How often do you email your kid’s teacher(s)

[Anonymous]

is even worse in middle school and high, they won't even have parent teacher conference

[Anonymous]

Once this year

[Anonymous]

I’ve never emailed a teacher. I do message probably once a month or every other month on the class dojo app. Usually things like last minute aftercare changes (I tell my kid too) or some sort of technical question.

I am a bit annoyed at parents like the one above asking for preferential seating. Let the teachers do their job! You think every parent doesn’t want preferential seating? My oldest is the “good kid” and frequently got stuck in groups of 4 with 3 wild boys (they’re always boys. I have boys too- I’m not biased). After the quarter was over, I always checked with her to make sure she got moved and someone else got their turn. Everyone deserves a rotation to the bad seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once this year, to explain ADHD, ask for some light accommodations (preferential seating near high achievers at the front of class rooms and just a few check-ins to make sure he's not daydreaming), and advise on how to support him at home. He was almost failing the class, so I felt I had to be proactive.

This always gets on my nerves. The good kids who are ahead get stuck with the problem kids.

+1

It's not up to the "high achievers at the front" to parent your child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids are in upper elementary school. Most of my emails to the teacher are administrative (e.g. kid is out sick) beyond that, I maybe email once or twice a year. Yet I know some people seem to be in frequent communication with teachers. Am I unusual? Should I be emailing more? Or if you’re regularly in contact is it about specific issues?

Uh, never. I didn’t know this was a thing people did.

Kid is sick I call the office. I see the teacher at conferences. I will reply if the contact me. But why would I email a teacher otherwise? Don’t do this!

Why bother calling the office if they’re sick? It’s not excused and they get an absence either way. I hate dealing with the front office admins. They’re just mean. I do message the teacher to let her know what’s up because they get concerned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids are in upper elementary school. Most of my emails to the teacher are administrative (e.g. kid is out sick) beyond that, I maybe email once or twice a year. Yet I know some people seem to be in frequent communication with teachers. Am I unusual? Should I be emailing more? Or if you’re regularly in contact is it about specific issues?

I know of a parent who got in trouble with their child's school for what they deemed excessive emailing. I don't really know the details except that their emails were blocked after a certain point. Maybe kids with IEPs and 504 plans and other issues need to email more. My opinion is that the more you email about trivial things, the less attention they will pay when you need to email them about something important. If it's an issue you can solve on your own (like, your child is bored in class but you supplement and do enrichment on your own dime, or your child has trouble making friends at school but they have tons of friends through non-school activities) then it's pointless to email.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids are in upper elementary school. Most of my emails to the teacher are administrative (e.g. kid is out sick) beyond that, I maybe email once or twice a year. Yet I know some people seem to be in frequent communication with teachers. Am I unusual? Should I be emailing more? Or if you’re regularly in contact is it about specific issues?

I’m a teacher and a parent.

I don’t email my kids’ teachers unless I need to update them about something serious, like an extended absence.

Teachers are swamped. I don’t feel right adding to their workloads.

This response is confusing to me. I get not emailing teachers all the time but I don't see emailing the teacher about something important as "adding to their workloads." If it's important, it's already part of their workload, and an email might even make it easier -- info is power.

Like the ADHD example or the kid who lost a grandparents -- letting the teacher know stuff like that doesn't add to their workload, it provides them with useful info that can help them deal with the kid in class without having to wonder what's going on.

Obviously if people are emailing teachers asking them to do extra work, that's a different thing, but does anyone who is not a cartoon villain actually do that? I cannot imagine.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. I have 150 students, just for reference.

As I wrote above, I totally get the important emails. Email away. I’m happy to respond and I’ll do it before I leave work.

But I also have multiple parents who regularly email me 15 minutes after I update the gradebook, demanding justification for the score. I return work to students with plenty of feedback, but these parents don’t even wait for their children to come home to view it. I also get “how’d he do today” check-ins, which are fine until I get 20-25 of them.

My child is one student. The teachers are receiving emails about 150 different students. I’m only going to email if it’s absolutely necessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids are in upper elementary school. Most of my emails to the teacher are administrative (e.g. kid is out sick) beyond that, I maybe email once or twice a year. Yet I know some people seem to be in frequent communication with teachers. Am I unusual? Should I be emailing more? Or if you’re regularly in contact is it about specific issues?

Uh, never. I didn’t know this was a thing people did.

Kid is sick I call the office. I see the teacher at conferences. I will reply if the contact me. But why would I email a teacher otherwise? Don’t do this!

Why bother calling the office if they’re sick? It’s not excused and they get an absence either way. I hate dealing with the front office admins. They’re just mean. I do message the teacher to let her know what’s up because they get concerned.

Why would sick not be excused with a note? Also if a child just doesn't show up, the school will follow up to make sure you know they are not there. Imagine not knowing your child was missing till they did not get off the bus at the end of the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids are in upper elementary school. Most of my emails to the teacher are administrative (e.g. kid is out sick) beyond that, I maybe email once or twice a year. Yet I know some people seem to be in frequent communication with teachers. Am I unusual? Should I be emailing more? Or if you’re regularly in contact is it about specific issues?

Uh, never. I didn’t know this was a thing people did.

