Why how some parents think abusive emails to teachers are OK?

[MonaLisaDoesntSmile]

I left the teaching profession a few years ago. Met up with a few ex-colleagues and we spent part of the evening talking about work, and it reminded me quite a few abusive/demanding/threatening/passive-aggressive emails I got as a teacher, which is something I don't experience at all in my new job. Made me wonder- what makes people think this is suitable to write to anyone like if they were some sort of lesser form of life?

Most of those people were professionals and I don't believe they would get away with writing abusive emails like this to their clients or co workers, and they would most certainly kick off if they were to get an email from a teacher in the same tone they wrote theirs.

I sometimes see parents here 'fuming' over things, it would be so lovely if instead of fuming everyone tried to just be nicer?

I once got an email written at 9PM on a Sunday about a parent 'fuming' over a detention set for their child for an undone homework their child SAID they completed. Which they did not, but anyway, parents got a different story and their child always tells the truth etc etc. At 8 am on Monday another angry email demanding immediate reply, and at 12 another email copying the headteacher that they want to take this disgraceful lack of response on my behalf up with the management. I haven't even seen the first two until I got to work, and taught full day with a break time duty, not that the parent cared. Or a parent who clearly has not read school policies before selecting a school for their child, and then spend weeks arguing that such or such rule is disgraceful, and how they even asked around their friends who were of the same opinion that it was pointless and so on and so forth.

Just some examples, as I experienced or saw others experience far, far worse, which I don't want to write about as some would be quite revealing.

I know there are some unacceptable things schools do do, but many other issues could be solved, or would not exist in first place, if people were a tiny bit more composed and treated others like they want to be treated.

Is it unreasonable to expect a civil communication, whatever the circumstances?

I 100% agree that abuse is completely unacceptable. However, I do feel that if the school is providing email addresses then teachers should be responding within a reasonable time frame. Reasonable being next business day. And out of office put on if away for meetings/annual leave. Obviously if its complicated an email saying please pick up the phone or please give me a couple days to look into it is entirely appropriate.

I'm not quite at the school stage yet but as a mature student who previously had a fairly responsible job I am fed up with lecturers/tutors taking multiple weeks to answer an email or not adding me to email lists for over a year. I emailed and called and left a voicemail once saying that I was having a miscarriage and was going to the epu so wouldnt manage placement and asked him to call me for advice re taking a couple days off. He emailed back 6 weeks later saying he was just getting round to catching up on emails and calls.
I waited 3 days getting back to someone in my last employment as I was waiting for an answer from a different department. I was marked down on my appraisal and reduced bonus as I hadn't kept them up to date with progress.

I most definitely felt like some sort of rep in my school. Schools become more and more corporate anyways, a friend worked in an academy which called floors 'learning levels' and everything else had a fancy name, teachers also were not called teachers but something silly.

I understand people being upset and writing to teachers about concerns, but I found these are not the parents who are actually rude, and I can tell a difference between someone who is concerned and someone 'fuming' because their child was told off for not having equipment (because why on Earth would I expect a student to bring a working pen and an exercise book to class- but good on them for remembering a deo and hair gel!).

I just felt like I was doing an admin job 90% of the time, while I became a teacher because I wanted to teach.

Buswankeress, I think we're arguing the same point!
Maybe I worded it badly, but I meant to say that increasingly, (some) parents are taking the view that they are the customer and the school is the service provider and needs to court/kowtow to them. We in schools, however, do NOT subscribe to that view.

@catkind fair points, but parents SHOULD read school policies before they sign that they will abide by them. Parents waking up late stating such and such policy is ridiculous, well, it's a bit late for that when they are in y9 when it is not convenient.
Of course, if a detention is set for a day later and a parent wants explanation- it's fine, happy to oblige, but it's the tone and use of words such as 'unacceptable', 'I will not allow my child to sit this detention', 'It's utterly absurd that in this age children are being set detentions, are we in Middle Ages?'- I get the upset, but a simple 'I was wondering if you could clarify why Johnny got a detention, he seems to think etc etc' would suffice. And believe it, most teachers I know more happily investigate emails from parents who are writing politely and to the point, than a passive-aggressive parent.

