para, making sure that we have all made contact with one another.

Here are the cards that I made! I plan on cutting them out, putting them on a slightly large piece of construction paper & then laminating. You can download them for yourself by clicking!

Parent Pick Up Card

I really hope that this works and helps calm my nerves a little bit when it comes to this. Only time will tell. And I apologize that this post had to be this long, just to get to this itty bitty freebie I wanted to share!! :)