Reply to What do you think about Upper Schools telling parents to butt out?

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "What do you think about Upper Schools telling parents to butt out?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Some parents behave very, very badly but some school employees behave very badly too (teachers and admin).

There are times when parents do need to step in, but I recommend ensuring your child has exhausted all proper channels (speaking to teacher, advisor, department chair in that order) first. At that point, make sure YOU follow proper channels (grade dean, department chair, head of division). Generally I wouldn’t recommend going straight to the HOS. That is how you burn up all of your good will in no time flat. [/quote]

This seems about right.

Helicopter parenting will just create bigger problems for the kids (both now and later in life), but there are rare occasions where parental engagement - quietly - and through whatever the proper channels are - can be essential.

For a *safety* concern, which is fairly narrow and usually is unrelated to academics, I would engage immediately as a parent and make it clear I had a safety concern; I would gently mention the word “liability” in that conversation with the school to make sure they understood.   I will not leave my DC in an unsafe situation, no matter what.

My own parents (we lived elsewhere) followed this advice.  The only time they intervened, they did so very quietly over the summer, before course schedules were put together, to ensure I was not stuck with a particular English teacher in Form VI.  My sibling had previously had that teacher, whose teaching style was not as gentle as USMC Boot Camp; she used to start every year by failing the *entire* class in the 1st grading period “to encourage improvement”.  That initial grade was visible to college admissions officers if one were unlucky enough to be in her Form VI English class.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics