Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher too.
Weird question: Are you sure you started a dialogue?
Some parents have sent me messages this year that say things like, "Thank you for all you do. If you and your family have the time, (my child) has a game at XYZ arena this weekend (or is in a play, or will be singing at a Christmas church service) and admission is free. We hope to see you there!!
Then I see the parents and they saw it is an invite while I saw it as "for your situational awareness".
Others ask, "Is Tuesday PE uniform day" and I see it Wednesday, so....
One strategy I don't hate is when people call the office, and say, "I am not sure Mrs. AwesomeTeacher saw my email, but I am calling to tell her the dog ate my kid's math book," and that gets stuck in my mailbox or delivered.
Our policy is 24 hours (on work days) and I try to adhere to that. I don't respond to emails where parents ask me to donate money to a cause/sign a petition or to buy something to support their child's extracurricular activities.
I will ask the child about their interests, but I don't use my pay to subsidize luxury interests.
OP: Not trying to put you in the hot seat, but some well-intentioned emails can be hard collect the most polite words with which to respond.
Other times I did not respond right away: Covid (2nd time), brain injury (no screens), funeral, my own family member being in crisis, when I knew they asked the same question of a colleague and were setting me up for fight without telling me.
I surely hope you are not working in my kids’ school. Keep blaming parents.