AIBU to think teacher and possibly school way out of line and WWYD?

[AstoundedandConfounded]

Name changed in case I somehow out myself!

I was mistakenly sent an email by a teacher from DS's school, which said about me "Don't you just wish you could tell her to piss off. It's clear where DS gets it from."

Just to clarify DS is in 6th form and I've emailed the school 3 times in his 6 years, so I'm not an annoying helicopter mother.

I am not happy about any of this, to say the least. I've been in touch with the head, shared the email and said I want to discuss it and received an apology back.

I have a meeting set up for this Thursday and am struggling to know how best to handle it. The issue I originally emailed in about was handled so badly that I think that is still my priority but I'm really hacked off that teachers are bad mouthing me and my DS (who is a good pupil) in emails.

WWYD?

Good job you can't bug the staffroom! It's OK for parents to express opinions about teachers, this site gets more like the DM every day in that respect, but not vv? The only issue is in copying it to you for which the person concerned needs a smack of the knuckles with a ruler!

Horrified for you. I'm sure you will by have a list of things you want to discuss and outcome you want and demand them!

It wasn’t unprofessional. It was obviously not intended for the OP’s eyes, and that was a (hair raising, foolish) mistake. There is absolutely nothing unprofessional about having a moan, only the time and manner in which you do so. Just because a task given or a request made of you is part of your professional role, doesn’t mean you can’t have an eye roll / ascerbic comment to make about it.

No, it’s not ideal, but it’s human behaviour and good to have a bit of a vent when you are working in a high pressure environment with (often stupid) demands being made of you every hour of the day. It’s awful and embarrassing that OP saw it and, again, very silly to have been written in an email, but I’m sure an apology will be given and lessons learned.

Eye-rolling a student would be unprofessional, as would purposefully sending a parent an email telling them to piss off.

Venting when you are stressed is not. What happened here is highly unfortunate but not, imo, unprofessional. I’m probably splitting hairs but, to me, it’s important, because what happened was just a mistake.

Re-reading my earlier post, maybe after Just because a task given or a request made of you is part of your professional role, doesn’t mean you can’t have an eye roll / ascerbic comment to make about it I should add privately - perhaps that wasn’t implicit?

Venting is fine eff. No one says teachers can't moan, whine, vent etc, whether justified or not. It's putting that in an email which is beyond stupid and incredibly unprofessional. You can't possibly claim otherwise

Well, I can. I think being purposefully rude to a parent is unprofessional of a teacher. I think accidentally emailing someone is a mistake.

The problem is Eff that the email was on the school server and therefore is the property of the school and would need to be disclosed if a request was made . Nothing on the school system should be regarded as private. This is critical and teachers should receive training on this . If you must vent do it outside of the work environment both physically and electronically.

Good job you can't bug the staffroom! It's OK for parents to express opinions about teachers, this site gets more like the DM every day in that respect, but not vv?

I think everyone can safely assume that teachers moan about parents and students amongst themselves in the class room. What they shouldn't do is send their bitching via email. If you send something by email there's always a chance someone else will see it. It's really unprofessional.

I think accidentally emailing someone is a mistake.

A mistake that wouldn't have happened if the teacher was being professional and not sending personal not work appropriate emails via their work email address.

I'm a teacher - I fully appreciate that occasionally venting is required to maintain sanity and that there are parents and children who would try the patience of anyone (I don't know how my own eldest's teacher stays sane sometimes) - but you just don't do it on email, social media, or anything other than a verbal unload in the staffroom! (And honestly usually it's nothing more than "they are driving me barmy this morning" before the great conspiracy theories arrive).

And yes, I've had reason to make a few fairly strong complaints against one of my kids' teachers this year regarding how she was ignoring all her SEN provision - and no, it's never going to be an amazingly warm relationship between us - but even so, we've managed to keep it civil and professional because there are going to be years going through school where you get teachers who respond better to you and your kid than other years (last year's was amazing and the two possibilities for next year are bloody awesome so we had to have a blip somewhere along the line).