@OhDearGodLookAtThisMess

Yes, that is exactly what I meant too! Crossed wires 😁

It seems to be across the board, teachers, nurses, doctors, fire, ambulance and police officers are often treated like that, and almost like 'customer service' is more important than their actual job.

History tells us that these jobs need to be accountable, because when they're not then bad things can and do happen and that's not right, but it would seem an increasing number of people have decided that accountability and transparency means being answerable, 24/7 to people who aren't trained in the specialist area they are complaining about and are unwilling to listen to reason and just have a tantrum, throwing accusations and insults. It's gone too far, these professionals train long and hard to be in a position to teach, save lives etc and for that they deserve a level of respect, while also being transparent and accountable.

A few years ago i organised a residential trip. A few days before we went a member of staff dropped out. The school told me I couldn't have a replacement. My husband agreed to come - he is self employed so this cost us money. We obviously ensured all protocols were followed.
The day we got back i had a phonecall from a parent. He told me that i was taking the piss by taking my husband, that he had already contacted the DoE about me and that my days as a teacher were numbered. It was an absolute torrent of abuse.

Missis
That is horrendous.

Iam. It was. It still upsets me.

FeatherStrong
Teacher clearly thought the email was too blunt. That's her issue, not mine at this point.

It becomes your issue when they refuse to deal with you and pass it up to their HoD.

But then I hope that I have dealt with it before the arsehole frustrated parent stage.

Mona: fair points, but parents SHOULD read school policies before they sign that they will abide by them. Parents waking up late stating such and such policy is ridiculous, well, it's a bit late for that when they are in y9 when it is not convenient.
To be fair I've already read some of the policies for schools DC are likely to (have no choice about) go to Both have policies I strongly disagree with but I'm not sure I'd be brave enough to register said objections when DC are just starting at a new school. Particularly the one that visibly has no relevance to DS at present (boys are not allowed long hair even if it's tied back; girls are not allowed trousers). I'd be "that parent" in a trice wouldn't I? What do you think the right process is if you are being asked to sign up to policies you disagree with? Bearing in mind no alternative schools available. I honestly don't know. Behaviour policies of course everyone likes to think their DC won't get on the wrong end of it.

I'm in the US and we are all encouraged to email the teachers at my child's school for anything we need to say.

I usually only use it to let the teacher know if I can't make my volunteer in the classroom day but I always get a very quick polite reply - the staff seem to check and reply to parents very efficiently during school hours - although maybe they don't if they get rude ones!

Catkind
You could become a school governor. You can raise your concerns about these policies at governors meetings. Chances are other parents feel the same way and you might bring about the changes in school policies that you want.

CabinGirl, My (limited) experience of US schools is that primary school teachers get more non-contact time throughout the day than in the UK.

This is why at our kids’ school we can’t email the teachers directly, and inbound messages are ‘traiged’ by a member of leadership before being passed on to the relevant member of staff. It feels a bit silly that messages like “DS is being picked up by Eric’s dad tonight” have to go through this process, but if it protects hard working staff from a minority of parents behaving like entitled twonks then fair enough...

Tell me about it. It's not just teachers...I am a volunteer coach of my daughter's volleyball team. Girls aged 10 and 11. Lots of mean girl behavior and when I called the Chief Bully up on her behavior - including the words, "You need to speak less and listen more" - this was reported back to numerous parents as "Coach Olympic told me to shut my effing mouth." And every single parent believed her - even when another girl actually was brave enough to say that actually, Chief Bully was lying. Parent's response: "My child doesn't lie." 🙄

OhDear

Yes I think they do - at our elementary school (which is tiny, around 200 pupils) they have specific teachers for PE, art, music, technology, a library session and guidance (which is a behaviour type lesson) so they get about an hour each day, usually split into two 30 minute sessions to do lesson prep or other work without having the kids there in the classroom.

