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.

MrsTerryPratchett It's not a competition! No person in any profession should be spoken to disrespectfully.

Literally nobody manages email like this. I am hugely supportive of teachers, but we cannot have a way of working that says “for everyone in the universe, including huge numbers of part time office workers of an incredible range of different jobs, email when you find it convenient, and get a reply when they can. For teachers, follow an elaborate and forgettable policy”. Sorry - madness. The school has to find another solution.

Manage expectations “we aim to reply within 48/36/72 hours” or “2/3 working days” etc. For anything urgent, contact the school by phone between ... and ...

@MrsTerryPratchett

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.

Can you directly email most of those jobs? We have our share of rudeness from our actual pupils, every day! I realise from reading this that it isn't easy for many parents to fit in with the request of scheduling emails or not pressing send until daytime, so I think the school needs to simply adopt the practice of many schools, that all emails go to the office. I imagine there would be complaints about that too.

Literally nobody manages email like this

Rubbish. Thousands of organisations and businesses have email policies that ask staff to limit out of hours communication via email.

@Enoughnowstop

Literally nobody manages email like this

Rubbish. Thousands of organisations and businesses have email policies that ask staff to limit out of hours communication via email.

Staff yes, clients no.

That's the point.

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

Except that ... as I'm sure many other teachers on this thread will attest to, some parents can be very demanding and downright rude if their emails are not answered immediately. Answering the next day is seen as "unprofessional" according to some parents' responses I've seen.

And sometimes email is intrusive - as much as one tries to ignore it.

Parents are not our clients.
Unless in a private school I suppose.

@Enoughnowstop

Literally nobody manages email like this

Rubbish. Thousands of organisations and businesses have email policies that ask staff to limit out of hours communication via email.

The difference is they are asking employees, not customers/service users, to limit out of hours emails.

If teachers are not capable of managing their handling of email themselves, I'd be very concerned about their general organisational abilities.

@Mistressiggi

Parents are not our clients. Unless in a private school I suppose.

They are your service users' guardians.

@Enoughnowstop

Literally nobody manages email like this

Rubbish. Thousands of organisations and businesses have email policies that ask staff to limit out of hours communication via email.

Maybe, but 20 years working in IT delivering email solutions to multiple other businesses and I have yet to come across one.

I have come across businesses that:

• set up an email rule to block email delivery out of hours
• encourage their staff not to reply out of hours
• set clear expectations that emails will not be responded to out of hours
• use a dedicated out of hours contact if there is a need to receive urgent communication, e.g. a dedicated number or a specific 'urgent' email address that is monitored by rota etc.
• asked for a blanket response to be set up out of hours to inform senders there won't be a response until Monday

I have genuinely never come across one that passes the responsibility for email timings on to their customers/partners/service users etc.

@Mistressiggi

Parents are not our clients. Unless in a private school I suppose.

I knew someone would pick on that.

'Clients' is shorthand. I have tenants or residents, nurses have patients, parking attendants have members of the public. 'Clients' is shorthand.

I have worked in numerous large organisations, from multi nationals to my current school. All have encouraged staff to switch off, protect their downtime etc. None have presumed to tell externals that they cannot send an email outside of prescribed hours. Such a bonkers idea. And tbh, very power trippy.

If I told everyone to email 8-5, the nice people might.

Where I work, they'd probably ask "which timezone?" Except they wouldn't, they'd just send mail when it suited them.

If teachers are not capable of managing their handling of email themselves, I'd be very concerned about their general organisational abilities

Seriously? All those teachers out there fucked off with the 11pm email which demands a response and it's the teachers that have poor organisational abilities?

Yes. Because the teacher shouldn't be checking emails at 11, and should have the backbone to push back if they do decide to read an email at 11 which 'demands a response'.

How do you think the rest of the world copes?! How infantalising to teachers.

All those teachers out there fucked off with the 11pm email which demands a response and it's the teachers that have poor organisational abilities?

Don’t respond is the answer.

Set your own boundaries and don’t push that task on to others.

As a teacher I have no problems with parents emailing me at any time. I'll respond to them as soon as I can when I'm at work.

I have, however, had an email from a parent at 8.30pm with another at 7.30am the following morning wondering why I hadn't resolved the issue or been in touch...

Not the point of the thread, but is it normal to be able to email your child's teacher directly? I have never been able to do this. Everything has to go via the school office, which is only open during school hours.

MrsTP in your own example - nurses have patients, teachers have pupils! Parents are not the equivalent of our clients in another job. Nurses have patients with family members, would be closer. We are not answerable to parents, and while we want to work with them that is not at the expense of our well-being (I am not affected in this way - but some staff at the school in the OP clearly are)

We are not answerable to parents

Loud and clear, believe me.

I'm sure you'd rather we actually focused on what is most important, the children.

I believe our school blocks any emails sent to teachers after around 8pm, and releases them the next morning. Seems a fair system, parents don't have to worry about sending emails at inconvenient times and responses aren't expected.

The difference is they are asking employees, not customers/service users, to limit out of hours emails.

Please provide companies asking clients to avoid emailing out of hours to.

You kind of are though. I'm both a teacher and parent, before I get leapt on. If I delegate the daytime care and education of my child to someone, that someone ought to feel some sort of responsibility towards them and me. That doesn't mean I would email in the middle of the night and expect a response there and then, but I would expect to be able to email and receive a response within a few days, for example. Or of the teacher felt it inappropriate to deal with the query, that they forward it to the relevant person. As I would expect from any person in a professional role with some level of responsibility and authority.

I'm an adult, I can manage my own inbox without my mummy boss intervening.