Parents have the right and obligation to communicate with teachers and school personnel, to express their concerns on matters that directly affect their children and, at times, on broader issues arising from school policy. These contacts must be respectful. When they are not, there is a diminished obligation to respond. Since parental/teacher contacts are mostly in person or over the phone, parents need to be mindful of the time constraints teachers are under. They have a great deal on their plate – professional and personal – and may not be readily available.
This isn’t a license for a teacher to ignore a parent and leave it at that. To the contrary, there is an obligation to respond, and usually, within a brief period, but it is too much to expect an immediate response.
E-mail provides a direct way to communicate without the formality of a written letter or the urgency of a telephone call. Greater reliance should be placed on this form of communication when parents want to be in touch with faculty members and school personnel. This would require, of course, that teachers have e-mail addresses. My guess is that many – especially younger – teachers already have such addresses and that the number will continue to grow. If the addresses are disclosed to parents, there is the obvious risk that some parents will communicate in an abusive or irresponsible fashion. It may be best for parental e-mail designated for faculty and staff members to be channeled through the school.
For their part, teachers must recognize that raising children is fraught with worry and hurdles, and that parents constantly are concerned about how their kids are doing in school and socially. Some of this concern may be exaggerated and there is always the prospect of an excess of emotions. The heightened focus on parenting may contribute to greater parental concern that is at times warranted.
However, the reality is what it is. Besides, parents not only have the right to be concerned, they often have good reason to be concerned. We are in a world where children seem to have so much, especially when compared to previous generations, yet there are emotional and other voids, things happening in their lives that can change a child’s outlook or self-esteem. Parents need to be alert to signs of distress and this responsibility inevitably entails inquiring into what is happening at school and making contact with school personnel.
Here, too, there are limits. Parents can expect teachers to be sensitive to the special needs of their children, as when they request that a teacher not overly pressure a child or that a student be excused from a test or assignment. When minor adjustments can be made without disrupting the proper functioning of a classroom, they ought to be made.
For all the obligatory standardization in schools, we ought never forget that each child is distinctive and that one mold or approach never fits all. I have written in this vein previously; sadly, what I have written has largely been in vain. Overwhelmingly, schools and faculty are wedded to a standard mold and therefore too unwilling to make adjustments for students who legitimately deserve to have adjustments made for them.
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There are limits beyond which parents should not go, as when they seek to pressure a teacher to alter the way the class is being taught.
An even more egregious situation occurs when parents pressure a school to take action against another child. This is a growing issue in yeshiva and day school education and it needs to be confronted. Increasingly, and especially at the high school level, there are parents who say “My child will not go to this school” if some other child is allowed to attend.
