Teacher won't email back
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Anonymous
| What the bell is wrong with people? OP said it’s MS not HS or college. Kids are learning. Better late than never and the parent is parenting and being conscientious. Any other working professional in any other field would reply within a reasonable period of time and not be so bitter and snarky about it. |
Anonymous
I’ve been at this 20 years. Please explain to me, since you know my job better than I do, how I can do the following in 4.5 planning hours a WEEK: 1. Constructively comment on 280 papers, mostly multi-paragraph responses 2. Respond to approximately 75 emails 3. Plan 10 1-hour long presentations 4. Update all records (grading, attendance, discipline, etc) 5. Attend 2 1-hour meetings 6. Eat lunch and attend to personal needs I’m eagerly waiting to hear how to do this in under 5 hours. Please tell me! OP, to get this back on track: Just email the teacher and CC the assistant principal. That will likely work. |
Anonymous
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FWIW, in three years with FCPS, we’re never had a teacher that responded to emails timely or effectively.
Send another email, if still no response cc the principal |
Anonymous
Agree with this. Teachers don’t sit at their computers during the day. They see emails in 15-second glimpses between classes. A teacher can see that you wrote, but that teacher can’t sit down and craft a response until the end of the day. (And they still may not be able to if there are meetings, clubs to supervise, tutoring, etc.). Unfortunately, your email may be 20-25 emails down in the inbox by that time. So emails are often evening/night work for many of us along with planning and grading. I doubt the teacher is ignoring your emails; they just get buried. Is it okay? No. But if you’ve sent multiple emails then cc-ing admin will push it to the top of the teacher’s to-do list. |
Anonymous
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How fo you title your emails?
The teachers have around 150 students to manage and get a ton of emails. Answering emails is a HUGE time suck at any job, especially if you get a couple of high needs people emailing who want to argue. I always have luck getting a quick response from teachers, because I make the title of the email very clear so the teacher has an idea of the question and priority at a glance before opening the email. When you email, put your student's name, class period and a BRIEF explaination of the topic of the email in the header. For example: "Larla Jones, 5th period English, quick homework question Shakespeare project" Or: "Larla Jones, 2nd period science, IMPORTANT safety issue Tuesday's lab" Or: "Larla Jones, 1st period choir, absence reminder (low priority)" If you have a simple question that can be answered in 3 minutes, or an important, time sensitive issue, make that clear in the topic. Put in your kids name, subject and class period. This is really important because the teachers won't necessarily match your email to the kid, or the class period. They might have 12 emails in their inbox that morning, all with the header "late assignment" and 9 emails with the title "book report" from parents with emails like soccerfamily5 or susant1987 that give no indication of which student the email goes with. The teachers get a TON of emails. If you want a quick answer, make it obvious to the teacher which kid the email is about and what the topic is. To the note of the teacher not responding to you about your kid's late homework not being in the gradebook: A) This is not an email issue with parents, unless it is a pattern of your kid not turning in the homework. One or two late assignments is not email worthy and just clogs up the teacher's inbox so they miss important stuff. B) Missing homework is the responsibility for your teen/preteen to verbally confirm with the teacher that it was received. C) If the assignment is digital, then your student can log into schoology with you to confirm the assignment was submitted. Schoology clearly inficates the status of submitted assignments. You DO NOT need additional teacher email confirmation if schoology shows it as submitted. D) In middle and high school, late assignments ALWAYS get graded at the end or later in the quarter, without exception or with very rare exception. The teachers have 150 students to grade. Going backwards for a kid who didn't turn things in makes their work more difficult and delays grades for the 85 students who turned everything in on time. As long as your kid received verbal communication that the assignment was received by tge teacher (in person assignments) or schoology confirmation that the assignment was submitted, then they are good to go and you do not need to bother the teacher with emails about the late homework. Yes, you and your kid will need to look at that glaring zero for weeks until the grade is entered at the end of the quarter. Yes, your kids SIS might show a C minus all month because of that zero. This is okay. In fact, it is a good life lesson. Middle school grades don't actually count, so take this as an opportunity to teach your kid the valuable lesson that their lack of planning or disorganization is not someone else's emergency. |
Anonymous
We were in FCPS for 7 years. I've only once had a teacher not respond in a timely and effective manner. She was in her third year, and at the end of it she was let go (for many, many other reasons than email, but it was a symptom). Maybe this was because it was ES, where there are a lot fewer kids per teacher? |
Anonymous
It sounds like the teacher might have confirmed in person when they student submitted the late assignment. And yes, elementary school with 24 students/teacher and very simple assignments to grade is very different from middle and high school with 150-ish students per teacher with very time consuming assignments to grade. |
Anonymous
Not the PP, but I think I see what she was saying. If you're putting this much time and effort into a job that you hate, perhaps it's time to consider doing something else. It's not healthy to work 60+ hours a week, every week, IMHO. But if you enjoy this and want to keep doing this for another 10 years or whatever, no one is stopping you. |
Anonymous
From your response here, I think I figured out why you haven’t received a response. |
Anonymous
This is not one teacher’s story. This is what many teachers face. There is too much for teachers to complete in 40 hours. Any time a teacher acknowledges this on DCUM, the response is always “then leave”. So teachers are. And they’ll be replaced by somebody else who has to work 60 hours a week to get it all done. This is relevant to this thread. If you don’t teach, then you are likely not aware of a teacher’s workload or the teaching environment. What is a simple email response to you is one of over 100 obligations a teacher has a day. And no, that’s not an exaggeration. I like teaching, but I hate the hours. And I hate that I’ve watched dozens of people burn out and quit in the last two years. I hate that it’s getting worse. |
Anonymous
Okay, then maybe a solution here is that there is a district-wide policy that MS and HS teachers are no longer required to respond to any emails. If a parent has a concern or a complaint they should email the asst. principal or principal. |
Anonymous
I would think we could consider lowering class sizes, limiting the number of classes a teacher has on his/her schedule, or limiting outside obligations (meetings, trainings, etc.). I’m not sure how restricting parent contacts would make the job better. I’d argue it would be worse since I’m a big fan of family partnerships. But if that’s your suggestion, I suppose we can give it a try. |
Anonymous
I think technology is the main reason why teaching has gotten so difficult. And of course, the growing number of students needing accomodation and/or differentiation, with tracking not allowed. If parents had to sit down and write an old fashioned hand written letter or wait for an after hours phone number, they might be more reasonable. |
Anonymous
All of our kids grading is automatically done by the computer. Every single quiz and unit test this year have been on the computer in all subjects. No human needed to grade any of these. |
Anonymous
I don’t use computers for any of my assignments. All essays are hand written to avoid AI. -AP teacher with 140 students |