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 respect my dc teachers very much.
they do a great job.
I still will send emails when convenient for me and expect the teacher to manage their workload/access to emails themselves.

abusive messages are not acceptable, but getting stressed out because you left your notifications on at night. really?!

Not ridiculous at all. Many companies ask the same thing of their contacts. The last company I worked for insisted that even if these were received (and generally people didn’t do it) we should never respond after hours as it encourages the culture of always being at work.

If you can’t do it in working hours, set the email to delay sending.

@LiveFromHome

*The problem is the difference between what's "urgent" and what parents think is "urgent". *Things that are urgent: a child is missing, a child is hurt, a child has been arrested etc

Ludicrous. Utterly fucking ludicrous.

My child is missing... I'll email the teacher thought no parent ever.

You're taking the piss.

If your child is missing and you phone the parents of someone in their class (the only person in their class you have number for). They talk to their child and their child says they're friends with the new boy/girl in the class and they might know where he/she is. That child doesn't know the new child's surname, just their first name and doesn't have their contact info. Would you contact the school? If not, why not? Don't you want to find your child? Schools will be informed the vast majority of the time when a child is missing you doughnut. Schools know who children hang out with and have all their contact information. Teachers know a lot more than most parents about their children's social lives.

The problem is the difference between what's "urgent" and what parents think is "urgent".

BuddyRun if it's urgent you CALL you don't send an email

A child being arrested? You'd email the school, REALLY? Classic MN

I don't know about other schools but if a child tested positive at DD's school (or indeed was off for any reason) we wouldn't email the teacher, but the office. If during working hours, we would ring. They would then pass the information on if necessary.

Would you contact the school? If not, why not? Don't you want to find your child?

by sending an email I wouldn't expect them to even read it before 9 or 10 the next morning, they deal with phone message first anyway....

@ZezetteEpouseX

The problem is the difference between what's "urgent" and what parents think is "urgent".

BuddyRun if it's urgent you CALL you don't send an email

A child being arrested? You'd email the school, REALLY? Classic MN

You've clearly never worked in a school if you don't think schools are immediately contacted when these things happen.

Don’t check them then!!
Plenty of people work in jobs where they don’t have access to personal emails so couldnt email between those hours.

You've clearly never worked in a school if you don't think schools are immediately contacted when these things happen.

fine, email the school, it's the least efficient and helpful way to deal about it, but go for it. Meanwhile, I will email about the Nativity Play costume at 11pm if that's the only time I have to deal with it. Because that's what emails are for.

As a governor I have had quite a few emails late at night from parents who have obviously had too many glasses of wine and have just sent a ranty email, telling me they are going to/have copied in Ofsted, the press, MP, Boris(!) if I don't respond immediately. I've even had one arrive at 2am demanding an immediate response. Most of the things they complain about are usually trivial too.

Schools put in rules like the OP's school has because of parents like these.

It is all very well saying we won't respond out of hours, but they will keep emailing and escalating up the food chain before they get a response, usually getting more and more aggressive as they go.

@ZezetteEpouseX

You've clearly never worked in a school if you don't think schools are immediately contacted when these things happen.

fine, email the school, it's the least efficient and helpful way to deal about it, but go for it. Meanwhile, I will email about the Nativity Play costume at 11pm if that's the only time I have to deal with it. Because that's what emails are for.

Do you have an emergency 24 hour phone number for your child's school?

I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the school to ask to avoid it to be honest. It’s way easier to answer each email as they come in rather than having to answer 20 emails all in one go in the morning, it means parents aren’t waiting too long for a response, just IMO anyways, they probably meant it in more of a ‘teachers won’t respond outside of work hours’ the amount of people who will ring me up first thing in the morning and shout at me because I haven’t replied to an email they sent the night before outside my working hours is ridiculous eyeroll

We've had the same request from DC school.

We have been told since September that we must send emails to teachers between 8.30 and 3.30 and if we are sending an email outside of that time to schedule it to deliver between 8.30 to 3.30 the following day.

And if anyone doesnt know how to schedule an email to send at a later time, they can ring the school receptionist who will talk them through it.

I thought it was a bit of an OTT request.

We had this during home learning at my DD's independent school except that the hours when we were allowed to send emails were between 9am and 1pm. It was absolutely ridiculous and made the school look utterly stupid - implied that the teachers were incapable of operating technology or managing their own time. It would have been completely acceptable to say that teachers were only expected to reply to emails during working hours and that they might on occasion respond the next working day, for example. This was a school were there was no live teaching btw.

If anyone were in any doubt about the towering demands placed upon your average teacher, this thread would sort them out.

I can see how contacting a head teacher about Covid cases might be useful - VIA TELEPHONE, as they are paid the big bucks and have responsibilities for the whole school.

But are we really at a stage where poor Miss Smith, fresh from teacher training and at the bottom of the pay scale, is expected to have her phone glued to her hand at all hours of the day and night just in case an URGENT email comes through about Covid? If so, we have far bigger problems than parents emailing at 7pm.

Do you have an emergency 24 hour phone number for your child's school?

If it’s an emergency and the school is closed, you call the police. In fact, if your child is missing you should always call the police.

Do you expect teachers to be available 24/7 by email but only for emergencies? So let’s get rid of non-urgent emails, fine, but you would email at 1am and expect them to have their notifications on to deal with it?

The problem with rules like these though is that the only parents who will pay any attention are the ones who wouldn't send abusive emails in the first place.

So basically, to follow on from my msg above with the request we've had, instead of 10 parents sending messages in the evening and the teacher responding whenever she has time, the parents would all schedule the email to be sent at 8.30am so teacher still has same amount of emails to deal with anyway.

@doctorhamster

Email addresses are a closely guarded secret at my dds primary. I truly had no idea it was the norm to be able to email your child's teacher

Same. I’m at this thread! We used email to communicate with teachers during lockdown but that was it! Before lockdown we could have a chat at the door if required, now we have been told to call the office who will arrange for teachers to call instead.

@ILoveAllRainbowsx

Gmail allows you to schedule the email to be sent later.

Which is all very well. But getting even 3 parents to sort out is like herding cats. And totally swerves the fact that (getting boring now) this is something a third rate IT support technician could solve in a single place with a few clicks, if the school had half a clue.

At the risk of sounding snippy, if they are this pisspoor at something so fundamentally basic, god alone knows how good their actual teaching is ....

Would you contact the school? If not, why not?

Yes, I'd phone them, because it's urgent. If there was no answer I'd call the police, who deal with missing children much faster and more efficiently than a school who ate only contactable via email will.

If I emailed the school I wouldn't expect a reply till the next day.

Schools will be informed the vast majority of the time when a child is missing you doughnut.

Yeah I'm sure the police email schools as a first point of call all the time about missing children, they have no actual emergency contact numbers anywhere, you numpty.

I hope to Christ you're not a teacher.

No, if schools know this is an issue for their staff they need to support staff to be confident in not checking their email outside working hours. Telling people when they can send an email is not reasonable.

@MrMeeseekscando

I agree, out of office replies exist for a reason. It's not up to you to manage their time. What a ridiculous thing to say!

No it’s not ridiculous. Teachers do not work in offices. 🙄

No it’s not ridiculous. Teachers do not work in offices. 🙄

They are still functioning adults who are capable of putting on an out of office and closing their email account for the evening - or are you saying they're not?