Dear We Are Teachers,
I’m in my second year teaching high school and am on the verge of quitting. The dread I feel knowing that anytime I enter grades for an assignment, send out a newsletter, or make a new announcement on Google Classroom, I’m going to be met with at least five parent emails is debilitating. They want exceptions, explanations, additional help, and special assignments. I understand that this is part of my job, but with pushy parents on this scale, I can’t get anything done. Are there any kind of boundaries I can set, or should I just switch schools?
—Back Off
Dear B.O.,
My first recommendation is, when possible and appropriate, ask for parents to give students an opportunity to advocate for themselves and have them ask you these questions. Let that be something you stress at the beginning of next year in your parent letter/syllabus.
My other big three recommendations center around these ideas:
Transparency goes a long way.
Pushy parents tend to be at their pushiest when they don’t quite understand what’s going on. A weekly newsletter (check out our free customizable templates here!) and shared calendar with important dates and updates can go a long way. See what you can do to make sure parents know enough to not feel totally lost.
Work smarter, not harder.
With pushy parents, it can feel tempting to go into robot servant mode to keep them happy. Spending hours crafting careful emails, bending over backwards for bonkers parent requests, saying yes before you’ve had a chance to even fully process their question.
But remember: You are here for their kids first. Save the bulk of your energy for teaching, providing feedback, and meeting their needs. Conserve the energy you normally expend on parents by keeping emails polite but short (anything longer than a couple of short paragraphs should be a meeting), set up form emails for common questions, and bookmark our suggested responses for tricky questions.
Think ahead.
Start restructuring your syllabus for next year now. Make a note of what kinds of questions you get most often and use those to create policies, systems, or information hubs that will cut down on work for you next year. See how teachers on your team keep parents at bay. Don’t wait until next summer to work on your syllabus—you’ll forget!
Dear We Are Teachers,
I’m a paraprofessional working on my teacher certification. I’m with a new teacher this year who is struggling but is super-resistant to feedback from me. She has trouble getting the class to quiet down, listen to her, or get any work done. When I’ve suggested strategies to her that I’ve seen work, she totally shuts down and tells me she’ll take advice from me when I have my certification. Should I go to my principal?
—Just Trying to Help!
Dear J.T.T.H.,
Oof! I feel for you both.
On one hand, it’s great when a para and classroom teacher can have a mutualistic relationship: learning from each other and making each other better without either having to sacrifice. However, on the other hand, both giving feedback and receiving it gracefully are VERY delicate processes: ones that have to be based on trust.
For now, I would work on building trust between you two and keep the feedback to yourself. It’s someone else’s job in an official capacity to evaluate her performance (her appraiser). If your professional relationship gets to a place where you feel like you can weigh in again, great! If not and things stay hostile, request a different classroom teacher for next year.
Dear We Are Teachers,
This is my first year teaching middle school. At the beginning of the year, I set up a care closet for my students with snacks, hygiene products, school supplies, and other products they or their family might need. I also provide a stocked pencil cup and fidgets drawer. But here’s the issue: Almost everything is gone in a matter of days—sometimes in a matter of hours. I want to keep providing these things, but I also want to make sure that the students who need them are getting them, not just the students who want them. Does that make sense? Am I a bad person?
—Caring Is Sharing … Right?
Dear C.I.S.R.,
First of all, you’re not a bad person. You’re a good person for wanting to connect your students with what they need! I would venture to guess that the strain is on your finances, not on the notion that the products are being used. Totally understandable.
I would encourage you to consider that the students who want them and the students who need them might be one and the same. BUT that doesn’t mean that you have to burn through your money meeting these needs.
Ask others to help stock your closet: your principal first, then crowdfund among family and friends. Create a schedule for when you restock the closet—let’s say once a month—and make sure your students know when the day is coming. Finally, rotate the class period where the care closet is first open to make sure your last period students aren’t always left in the dust.
I would, however, retire the free fidget dispensing. You can reserve those in your desk for your students with IEPs.
Do you have a burning question? Email us at [email protected].
Dear We Are Teachers,
It’s my third week of teaching at a new school this year, but my 10th year overall teaching 8th grade. My new principal called me in last week and said several parents have complained that I’m “overstepping” my boundaries as a teacher by inserting my opinion on “nonacademic, nondisciplinary issues.” When I asked for examples, he brought up that I told a student we don’t use the word “gay” pejoratively and we don’t use the “R-word” at all. Another parent complained that I corrected a student who rolled his eyes when he found out he was in the same group as another student he didn’t like. I waited for my principal to confirm that he was on my side, but he never did! I don’t want to get on my new principal’s bad side, but I genuinely thought kindness was a part of my job. Should I get clarification from him?
—Copping a Bad Rap