Whether your kid goes to Carlthorp or still can’t read in third grade, every private-school parent on the Westside has one thing in common: nobody can find where the permission slips are.
There is a word that will illicit an eye roll and a groan from just about every parent. For the academics — like JTD, Carlthorpe, Brawerman — there is Blackbaud. For the schools that don’t give homework, there is Veracross. And you know what? For the parents, they both make us question our life choices.
These are the “parent portals.” Designed to keep everything from your kid’s school schedule to the never ending email reminders about fundraisers and sports in one place. And it does that job. But the problem: you can’t find any of it.
They are, in short, the worst.
And every parent goes through it. Because the first assignment of being a parent in August is filling out an insane number of forms. But in order to that, they must first face these portals. The first step is always to reset your password. Because after applying to eight schools prior that all used one of these two systems but required a different login method and password for each, you don’t remember which is which. Once you log in, the real fun begins.
What fun, you who still has a preschooler might ask? The fun of finding absolutely anything important on this portal. Fun because now, you have to find the aforementioned forms, and they are not in a nice little place labeled Forms or Files. No. Files is where the class schedule is kept, obviously. And attendance. Because where else would attendance go? But the forms you have to find and fill out before the first day of school so your kid can actually attend and get their $270 dollar per day worth of education? Not in forms.
Finally someone who’s been through this before tells you the forms are in the summer packets, which is not under Parent Resources. It is in its own limbo land with a hidden URL. So once you find that, you have forms. The permission slips? Different place. But you can cross the bridge the day before the trip.
By the way, this portal is also where you schedule conferences. And that’s just super if you choose to do yours over Zoom, because when the time rolls around for your conference you realize you weren’t emailed a zoom link. Did you expect to be? So silly. Of course it’s in the portal! But where? That requires a call to school. And they’ll tell you very clearly, “oh, it’s the printer button of course,” and you are the dumb one for not realizing a printer button would open a Zoom link.
And good luck finding your kid’s report card.
Look. We are not asking for a miracle. We are asking to find the forms. Your kid is at school, and you might know what class they’re in right now (if you can find that), but you still cannot sign the permission slip.
Someone vibe code a solution. Thank you.