For the Free-Ride offspring, this is only the seventh school day of the new academic year, and already the weekly newsletter from their elementary school has achieved a tone that could most charitably be described as weary:
This is a large school with over N students. Please consider the priorities of the school staff when making personal requests. It is unreasonable to meet with staff 3 times to make the same request, after you have been denied in person. Thanks you for considering the needs of the other N-1 students when making personal requests for your child.
My thoughts:
- If this (or really, anything the school does) succeeds in cultivating a bit more empathy and altruism from the parents, I will be impressed. And surprised.
- Was this item in the newsletter prompted by multiple parents engaging in this kind of won’t-take-no-for-an-answer behavior? Or just one child’s parents?
- If just one child’s parents, I’m suddenly curious about just what they were requesting, and why that request was shot down so decisively (not to mention why it was so important to keep asking after the first denial).
- Also, if just one child’s parents, I wonder if those parents recognize that this paragraph in the newsletter is about them.
- Finally, given the priorities of school staff, is what may amount to an admonishment to one set of parents (out of something on the order of magnitude of N sets of parents), a good use of scarce staff time?
Fasten your seat-belt. It’s shaping up to be one of those school years.
Offered without additional comment:
http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/
Finally, given the priorities of school staff, is what may amount to an admonishment to one set of parents (out of something on the order of magnitude of N sets of parents), a good use of scarce staff time?
On the one hand, I think back to my own time at school. Given the proclivities for school staff to do things like hold an entire class in at recess because one kid is disruptive (because really, holding disruptive kids back from exercising is totes the best way to calm him down- and holding in all his ‘buddies’ is totes the best way to build cooperation), or hold a school assembly over an incident involving one or two students, I’d be surprised if they said they had any OTHER priorities.
On the other hand, upon stumbling into the rantypantsprof blogosphere, I was MOST dismayed at how they tended to look at students, and all the inane things they felt the need to complain about. Of course, one of the things that allowed me to grok a lot of it was the notion that what is a minor slip up for one student * 0.25(300 students)/class * # of classes/year * # of years teaching = a whole lot of stupid. Maybe it’s only one set of parents. Maybe you are correct that virtually everyone can be expected to exhibit common sense in this regard. Or maybe parents of students aren’t any brighter than students (protip: and maybe faculty aren’t any brighter than either- ask a dean sometime about her Speshul-snowflakes that want to get out of teaching because THEIR research is so damn important)
Becca, you’re not advocating more self-awareness across the board, are you? Because, what with our economic downturn and all, can we afford it?
I do seriously wonder if the one set of parents singled out here (if that’s what’s happening) may have been making a reasonable request that was being met with a mountain of unresponsiveness. Plausibly, that could be what happened.
And even if their request was completely ridiculous, or not totally ridiculous but not at all feasible, and even if their behavior in making the request *again* was time-consuming and annoying, doesn’t the paragraph in the school newsletter (which goes out to on the order of N households) indicate to these parents that on some level they got the attention of the school staff, and that the threshold for priorities of the school staff dips low enough to include writing this particular paragraph for the newsletter?
I mean, if you know the bar is set that low, it can only help your strategy in issuing the next request.
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Also, if just one child’s parents, I wonder if those parents recognize that this paragraph in the newsletter is about them.
I’m interested in whether there will be a response of some sort from the parents. It’s hard for me to believe that no other parents on the playground are aware of the “special” request … don’t parents chat while they’re waiting to pick up little ones? Perhaps another parent may learn about the “request” and bring it up at a PTA meeting? Thinking back to my own elementary school days, my mom had to play advocate for my younger sister for about a year–she was injured and could not participate in regular activities and also refused to eat. My mom had to request permission to come in and sit with her during lunch to make sure she ate. The request was originally denied, but thanks to a few vocal parents on the PTA, the school relented.
In any case, you are being VERy charitable in calling the tone of the letter “weary.”
2.) “Was this item in the newsletter prompted by multiple parents engaging in this kind of won’t-take-no-for-an-answer behavior? Or just one child’s parents?”
Of course without more information I can’t be certain, but this sort of behavior sounds to me quite characteristic of Lynette Scavo. That Desperate Housewife has a really annoying sense of entitlement. 😉
As a PTA/PTO veteran, I have to say there’s always one parent every year who’s a complete, um, douche about understanding they are not the ONLY parents of the ONE special Johnny in the world. Certainly, there are situations, like the one mentioned above, where the school hasn’t been previously equipped to handle certain special requests so the rate of change is slow – but experience has always shown a lack of understanding occurs on both sides of the aisle.
Volunteering at our school during the day, I can remember several times I saw mothers leaving the principles office in tears for some reason we more experienced parents would later find out was rather bizarre. Interestingly, it was usually the parent of a kindergärtner or a new student. More experienced parents had usually learned how the system worked and how to effectively deal with it.
As far as the school note itself, it’s a little over the top. I’m not a fan of bureaucratic gobbledygook notes, but this seems like an occasion to reprint the proper complaint process rather than going off on a few families who will later be found out through the rumor mill.
I’m distracted by NON-back-to-school crankiness. As you vaguely recall from blog threads past, I’ve been an Adjunct Professor of Astronomy, Adjunct Professor of Mathematics, have taught somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 students (including senior citizens and in the corporate world).
I left the University and spent 4 years as an urban school substitute teacher while, in night classes, earning a California Secondary School Teaching Certificate.
But then California pink-slipped 22,000 public school employees.
I have not had a teaching paycheck since December 2008.
In August and September 2010 I had 9 interviews, mostly by committee, from a half hour to 90 minutes, at Los Angeles Unified School District high schools and middle schools.
Of these, only 1 got back to me by phone. In that case, to say that I ranked #2 of about 30 candidates interviewed.
Most of the other 8 are not only rude, but preclude simple follow up. Usually, the prinicpa, department chair, or uncomfortable teacher (who was reminded by me of how far they fall short) are not listed at all in the official school web site.
Sometimes there is only a fax number, and no email at all.
In one case, after half a dozen emails to the previous principal, and the District bureaucrats, I finally got an apologetic phonecall saying only “we were unable to hire you.”
Unable? I read that as unwilling. And don’t know what went wrong.
My ever-practical Physics professor wife suggested that they were drawing conclusions from my long beard, as to religion, ar age, or Osama Bin Laden. So, at her urging, I completely shaved it off, for the 10th interview, scheduled for the next day.
That interview was canceled at the last minute.
You think you’re cranky right now?