I am a high school teacher AP history teacher- I answer every email I get from parent OR student, but I will only discuss a grade on an assignment with the student involved
Wondering if the OP could answer the question…what kinds of questions do the teachers at the OP’s school resent?
The OP seemed to,have abandoned this thread.
As a teacher, I would welcome REASONABLE emails from parents - however it seems that quite often most parents are emailing to complain about their special snowflake not getting an A in a class, etc.
I teach in a Title I urban school and I value any and all interaction I can get with parents
sometimes, it just seems easier to email a teacher for something/information rather than asking the child.
the older the child gets though, absolutely the less teacher/parent involvement.
A lot of teachers don’t want to deal with parents about non-emergencies. And their definition of emergency might differ from yours.
My experience as a college professor guided my behavior as a parent. Normal behavior was to let the kid handle everything). We did not consider intervening until grade reports or other circumstances suggested an emergency was in the making (i.e., something that would permanently affect GPA or delay graduation). At that point, we instructed to kid in solemn tones to deal with whatever she might have neglected. (Usually there was something.) Only if all that had failed did we email the teacher.
I worked in public education. I answered all emails within 24 hours.
BUT…I had a few parents over the years who emailed me very long emails every single day, with repeated questions. These took a lot time to answer. I didn’t mid for a while, but then realized they were going to happen daily…often with the same questions asked.
In the above case, I gave my answers to my administrator, and the parent was asked to communicate with the admin.
Ther wasn’t one teacher I knew who wasn’t very willing to answer parent questions.
But every single day from the same person? Sorry, but that was over the top.
The only time I had an issue with a teacher not wanting to talk to me was when my father in law was nearing death right before junior year finals. I wanted to talk to the teachers about what would happen if they missed finals and two of the teachers wanted to only talk to my daughter about it. I wanted to avoid that because knowing just how imminent his death might be would have made it impossible for her to study. Three teachers understood completely. The two teachers who caused a problem were young and not parents. Now maybe that a coincidence but The principal had high school kids himself and after I called him he told the teachers they needed to talk to me not my kid. As I feared my fil died the first night of finals. I was able to explain to my daughters the make up schedule immediately upon getting the call that he was gone and with the funeral and shiva the next day she wasn’t panicked about missing. She got in two finals the first day without distraction and then made up the rest later which was hard but bearable.
I guess I’m in the minority. I make it a point to mindfully email every teacher at some point every year with a positive comment. The excellent teachers deserve the praise, but likely get it regularly. The weaker ones? I try to encourage them , e.g. Catch them when DD comments positively. I have had more then one tell me that my email made a huge difference.
Send the letters to the administration, and copy the teacher. Every supportive letter sent becomes part of the personnel file.
And of course, every negative one is addressed by the administration with the parents.
@thumper1 I never thought of that! My S has had some awesome teams and I try to make sure they know. I’ll make sure they get notified about it too!!
@maya54 yes it was the engineering teacher that was unusual for HS. My children have been in 6 different school systems across the country and our current one is the first to have an engineering elective.
It’s hard for me to accept the OP at face value without additional information. I’m curious to know what kind of question, asked as nicely as the parent can, brands said parent as a troublemaker with ALL the teachers, who then take out their resentment on the kid. Doesn’t square with many decades of life experience, though I know I’ve been more fortunate than most.
I try not to email too much, but when i do I do make sure that I communicate that I understand that my child’s view of the issue may not be the only side.
I haven’t found it to be the case that teachers are resentful of parent communications. Maybe it’s about the nature of the communication.
I think @shoot4moon and some of the teachers have provided some valuable clues to this. Maybe communications from parents should take care to contain less whining and more ‘attaboys’.
We only had that experience with one school and the culture of non-communication and defensiveness infected every member of the staff. It was such a shock to us because every other school we’d worked with prior (and after) was so open and communicative… typically reaching out to us first. In our bad situation, this school was an arts magnet in one of the largest school districts in the country. They were struggling financially, going through superintendents, district corruption scandals, threats that the magnet would be disbanded, etc. The school was in a poor neighborhood and while more than half the kids were bused in, the staff, administration and the local students were totally demoralized. I understand why they didn’t care that my individual child was falling apart but it was not an atmosphere we could leave our kid in. We just pulled her out after sophomore year and everything turned around instantly.
I don’t know if this is an issue you are having all around or if you just hit a lemon. Like I said, our poor experience was localized in one school that was clearly in survival mode.
I think many problems arise because of inexperience. Its the flip side of the burnout problem. I’m not sure where the happy, optimum, “medium” is.
With both of my children I have made it a point not to get involved in the initial phases of them attempting work out an issue with a teacher. They have not had that many issues, but they always start the conversation themselves. What I have found is that it is easy for a teacher to dismiss a student but not so easy for them to dismiss a parent.
I would say that half the time my children were able to resolve the issue themselves, but the other half either I or my H had to get involved. And students sometimes need a little “backing” – it can be intimidating for some kids (depending on their personality) to take on a teacher. And sometimes that just needs to be done.
The only time I ever got directly involved with a teacher in high school was just such a situation. Kid received a zero for a fairly significant lab. The kid went to the teacher and said he did the lab. Teacher said that if he found the final lab report with her grade on it, she would change the grade. He did. She then said that she probably told him to resubmit the lab report because she never forgets to put a grade in her grade book and therefore he still gets a zero. Wife, who is a teacher, refused to intervene. So I did. I got a lot of how dare you question me from the teacher (she was very young), and eventually had to talk with the academic dean. During this process, the teacher had reported quarter and then semester grades. Our kid’s grades dropped precipitously once I contacted the teacher, and he went from an A in the first quarter to a C+second quarter and a C for the semester (I believe she gave him a D on the semester exam.). Things obviously deteriorated, and the department head ended up regrading the kids’ work and changing the grade. It was a terrible situation all the way around. Does this happen often? Probably not, but to say that all teachers are great and that a fifteen or sixteen year old kid is equipped to handle any type of conflict with a person in a position of virtually absolute authority is kind of wishful thinking in my opinion.
Several years ago, my son had a teacher that would repeatedly forget to enter grades for assignments, and then the day before the end of the quarter, would add tons of “Fs” in because she thought the assignments weren’t done. Every quarter, all of the kids had to go back to her with their assignments in their hands, and stand there until she fixed each one. This took an incredible amount of planning on the kids’ parts - including making sure to check online for the “F” grades to come in so that they could get an appointment to have them changed. The whole process seemed ridiculous, and I was truly amazed that no parents ever contacted someone in admin about the situation (which apparently had been going on for years!)
I think any teacher who says I never forget is kidding themselves! We all forget or overlook something now and then! They have so many students, how could it not happen?