Have you ever tried to dismiss a large class of four or five year olds at the beginning of the year? Do you get light-headed and nauseous just reading about it?
Then you must be a preschool or kindergarten teacher!
How to Avoid Dismissal Disaster
It’s impossible to keep track of who went where when parents are rushing the door and grabbing their kids like it’s a Filene’s Basement sale.
Maybe you have a car pick-up line that stretches so far into the distance it looks like the grand opening of an In-N-Out Burger {a little local humor} and moves at about the same pace.
How many of you have stood outside scanning the horizon and asking your students “What color car does your mommy drive?” Not fun!
If you don’t have a plan for getting your students to the right place quickly and in an orderly fashion then dismissal time can turn into a nightmare.
Using Car Tags for Dismissal
When I taught at a large elementary school we used the dismissal tags pictured above to help speed things up at the end of the day.
Make one tag for each child in your class and distribute them to parents. I used my Cricut to make these tags using the My Community cartridge but you can easily create your own by tracing a template on cardstock or using a die-cut machine.
How to Use Car Tags
The key to speeding up dismissal is for each teacher to have an identifying symbol. The symbol in the picture above is an apple; all of the students in one class have pick-up tags with the same picture. The other teachers are each assigned a different shape.
This system helps speed up the dismissal process significantly. If you have a drive-thru pick-up line, parents can place the tags on their rear view mirrors so you can quickly match each child to the correct car. If your parents walk to pick up their children have them show you their tag.