The level of staff compared to UK primary school is incredible here. The art, music, technology, guidence and PE teachers split their time between several schools. But as well as the classroom teachers there is a headteacher who doesn't have to teach a class each day, a librarian, a nurse, and a full-time secretary. Which I think wouldn't happen in a tiny, rural UK school.

Catkind
You could become a school governor. You can raise your concerns about these policies at governors meetings. Chances are other parents feel the same way and you might bring about the changes in school policies that you want.

Well long term possibly if a vacancy came up and if anyone would vote for me. Not really a solution at the point of being asked to sign home school agreements. Or at the point of what I consider to be an unreasonable policy biting for one of my kids. There is much more traction in saying no this policy is discriminating against my child in these ways than saying I won't sign the HSA because I consider X uniform policy to be discriminatory against girls and Y behaviour policy to be discriminatory against children with SEN. It's not always even obvious how a policy is unreasonable until you actually see how it's applied in practice too. I think a lot of people have found this with the boot camp style academies - discipline and concentration sounds great until you find your child being repeatedly penalised for getting neck ache and needing to turn their head occasionally or whatever it is.

Never mind emails, verbal playground attacks are commonplace.

Today a y11 child I teach cane in wearing trainers. He was told off by his HoY and she provided him with correct school shoes in his size from a stockpile in the cupboard. By the time he returned to my lesson he has text his mum who was coming in to school on the rampage to Complain about him having to wear the shoes. I teach in a great school with very few behaviour problems where parents are generally very supportive, so god only knows what it's like elsewhere. Our head is very vocal about the fact that parents should not have direct email access to staff as it places unreasonable demands
On staff- I teach over 180 students- imagine if all parents felt they could email me regularly??

I agree with momo.

A colleague of mine was once followed home by a parent complaining their child had been given a detention for not completing coursework. Saw her drive out of work and followed her to her home and even pulled up behind her on her drive!

Not Completing pieces of work is a masaive ballache, as the teacher has to plan when to mark the 200ish students work. If students dont have it for their stated day, when the teacher plans to mark it, when does it get marked? Instead of whose work?

My kids are older now but I have never ever once emailed a teacher

A lot of the time these "boot camp" academies were perfectly bog standard schools when people picked them for their child so the "you knew the situation when you started them there" argument's a bit of a red herring. Of course if you've just recently enrolled your Y7 into Trunchbull Towers Academy and then start kicking off they've been told off for going into school not following the rules then people have a point; but if your year 10 joined Run O'The Mill Comprehensive which was then academised last year by the Trunchbull chain who introduced their new "no breathing" behaviour policy - you've probably got a fair point to be pissed off the goalposts were moved on you.

(Yes my daughter IS reading Matilda at the moment)

@catkind - I know what you mean, but imagine every parent had an input into school policies they agree or disagree with, no matter how strongly. It would be chaotic. You can voice your concern to the Head of governors, they may do consultation, but at the end of the day, rules are rules.
One of the schools I worked in totally banned all mobile phones. The uproar it created... So many parents felt strongly that their child has a right to have the phone on them at all times, just in case- what- they need to ring the child in the middle of the lesson? But teaching all of a sudden became easier, and the amount of bullying also massively decreased, phonecalls from friends ringing from under their tables stopped interrupting my lessons. So what I can say- rules are there for some reason and unfortunately the only option for you and your child may be to follow them, or see if there is enough support from other parents to ask for consultation to change them.

@likablum - Oh yes, I got those too. Parents coming to school at the end of the day, standing by the gate (one even barged into the staffroom to accost a colleague) because of something that enraged them. I almost wished we had a panic button in the room!

Rules are rules is fair enough. I don't like being told I am in any way complicit in them just because my child is attending the school. I did not sign up to them voluntarily, providing my child with an education is compulsory under law and I'm not financially able to home ed or private school. I just don't like the "well if you don't like it send your child elsewhere" argument when most of us have no choice at all. (By the way I'm a rule abiding bunny rabbit and so are my kids so this is purely theoretical )