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.

I'm a teacher and this is silly. We are told that we dont need to read or reply to any emails between 5.30pm and 7am the next day. Parents are also told not to expect a reply in between these hours. They are allowed to send them whenever they like though!

Lower exposure compared to what, @RainStormTea? It doesn't make sense without a comparator!
I'm a little long in the tooth to retrain as a social worker, and I suspect that would be out of the frying pan and into the fire - not an easier job in the slightest! I could leave if you want but we couldn't recruit in my subject last time there was a vacancy so your dc might be without a teacher.

[quote 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.[/quote]
Why are you expecting teachers to carry out PHEs role?

I just wonder if the school/teacher received emails out of hours and parents demanded quick reply or made the complaint them not replying soon enough. Otherwise I can't understand them enforcing the time they can email.
So I feel sympathetic to the school.

They should have tackled those parents rather than putting something in place which could mean some parents can't get in touch with them.

It's a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

There's a host of different ways the school could tackle this in fact, loads of suggestions on the thread.

Maybe the op could suggest some to school eg server settings, set firm expectations, stop parents having direct teacher emails etc.

Just feels a bit like this is an issue loads of workers have been grappling with for a decade or so

yes, that's a totally stupid rule made up by somebody that doesn't understand e-mail.

Having individual emails for teachers be the go-to point probably causes a lot of issues, even when it should be a 'reply at your convenience', many expect instant results and even in schools where there is a system of using one centralised email (and putting teacher name or issue in the subject) to filter things out, teachers replying with their own quickly get passed around.

There needs to be something better than the demanding freeforall happening in some places, but it needs more thought out than 'don't email at all outside of these hours'. Not all email services give the option to delay sending that some think parents must be inept not to use (mine doesn't, but does give the option to create automatic actions based on the subject or sender), some people are working 12 hour+ shifts over the time given, and - at least with my DDs' school, we get emails from the school at all times including at midnight, parents respond to emails we get out of hours too - an example that happened at my DDs' school a couple weeks back - emailing a change in PE uniform policy in the late afternoon with expectations that it will be followed by kids who have PE the next day is going to get responses, even if it's sent at 5:30.

Surely it is much better to tell parents that emails won't be responded to outside office hours and that they should not expect a response before a certain timescale (24 hrs or a working day or similar).

I've just reread the OP. And it says not to email HT or Class teacher out of hours. That means parents are still able to email school office with urgent email out of hours. I see no problems there.

@Hopoindown31

Surely it is much better to tell parents that emails won't be responded to outside office hours and that they should not expect a response before a certain timescale (24 hrs or a working day or similar).

It's probably me being a bit dim, but the more people you need to include in your idea of where to sort things out - especially when they are as broad a church as "parents" - then the less your chances of success are.

I still think the school could manage this a lot better. From a technical and customer service point of view.

Seems more reasonable to tell parents to not expect responses outside of working hours than stop parents emailing BUT I can understand why Heads would be trying to help staff with their work-life balance at the moment.

Schools aren't fun places for teachers at the moment.

My OH's school uses the Class Dojo system to filter messages from parents which means he can put a block on receiving them between certain times of the day. It's designed to thwart those parents who will email at the weekend/midnight and get huffy if they don't get an immediate answer and it works! It's not a difficult system for schools to put in place.

I suspect this is happening because people are badgering for immediate responses, especially given how little respect seems to be given to teachers by lots of people.

Having said that, I agree with those who are saying there's no need to say don't email at certain times, just manage expectations re when a reply can reasonably be expected.

I think it's likely to be a misunderstanding, and they're only being responded to during working hours.

@feistyoneyouare

I suspect this is happening because people are badgering for immediate responses, especially given how little respect seems to be given to teachers by lots of people.

Having said that, I agree with those who are saying there's no need to say don't email at certain times, just manage expectations re when a reply can reasonably be expected.

Some of the messages I've seen from parents are astounding! So rude and entitled, as though my OH works for them.

I wouldn’t expect a reply from a teacher (or any profession) outside of working hours but to say people can’t email outside of those times is weird.

I think the head and staff need to get a grip really

Uneasyy, I agree, most decent parents won't expect that either. But even few years on MN, I've seen so many entitled parents ranting about teachers, so I can see actually there maybe many who does.

And I also think it's a possible misunderstanding as Spidey66 says, they won't respond rather than don't email.

Some of the messages I've seen from parents are astounding! So rude and entitled, as though my OH works for them.

I wonder if people have any idea how the average social worker, nurse, parking attendant, call centre worker or retail worker gets spoken to every day.

Fucking ridiculous.

MrsTerryPratchett, I think that's very silly comment. Just because other profession gets them too, it doesn't make it ok for teachers to receive them. Why need to compare? Everyone deserves respect.

Just set up any emails to be sent in the hours requested, easy enough to do.

Well how many social workers bosses ask people not to email them outside office hours?

Clue: none.

I’ve never heard a request like that in any other profession.

Why don’t teachers just deal with emails in work hours like everybody else?

@pastandpresent

MrsTerryPratchett, I think that's very silly comment. Just because other profession gets them too, it doesn't make it ok for teachers to receive them. Why need to compare? Everyone deserves respect.

It's the expectation that teachers should somehow have to be protected from reading things, by all the parents having to go out of their way. While everyone else just manages this.

People say stupid things, people write ugly emails. Particularly when they are stressed and it's to do with something important. It's just a fact of life. Which means the teachers and the schools should be managing it. Not trying to manage communication in a weird way which won't actually stop the idiots, just the non-idiots.

If I told everyone to email 8-5, the nice people might. The drunk, abusive people would still email OOH.