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’ve never emailed the school. My youngest is 13. But I can imagine someone emailing on 9 October and expecting a reply by the 12th October and complaining that “nothing’s been done” in 3 days, forgetting there was a Saturday and Sunday between those dates and a working day when you haven’t had time to deal with correspondence because you’ve been doing the other part of your job. (I work in a different sector where this happens.)

@TheExecutionOfAllThings

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?

If you RTFT, you'll see that I was responding to other idiots who were saying that teachers should "learn to manage their time" and only respond to urgent emails and ignore the non-urgent emails. I was saying it's not possible for teachers to know which emails are urgent without reading them first.

Oops. Think I misread in my haste.

It IS ridiculous for a parent or guardian to expect teachers to be available beyond the school day! Doctors are not on call 24/7, are they?

They just need to clarify, what they really mean is they don't want parents emailing at 10 pm expecting a reply at 10pm. They need to say that teachers will read and respond to emails only during the working day.

Is there a problem with parents who have a drink and then write rediculous or aggressive emails to teachers? that is another subject.

@ineedaholidaynow

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.

how is a request about no-email out of 9 to 5 going to affect these parents anyway?

Bonkers. How does every other industry in the world manage? Most of our staff just don't add their work emails to their phones, so only check at work.

@Janegrey333

Work emails can be set up to send replies that the person is not able to respond outside working hours and not to expect an immediate answer.

You don't need to work in an office to set this up.

It is normally referred to as "out of office", but that's just a name.

Teachers have a more challenging job than most. They actually NEED to be freed up when they are at home. Exceptional circumstances exist for a reason.

Sounds a bit precious. At our school we message whenever we want but teachers only answer during the school day, or just before kids arrive. I would never expect them to reply on the weekends or evenings.

Do they bollocks.

[quote herecomesthsun]@Janegrey333

Work emails can be set up to send replies that the person is not able to respond outside working hours and not to expect an immediate answer.

You don't need to work in an office to set this up.

It is normally referred to as "out of office", but that's just a name.[/quote]
I find the expression “out of office” jars because teachers do not just sit around at office desks all day. You call it what you wish, though.

Teachers have a more challenging job than most. They actually NEED to be freed up when they are at home. Exceptional circumstances exist for a reason.

I've done teaching and it can definitely be thankless but I really don't think you can describe it as exceptional. Also no one is saying teachers should have to respond to emails at night but they can just not look at them like everyone else.

I don't think having school operate in a completely different way to every other professional organisation is the answer.

If you RTFT, you'll see that I was responding to other idiots who were saying that teachers should "learn to manage their time" and only respond to urgent emails and ignore the non-urgent emails. I was saying it's not possible for teachers to know which emails are urgent without reading them first.

But that is precisely the point - if the school is saying don't email during evening hours it's because the teachers aren't managing their time and just turning their emails off and the onus on the parents instead. You are basically asking 30+ sets of parents (could be 100s) to monitor when they send something rather than telling ONE person to just put an out of office on and turn their emails off for the night.

If something is ACTUALLY urgent, it's not an email matter. URGENT means a phone call. Email is a 'to be dealt with at your convenience issue'.

May I ask why as a governor parents have your email?

Sounds like the school needs to deliver some email management training to their staff.

Can you not draft an email, save it and post quickly in the morning. Or send the draft to your email address at work and send it then. I haven't yet read the whole thread so others may have made the same suggestions.

I honestly can't imagine emailing a teacher or any staff at a school but it sounds as though that is normal practice now.

I don't think there is anything wrong with telling pupils' parents not to send emails outside of working hours at all.
Maybe some use that email address for other communications and don't want to have to sift through to get to the non work-related?

Is there any reason why an email can't be typed and the send time set to a time within the teachers' working hours? You can set a time to send in MS Outlook and Gmail so presumably this can be done with other software.

Teachers aren't emailed in the hope they can find them. It's to let the school know that A the student is missing and B any chance you can send an official message round the class. The police will have also been alerted.

Teachers and HT's get more than just have you seen Timmy's coat? If there's changes that impact the child the school need to be made aware of, it's often easier to send an email rather than phone reception and ask for a call back from that teacher.

For abusive senders there are things that can be done by the school including how the parent can contact the school.

Have to say I'm really surprised by most of these responses. I wouldn't dream of emailing a teacher outside of "office hours". What did people do before emails existed? Wrote a letter to be handed I the next day or maybe called the school during office hours.

Funnily enough, all the people justifying emailing outside office hours because they are "too busy" aren't too busy to read and post on mumsnet during office hours.

I would agree if this said you wont get a reply outside working hours. And thats said as a school admin who got an email at 9pm last night regarding today.

Some parents email and expect an immediate response no matter what time it is. And thats from teaching staff or admin.

I got an email from one parent that wasnt urgent as I went for lunch, fully intending to reply when I returned. Within half an hour whilst I was still at lunch they had sent a follow up demanding an immediate response.

Schools need to understand that email isn't synchronous communication you might send an email at a particular time, and mostly it will arrive quickly, but it won't always.

It's quite reasonable to inform people that emails won't be read outside of school hours, but not yo insist they're not sent. That excludes people who can't get to email during the day which is likely with dome jobs, or just because people are busy.

Most email clients have some option for setting up email filters to help you better manage mail, so maybe they need to educate staff as well as asking parents not to expect instant replies. (Also eBay sellers or anyone else, who complain you haven't instantly replied to the email they just sent.)

Parents can email any time, if the teacher only checks and replies during their work time that's fine. I couldn't resist writing that to the head out of work hours

Surely parents that send abusive emails at night can also do this during the day? Those parents shouldn't be allowed to email full stop. Otherwise it's like saying you can be abusive to teachers but only Monday to Friday between 8 and 5.

I say this as a spouse of a teacher who emails parents out of hours (their choice as they say they prefer to get it done) I alway tell them to send it in work time otherwise parents will always expect instant replies. It seems I'm not wrong looking at the examples of demanding parents expecting immediate responses already given.

Work email addresses shouldn't be used for personal reasons, and why would you? That's down on you for not setting up one of the many alternatives,.

Do you know that work emails are monitored? That the HT and IT support can read them at any time? Well if they have a decent system in place they can anyway. It's not just schools btw that do this.