Open Forum

I would agree that for as young as kindergarten a "callboard" for notes is probably not the best option. Is there any time to give the notes either before or after rehearsal? I will sometimes even find kids individually to give notes while they are getting ready. 

If you don't have time to do the verbal notes: Do you have any students that could act as an assistant director or stage manager, and type the notes up for you by character/student? That way you can give them to the students individually? 

I think notes about eating others snacks should definitely be addressed to the student directly. I can understand giving notes about acting to individuals in front of others because they can learn from those. If it's only one student taking others snacks no need to address that to the whole cast. 

Good luck! :) 

You might post just the things you can generalize (ie No snacks in the auditorium, Remember to stay open), and for personal notes print out your document and have some of the students who arrive earliest cut the pages so there is one note per strip and sort them by character or character group for distribution.

Despite all of the best practices research available even to laypeople, parents have a really hard time with this idea of accepting imperfection. I'm not even talking failure, just the idea that something might take multiple trials and effort to achieve. So much for grit and growth mindset! It's easier when you know your clientele - both the kids and the parents. I run two 3rd-5th grade elective productions a year, and after 9 years I get away with things (including posting notes online sometimes) that no one else at our private school would ever dare attempt. But, I word things carefully, know when to leave a note off the public list, and have generally established a reputation among parents (but not kids) as someone to be feared and revered. To the kids, I stress frequently that if I give them a note, it means I think they're smart enough and talented enough and (most importantly) working hard enough to try something even more advanced, or else that I failed in my first draft of directing and now see a better solution that I hadn't thought of before. We are all learning together how to tell the best story we can.

There's no teaching the parents - you have to go through the kids. Until you've trained them to be the voice over the parent's shoulder saying, "No, mom! That's a good thing. That means I must have done x and y right, and we're still working on z!" the parents aren't ready to receive notes.

While they should have come to you before going over your head, I don't think I would use a call board for little ones.  I would want them to hear it from me and build time into rehearsals to allow me to speak with them individually.  It's always hard to read tone into notes.

That being said, you have to run your program the way that works for you.