WWYD- coat stained at school harvest festival?

[TotalSnowWhite]

Not the OP, but I know I have purchased every coat under the sun...target, pennys, sears. I will never buy another...its LL Bean or nothing. Not because I am snobby and my kids need the cool clothes, but because the others have all been falling apart or poorly made. LL Bean lasts, and you spend the money because you know you will get 1-2 years out of them.

DS has mostly Gap coats, which are fairly reasonably priced. Occasionally he gets a "character" coat from the Disney Store. At his age, though, he's growing so fast that the one season coats are still ok. We have three from last year that still fit. One was a gift and two sizes too big, one has abnormally long arms for a 2T coat and the last one was a Disney Store 2/3 coat (their sizes tend to run big, at least on DS). They're all still in good to great condition this year. However, we did buy a new dress coat and zip-apart coat (inside in fleece lined that can be worn by itself, too).

DS had the cutest LL Bean snowsuit last year and wore it once. Doesn't snow much in OK. However, I got the snobby comment from DS's great-aunt, but no one else. I don't think LL Bean has the "cool" factor anymore as much as it's just quality clothing.

 

[Mskanga]

Would I complain ? No . Wanna know why ? because if I was there with the class and I saw that happening , my daughter would not be in the middle of that mess and the teachers can get as mad as they want.
My kids always had two coats , the play one and the nice one and I never could use any good coats for more than a year , they outgrew them fast.

 

[Aristomommy]

The bottom line is that, especially for young kids, you should assume everyday will be a messy day. We do our best to keep clothes clean and always use painting smocks. But sometimes they wipe their hands under the smocks before we can catch them. There can be up to 4 kids painting at a time and one person monitoring them (the other adults are at centers with other kids). All of the paint we use says "washable" on the label but the truth is, it's not. I had to toss a white sweater that got splattered with black paint. I also have a pair of jeans with green paint on the knee. The paint spot has faded over the years but I can still find it after many, many washings.

In my experience, we have never had an outdoor painting activity when kids are wearing winter coats

I am fine with replacing shirts, jeans, socks even shoes or trying to get stains out of them. Winter coats are different. I don't want to buy a cheap coat that isn't warm enough, since our school sends the kids out in the snow for recess and requires snow pants and boots to be worn every day along with winter coats. I am glad they do this and encourage outdoor play and I wouldn't mind mud, dirt etc. but paint that isn't washable would be out of line IMHO. it's ok for the OP to voice concern with the school so they can rethink the idea for next time.