Unknown unknowns

Our children switched to a new school three years ago. It's a lot bigger than anything they've been in before, and has some very specific rules and systems. The difficult part hasn't been the rules, so much as not knowing what you don't know. For instance, no one tells you that at the school open house, there's a sign up sheet for parent-teacher conferences in the gym. (there is one paragraph about it, buried deep in a handout that you may or may not notice in your child's bag). Seasoned parents know to line up by the doors, so they can rush in to grab the good time slots. I happened upon this system by chance, and felt lucky that I did.

They also have a PTO website that you can purchase membership to. What new parents may not realize is that if you don't purchase membership, your contact info won't be listed anywhere, and you won't have access to your child's classmates' contact info, which gets difficult when you're trying to plan a birthday party. And, even if you do purchase membership, you have to know to navigate a level or two into the site to set your child's teacher each year, so that when someone looks at a class, your child's name will show up.

In these cases, I wonder if its worth having anyone look at this system with the eyes of a new-to-the-school parent. How many phone calls and stressful moments would it save? I understand this would require an extra brain devoted to the task, and someone to swim the bureaucratic seas of the educational system, but imagine if someone who could still see the blind spots that the seasoned parents don't notice could alert new parents to the important things they might be missing? New Parent service design, if you will. I would guess that it wouldn't just save stress levels of parents, but it would save a lot of time on the administrative side, which could save the school money.

Do you ever see "hidden systems" in your everyday life? What would happen if you illuminated them?