Kid is sick I call the office. I see the teacher at conferences. I will reply if the contact me. But why would I email a teacher otherwise? Don’t do this!

Why bother calling the office if they’re sick? It’s not excused and they get an absence either way. I hate dealing with the front office admins. They’re just mean. I do message the teacher to let her know what’s up because they get concerned.

Because schools track illness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids are in upper elementary school. Most of my emails to the teacher are administrative (e.g. kid is out sick) beyond that, I maybe email once or twice a year. Yet I know some people seem to be in frequent communication with teachers. Am I unusual? Should I be emailing more? Or if you’re regularly in contact is it about specific issues?

I’m a teacher and a parent.

I don’t email my kids’ teachers unless I need to update them about something serious, like an extended absence.

Teachers are swamped. I don’t feel right adding to their workloads.

This response is confusing to me. I get not emailing teachers all the time but I don't see emailing the teacher about something important as "adding to their workloads." If it's important, it's already part of their workload, and an email might even make it easier -- info is power.

Like the ADHD example or the kid who lost a grandparents -- letting the teacher know stuff like that doesn't add to their workload, it provides them with useful info that can help them deal with the kid in class without having to wonder what's going on.

Obviously if people are emailing teachers asking them to do extra work, that's a different thing, but does anyone who is not a cartoon villain actually do that? I cannot imagine.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. I have 150 students, just for reference.

As I wrote above, I totally get the important emails. Email away. I’m happy to respond and I’ll do it before I leave work.

But I also have multiple parents who regularly email me 15 minutes after I update the gradebook, demanding justification for the score. I return work to students with plenty of feedback, but these parents don’t even wait for their children to come home to view it. I also get “how’d he do today” check-ins, which are fine until I get 20-25 of them.

My child is one student. The teachers are receiving emails about 150 different students. I’m only going to email if it’s absolutely necessary.

That's fair. I have gotten no response from my child's teacher when emailing about something that is definitely in the "important" category (like significant issue the kid is having at school and that needs attention), and get the sense that some teacher would prefer you never contact them about anything ever. It's frustrating. My kid is in your classroom for half their waking hours during the week, sometimes there's info I need to share or I have a question about something that is impacting home behavior or things my kid is telling me about school. Why is it so hard to get a response to these emails? I dont' get it.

[Anonymous]

Some, never. Others would call once a week. I also saw them when school had activities (Fridays) and would chat then.

[Anonymous]

Only to share that Larlo will be absent, or arrange to pick up make up work, that kind of thing. I have never emailed about conflicts with other kids or someone being mean to Larlo, or Larlo being nervous about X project. I am giving him space to film figure those things out, though I do talk with him at home about them. Trying not to be a smothering parent and it is hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids are in upper elementary school. Most of my emails to the teacher are administrative (e.g. kid is out sick) beyond that, I maybe email once or twice a year. Yet I know some people seem to be in frequent communication with teachers. Am I unusual? Should I be emailing more? Or if you’re regularly in contact is it about specific issues?

Uh, never. I didn’t know this was a thing people did.

Kid is sick I call the office. I see the teacher at conferences. I will reply if the contact me. But why would I email a teacher otherwise? Don’t do this!

Why bother calling the office if they’re sick? It’s not excused and they get an absence either way. I hate dealing with the front office admins. They’re just mean. I do message the teacher to let her know what’s up because they get concerned.

I thought that one time and tried it… The school office called me and asked if we were coming in today. Now I always call and let them know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only to share that Larlo will be absent, or arrange to pick up make up work, that kind of thing. I have never emailed about conflicts with other kids or someone being mean to Larlo, or Larlo being nervous about X project. I am giving him space to film figure those things out, though I do talk with him at home about them. Trying not to be a smothering parent and it is hard.

It's hard to know when the conflicts between kids escalate to needing to loop the teacher in. I tend to take a hands off approach generally because (1) I trust the teachers, generally, and (2) I do want my kid to develop skills for handling these things on their own.

But sometimes things get more serious and it can be hard to know where the line is. Like I don't want to be dragging the teacher into some playground skirmish that the kids can resolve on their own, but I also don't want to ignore a problem the kids are NOT resolving until it gets really bad. It's easy to know when an academic concern needs attention (grades dip, scores are concerning, kid is clearly struggling with homework or keeping up in class). It's much, much harder to know when social or behavioral issues merit a conversation with the teacher and I wish there were better guidelines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids are in upper elementary school. Most of my emails to the teacher are administrative (e.g. kid is out sick) beyond that, I maybe email once or twice a year. Yet I know some people seem to be in frequent communication with teachers. Am I unusual? Should I be emailing more? Or if you’re regularly in contact is it about specific issues?

Uh, never. I didn’t know this was a thing people did.

Kid is sick I call the office. I see the teacher at conferences. I will reply if the contact me. But why would I email a teacher otherwise? Don’t do this!

Why bother calling the office if they’re sick? It’s not excused and they get an absence either way. I hate dealing with the front office admins. They’re just mean. I do message the teacher to let her know what’s up because they get concerned.

Because that's the protocol when a kid misses school. So when they get the attendance sheet from the teacher and your child is marked absent, the office doesn't have to track you down to make sure you are aware that your kid isn't there and to document illness.
People like you are what's wrong with modern society.