<p>I was a lecturer at a public university for 9 years and the majority of my students were freshmen. By the third week I could see the students who would make it and the ones who wouldn’t be there next year. They were easy to spot. They were not turning in assignments, they were missing classes or coming in late, or they were coming to class and sleeping, particularly on Friday morning because they had been out drinking until 2 a.m.
I don’t think many of them understood the consequences of their partying at that point. I would talk to some of them and express my concern. Towards the end of the semester I would sometimes say, “Do your parents know that you are failing my class?” The response was usually a little laugh and a “no.” </p>
<p>I was not allowed to tell parents any information about the students unless a contract had been signed and of the hundreds and hundreds of students I taught only one parent had the “right” to speak to me. She called during my office hours and e-mailed me. I was happy to let her know that her son was barely hanging in there and that he had missed the last 2 classes. Even though her son was 18 she was paying thousands of dollars and she seemed like she cared a lot. </p>
<p>During Parents’ Day one year, I was introduced to Wesley’s (not the real name) mom and dad. Wesley was a nice kid but one of my least motivated students. I really wanted to tell them that their son had a 47% average in my class and that he spent the class period drawing or sleeping instead of taking notes but I was not allowed to. When the dad asked, “How is Wesley doing?” I hesitated a second and the words that came out of my mouth were, “Well Wesley always sits in the back of the class.” His father laughed and replied, “That sounds like Wesley.” </p>
<p>I certainly agree with a recent poster who mentioned that 18 years olds are legally adults in all ways except for financial aid purposes. If I am paying for my sons’ college education I will absolutely require that they sign a contract that allows me to get information from their professors and have access to their grades. Why should I pay lots of money without some type of warrantee!</p>
<p>Maybe your answer to the question of “How is Wesley doing?” should have been, “I’m sorry, but I am legally not allowed to let you know how bad Wesley is doing.” That should get the parents’ attention and get them to quiz Wesley more closely.</p>
<p>My daughter did sign a release that allowed her school to let me know if there were health concerns and also to release grades. However I don’t think there would have been anything I could have done, as in her case the deciding factor was the final not her overall work. I also allowed the responsibilty to rest with her to tell me when she was ill and how she was doing in school. I thought that we has a fairly good relationship and she would let me know if she needed help. Unfortunately I underestimated her potential for procrastination and self delusion. :(</p>
<p>Is there only one general release of info form for the student to sign? And, practically speaking, how would/does the school inform the profs that they can discuss student X, not student Y?
Don’t get me wrong, I will insist that my daughter sign the form at least for freshman year, but I have few illusions about getting info from anyone but her. We struggle with privacy issues in medicine, the regulations are so broadly drawn that it is difficult to know what is and isn’t allowed, and it leads to insanity some times.</p>
<p>She signed two release forms.
One was that in case of emergency they could contact us for health reasons.
Another form allowed the school to release grade information. This did not mean that they would send us grades, we had to request them.
I believe there was also something else that enabled them to discuss financial information
These forms need to be updated every year</p>
<p>My daughter signed a release form for her grades. I don’t know if there was another release available. We didn’t ask her to do it. We see her midterm grades as well as the final ones. Her incentive to do well though, is tied to her schloarship. We told her at the get go how much we would pay towards her tuition and how the balance would be hers to pay in loans. If she loses her merit schloarship due to grades under the 3.2 gpa, ( I think it’s 3.2) that will have an impact on her. Fortunately, She’s really taken good grades as a source of pride for herself and I think that’s her biggest motivation.</p>
<p>But we did not get any such forms this year. How do you request these forms? </p>
<p>That aside, what do parents think about asking kids? My son is doing all right by all signs but gets very uptight about telling me about grades. I do tell him that since it costs so much, I want to know how he’s doing. Not to yell at him if he gets a B+ instead of an A, that would be unreasonable, but just because of the above stated reason and I care about his future…is that a reasonable request?</p>
<p>Parentny, thanks, actually, I’m not planning to do anything behind his back. I think with him, it is just a ‘I’m an adult now and don’t want to be accountable to you’ phase. I’ll just ask him if he will tell me his grades, I think. I’ll ask the college if indeed they have such release forms, that’s all. If they don’t, fine. If they do and he doesn’t sign, fine. Just plain nagging is what I’ll resort to. (It’s very irritating to him but it’s worked so far. :))</p>
<p>The reason they don’t have the forms is that if you don’t have them, you don’t have to keep up with them. Again, going back to our experience with HIPAA, if you are sending out reports (grades in this instance) you want to send them out to the same type of address every time (in the good old days when I was in college, it was the student’s home address, which meant the parents got them, although the letter was addressed to the student), now you can eliminate all the mailing of reports by having grades available online, with a password just for the student. Saves a lot of money. If you make it easy, though, for a lot of the paying parents to get their kids to sign a form allowing access to grades, and you actually send grades to the parents, you’ve significantly increased the workload of the registrar’s office. Easier to put the burden on the parent/student to get paperwork together for grades.</p>
<p>EK–My take is that people here don’t want to deal with parents; it’s not a matter of paperwork at all. This is a very different type of college than most of you have dealt with; if anything, we should be encouraging parental involvement, because most of our students are handling this with little to no input, but the reality is that people who work here are used to that and like it that way.</p>
<p>The colleges do not want to bother. It is one more issue that needs to be tracked. Most colleges do not even have such forms. Better that you get an attorney to write up such a contract–a limited power of attorney, and not only make sure one is on file with the college, but you had better have one to wave too. Even the a parent would have to be down right pushy to get any info. </p>
<p>And, frankly, I am not sure if that is the right thing to do other than for siimple courtesies and formalities. This is COLLEGE. Yes, the parents are entitled to grades, and if there is a health, behavior, or academic issue that requires a warning, the parents should also be notified along with the student. But you will find that there really is not that much communication that occurs, other than the grade reports. It is really up to the parent and student to keep the communication pathways open. Find out what courses your student is taking, and know the policies of the school. Maddening to find out in April of the 4th year, that the kid is two credits shy of graduating that year. And I have seen that. If there are health concerns, mental or physical, you need to talk to the student alongw the health center. Understand if they really don’t want you in their business, the students can withdraw consent at any time. But most of the more serious problems that I have seen at colleges have been blamed on the college’s lack of any courteous communication. There was a post on this forum where a first term freshman family living hours away was told their kid flunked out and to pick up his things within a half a week. That is really pretty rank. No class act there. I am not saying that the kid did not deserve what happened, but I don’t think any college should send a curt message of that sort. This is not the first time I have seen something like that, either. </p>
<p>Although it is great that the OP is the type of teacher who wants to collaborate with parents, that really is not the professor’s role. He should, however, be communicating with the student and documenting this communication. Also notices should be sent to the advisor, who, in turn is supposed to be monitoring the student’s academic progress. Anyone in danger of failing needs to be notified, and a plan should be put in action. But each individual prof should not have to be notifying parents. Too often in colleges, the advisors tend to do the minimum in their job description, especially with students who are not making any attempt to get be interested in what is happening. They withdraw rather than become proactive when problems strike, hiding behind the privacy rules and the letter of the handbook. That is where things tend to fall down. I have seen this in even the most nurturing colleges. These advisors love to encourage and hobnob with kids who are successful and interested, but forget the ones who are not.</p>