Having mulled this all over, I think a school that allows a culture of bitching about pupils and parents is facilitating an unprofessional work environment for their staff.

Of course I talk about clients with colleagues, but I'm not slagging them off even in the privacy of our offices. If they are disgruntled with the service they've received, then we'll be thinking what went wrong that they feel that way. Occasionally, there will be clients with completely unreasonable issues that no matter what we do we can't solve but there are ways of dealing with that which again doesn't involve bitching.

I volunteer with a young people's organisation and we're not sitting around talking about how we'd like so & so's parent to piss off. There is a difference between venting about a frustration or difficult situation and bitching IMO.

The more I think about it, I feel quite surprised at all the people who think that bitching about specific people in your work environment is fine, as long as its not confined to email.

Really? Wow.

Sorry OP, I guess my slipped a long time ago!

Then again, I never was one to be

Yes.

Using HexagonalBattenburg's example, saying that a pupil is driving you barmy is venting and it may be that the sports teacher hears that and says "oh, is that Joe, he took the 9-1 loss to X school in the county football match last night really badly" and then HexagonalBattenburg says - "right, that makes sense, hopefully he'll have calmed down by the time I teach him again tomorrow." That's not bitching.

However, if HexagonalBattenburg said that X was driving her barmy this morning and the sports teacher turns around and says "oh, is that Joe, yes he's a right pain in the arse, just like his mother, I wish they'd just piss off" then that's bitching and not ok.

OP, I think you are winding yourself up now.

You know what has happened, you know that once you divulged bullying we all said the HoPC behaviour was totally unwarranted; we all know that kids can drive a Saint to drink,; All teachers know that parents can sometimes have utterly impossible wants, teachers are human.

You are going back to feeling affronted, looking for a personal stick woth which to beat the staff. If you can't get off that particular blame track then you won't be in the right frame of mind to get the information you need to take any appropriate action. Your anger will derail your intent!

Basically, stop reading the more alarmist hyperbole and get your ducks properly in a row!

some people are a pain in the arse. And most people aren't saints, which I'm afraid is really what you are expecting them to be.

That's pretty unreasonable of you.

Haven't read the full thread yet but I had to comment on this post. Your son sounds like a credit to you OP. Good for him. If I had a daughter in that school i would be kicking up a massive fuss for those comments

For example there was a big thing about the length of girls skirts and the head of sixth form told the girls that they needed to think of the impact that their short skirts had on boys and male members of staff and DS thought this was really bad, like the head of 6th form thought that men were uncontrollable beasts who couldn't hold it together in the face of a pair of legs. That kind of thing.

I honestly don't feel wound up or even particularly angry anymore, I do feel disappointed though.

I absolutely will not be looking to beat up any member of staff. I don't think at any point I've said that this was an outcome I was seeking.

I don't expect anyone to be a saint but I do expect a school or indeed any place of employment to want their staff to be professional and not facilitate a culture of bitching. Who benefits from that? I'm surprised that it is considered unreasonable to believe a school will set a professional tone for staff. Particularly when most schools want their pupils to have good behaviour and gossiping and bitching among pupils about other pupils is usually discouraged. How can there be one rule for staff and another for pupils?

I will be approaching the meeting focusing on the original issues and will also be requesting that it is not the Head of 6th Form who does his UCAS reference, as this is the person who usually does it.

Yes I take the point further up about using your work email address to vent, even just to another colleague. Madness.

I realise, as I sit with my coffee and think over my feelings, that this thread is too personal after a recent event (awful, bullying parent who has turned their attention from their child to a colleague). So I am vehemently defending the right to vent to colleagues because they really are the only people who fully understand the situations teachers find themselves in with parents. Still, not via email, as you say.

I still think Curious has it about right on this.

OP, I’m sorry this happened. It must be humiliating and worrying for you. I’m sure the teacher concerned is horrified. I hope you can both reach a positive conclusion and move on.

@EffYouSeeKaye

I think you're right teachers absolutely have the right to vent it's just the work email which makes it unprofessional. If OP had happened to overhear a private conversation between two teachers in the staff room it would be unfortunate but much more understandable.