School asking parents to only email teachers during working hours

[cautiouscovidity]

We've had a message from DCs' (primary) school respectfully asking parents to only email the head and class teachers between 8:30-5:30 on school days and not during the evenings / weekends / holidays, for staff well-being reasons (they deserve protected downtime etc.).
AIBU to think that this is ridiculous? I work in a job where I don't always have access to a phone / computer during the working day and so, on the rare occasion that I need to contact a teacher, I tend to email in the evening at home or first thing before I get ready to leave. Obviously I don't expect them to reply out of working hours, or even to read it there and then, but I had never considered that it would be intrusive. In my job I get loads of emails at all times of the day and night and they just sit in my inbox until I am working!
Surely if it's impacting on their downtime so much, then they should just not check their emails in the evening and turn off notifications etc.

[Whatwouldscullydo]

Seems a bit ridiculous I mean most are at work themselves.

Surely most people don't expect then to actually respond straight away?

Its acceptable to not check until work hours begin the next day.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Email is electronic mail. You write when you write and they open it when they open it. It's like specifying that I can on,y send a postcard during work hours.

Their lack of boundaries isn't your problem.

[Dauphinois]

I work in a school and yes, that's ridiculous.

[pudcat]

Just compose the email, save and send between 8.30 and 5.30

[MrMeeseekscando]

I agree, out of office replies exist for a reason.
It's not up to you to manage their time.
What a ridiculous thing to say!

[megletthesecond]

That's a tricky one.
I email when I remember. That might be 6am or 11pm or a weekend. I don't expect a quick reply. But at least it's with the school and they can get to it in time.

[CayrolBaaaskin]

It is totally ridiculous. They can check it only in office hours if they are so concerned

[Rewis]

That's ridiculous. The point of email is that it is convenient. It's up to the teacher not to read their work email when they are off. I don't think many managers are excited about employees using work time to do school stuff. Have they said if they will delete all emails out of those hours or can You just keep doing it?

If parents are expecting 24/7 response then that should be communicated and not making these rules.

[Rainbowqueeen]

Hi OP. I think the problem is the parents who are not like you and who expect instant responses and get cranky when they don’t get them
My kids school has a policy that teachers are only expected to respond during business hours and IMO that’s a better way of presenting it

[BuddyRun]

You can very easily set up an email with a delayed send - so you send it at 8pm but it won't arrive until 8.30am the next day. Why do you think teachers should get emails 24/7 because you don't want to spend five seconds setting up a delayed send.
What a ridiculous problem to have.

[slipperywhensparticus]

Actually I'm surprised my sons school answer emails "out of hours" because I certainly don't expect them too! If I need to email about an incident I do it when its fresh in my mind and my son is present so he can give a detailed account rather than me getting it wrong 🤷‍♀️

Can you set your emails to send at 9am? It seems like a good compromise

[BeingATwatItsABingThing]

I don’t mind getting emails from parents in the evening. I didn’t reply unless it was a safeguarding issue or a quick reply though. It waited until the next day.

We did have a parent send aggressive emails late at night so we reminded parents that they shouldn’t be emailing at all hours. A lot of us have our work emails on our phones (our choice I know) so don’t want to have unpleasant emails popping up at all hours.

[bubblebubblebubbletrouble]

I have always had the conversation with class teacher that I have no expectation of a response outside of standard hours but as I work full-time and can't ask quick qu's at pick-up I will message at my convenience with the understanding that they will respond at theirs. It's never been an issue.
It's obviously a response to an issue - maybe complaints about speed of response?

[MrsTerryPratchett]

@BuddyRun

You can very easily set up an email with a delayed send - so you send it at 8pm but it won't arrive until 8.30am the next day. Why do you think teachers should get emails 24/7 because you don't want to spend five seconds setting up a delayed send.
What a ridiculous problem to have.

Why would the parent need an extra step when the teacher can just not open the email? Utterly batshit.

[meditrina]

I think the school has got it a bit wrong.

Parents should be able to send emails at any time (it's the equivalent if when you popped a letter in the post), but the school should be saying that their staff will only be able to respond during

And they should be telling their staff it is fine not to log on outside normal hours, or if they need to be online, they do not need to open new emails until the next working day.

[Scrappydont86]

Sounds very precious 😂

[LittleMissLockdown]

As a teacher I'd be very unimpressed that SLT thought I was incapable of answering emails at an appropriate time without it impacting on my downtime. I'm a grown adult I'm more than capable of answering an email at a time suitable to myself regardless of whether it landed in my inbox at 3am or 3pm .

[AriettyHomily]

Totally the wrong approach from the school. The teacher can just not open the email, same as anyone else. I get emails all the bloody time as I work across time zones. Doesn't mean I have to instantly read and respond.

Moot point at our school, no one has the teacher's email, they all go through the office and farmed out that way.

[wishing3]

Seems weird-I guess they’re trying to make wider point. As PP said-delayed send.

[MrsMariaReynolds]

Agree with Rainbowqueeen here. I suspect the policy means you shouldn't expect an email response outside normal working hours, which is completely fair. It is just really poorly incorrectly worded.

[BuddyRun]

@MrsTerryPratchett Because it would take each parent literally ten seconds whereas teachers get dozens of emails all evening with no way to know which ones are urgent and which ones aren't.
For example, if a teacher gets 20 emails every evening, they have to read all of them to find the one urgent one that says Bobby has tested covid positive. They need to act on that out of hours to inform their close contacts not to come into school the next morning. If the parents only emailed during working hours except the one urgent email, then the teacher would read the one urgent email.
So, if parents can't be bothered to spend ten seconds setting up a delayed send, teachers are forced to either read every email out of hours or miss important emails. That's why parents should stop being lazy.

[LiveFromHome]

It's ridiculous.

They can set up an auto reply stating "This email account is only checked between these hours and these days" blah blah.

[OchonAgusOchonO]

@BuddyRun

You can very easily set up an email with a delayed send - so you send it at 8pm but it won't arrive until 8.30am the next day. Why do you think teachers should get emails 24/7 because you don't want to spend five seconds setting up a delayed send.
What a ridiculous problem to have.

And you can easily defer reading emails to work hours if you want to.

Why should parents have to set up delayed emails because teachers can't manage their time?

The whole point of email is it is asynchronous communication, similar to physical mail. I send at my convenience, you read/deal with/respond at your convenience.

All a policy like this does is suggest the school is utterly incompetent and doesn't understand the use of technology.

[canigooutyet]

It would have been better to say that emails will only be responded to between whatever hours.

Parents/guardians could then continue to email when they remember and staff switch off notifications for that account. Or better still, don't have the school email set up on your own phone.

[OoohTheStatsDontLie]

They should not be telling you when to email but they should be saying that staff will not answer outside working hours and encouraging staff not to check emails in evenings etc if they don't want to. You can either set your email to send at a set time, or preface your email with 'I'm not expecting a response outside working hours but don't have access to email in the school day'