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.

Imagine if we all could email, police, nurses, social workers at our whim.

Do students count as well?
DS1's teachers (he's just started uni) were always sending him emails out of hours (homework/test results/instructions for the next lesson) - 10pm at night and Sunday afternoons.

[quote TheLastStarfighter]@MitziK Maybe RTFT before being so superior. OP already explained being off work.[/quote]
Already posted on it once, which you may have noticed had you read it all.

Being off work means there's even greater opportunity to actually email staff at an appropriate time.

We are told not to email each other outside working hours if we can help it at work at the moment too. I think that you can set your email to send at a later date so it shouldn't inconvenience you.

completely missing the point that asking parent not to email out of hours IS EXACTLY what they’re doing - setting boundaries. How can some posters be so entitled?

No. They set boundaries by having the discipline to check, open, respond to emails when it suits them. You know, like every other profession.

What’s entitled is trying to dictate the terms of when others send asynchronous communication to you.

@MitziK so you posted on it but didn’t read it? Twice?

And you realise it wasn’t about emails on that one day that OP was off, but more generally.

What’s entitled is trying to dictate the terms of when others send asynchronous communication to you

Is it? The OP says that the school are “respectfully requesting”. They’re just asking that parents are a bit considerate of how countless out of hours emails might affect staff.

Asking for bit of consideration isn’t exactly “dictating”.

No. They set boundaries by having the discipline to check, open, respond to emails when it suits them. You know, like every other profession.

I work in a different profession and we are also been told to be considerate about when we send things. It can affect some people if they receive an email hassling them in the evening.

You should be so lucky you are allowed to email the teachers
We are strongly dissuaded from doing so

@AdoreTheBeach

I am so chuckling at the poster saying for the teachers to have boundaries - completely missing the point that asking parent not to email out of hours IS EXACTLY what they’re doing - setting boundaries. How can some posters be so entitled?

You missed the point spectacularly. You cannot set boundary's for other people with regards to your own work/life balance. You set these for yourself. I don't get work email on my phone - my decision. I know I would struggle to switch off from work if I saw messages coming through and would just deal with them. So I don't have access on my phone. I can log in to the work system and check them if I really want to. I limit the time I do that too as we all need time away from work. But that's up to me to do, I cannot ask clients/work colleagues not to email me on my time off, they email when it's convenient for them and I will deal with it when next at work. That's the whole point of email. Same when you get an email during the working day - it's dealt with at an appropriate time, not necessarily straight away as you might be working on something else or be away from your desk etc.

If you don't want to get work emails out with working hours, then that's on you to sort by not accessing your work emails. Don't have them pushing though to your phone. Don't have them on your phone or set the rules on your phone to decide what comes through and when.

It's not about being entitled, it's about taking responsibility for something that is in fact your own responsibility. Own the fact that either you are happy to check emails while at home or you are not and act accordingly. Instead of expecting others to act in a way you find acceptable.

If you don't want to get work emails out with working hours, then that's on you to sort by not accessing your work emails. Don't have them pushing though to your phone. Don't have them on your phone or set the rules on your phone to decide what comes through and when.

And what if your colleagues do need to contact you urgently?

Is it? The OP says that the school are “respectfully requesting”.

They’re still trying to pass the responsibility for setting boundaries/inbox managing to parents rather than themselves. That’s trying to dictate the terms no matter how nicely you do it.

I work in a different profession and we are also been told to be considerate about when we send things

Are you doing that for internal comms or are you asking external clients/service users to do it? There’s a very big difference.

If colleagues need to contact you urgently then they phone. Email is not an appropriate tool for urgent communication.

What’s really weird is the assumption that teachers are sat watching Netflix and their phone pings with a work email that they then check and ruin their evening. And people talking about ‘outside working hours’. Many, many teachers are accessing their emails in the evening because they are working. It’s part of our working hours.

We’ve been told as staff not to send emails in the evenings so any emails I write when I’m working in the evenings are scheduled for 8am the next day. I’m clearing my inbox in the evening, but I’m not adding to anyone else’s evening workload.

I work for other businesses and have never been contacted out of hours by an external client. Maybe they have the same etiquette in their workplace nowadays.

And what if your colleagues do need to contact you urgently?

Email isn’t an appropriate medium for emergency communication, unless you’ve got some emergency inbox set up that’s monitored on a rota 24/7.

Even the most dedicated email answerer is asleep/offline sometimes.

Easier for them just to only check them between those times. I often email late at night when I remember something.

I work for other businesses and have never been contacted out of hours by an external client.

Has your organisation expressly told them not to?

Easier for them just to only check them between those times

Except I do a lot of my work between 8pm and 11pm which would be difficult if I couldn’t access my emails just in case a parent wanted to write one.

Except I do a lot of my work between 8pm and 11pm which would be difficult if I couldn’t access my emails just in case a parent wanted to write one.

As do I.

I don’t open anything I don’t want to though. That’s easy too.

@TheKeatingFive

And what if your colleagues do need to contact you urgently?

Email isn’t an appropriate medium for emergency communication, unless you’ve got some emergency inbox set up that’s monitored on a rota 24/7.

Even the most dedicated email answerer is asleep/offline sometimes.

When I say urgent, I don't mean life and death urgent. Sometimes my colleagues need a response within a few hours and as a part-time worker I would prefer them to send it by email rather than phoning at home immediately. Obviously , if I don't answer the email they would phone but this does give me a few hours.

Gosh, aren’t you the best, Keating

What’s entitled is trying to dictate the terms of when others send asynchronous communication

But a number of teachers on this thread have said that there are parents who don't regard email as asynchronous; that these parents regard emails as synchronous and are demanding & rude when teachers don't answer straight away.

Gosh, aren’t you the best, Keating

Fgs, I never said anything of the sort. It’s basic common sense and I’m not sure why it’s would be so difficult to apply.

@TheKeatingFive

I work for other businesses and have never been contacted out of hours by an external client.

Has your organisation expressly told them not to?

No. They don't need to as most businesses wouldn't expect a reply out of hours and therefore wouldn't send us emails in the first place .If a client wanted to be able to contact us out of hours we would charge them extra.