To rather resent being threatened with 'disciplinary action' over this one...

[ravenAK]

I'm a teacher. Haven't missed a parents' evening in 9 years (except when on ML, obviously). Supposed to be at one this evening.

On Friday, dh springs on me that he HAS to be away with work today & tomorrow, involving an overnight stay.

There's really no way the 3 dc (aged 8 months to 4 years) can be looked after until 9pm in his absence. We spend the weekend looking at ways of throwing money at the problem (well, I do. Dh thinks it frankly ridiculous that I'm even contemplating an extra seventy quid childcare so that I can work late - he doesn't really 'get' the culture I work in...)

It's just not do-able. I inform Head of Year (organising the evening) on Monday, & make arrangements to ring parents who want appointments (7 of them) & discuss issues over phone/arrange individual meetings.

Headteacher hears about this today (poor communication - yes, I prob should have gone to see him myself - was told by HOY that it was unnecessary) & carpets me.

His take is that I am required to do the parents' evening & should spend my lunch hour ringing CM (ds & dd1) & MIL (dd2)& 'telling' them that I will be home 4 hours later than expected.

I point out that I had, actually, explored all options before declaring myself unable to attend, & that both CM & MIL have already made it clear that they can't keep the kids until 2 hours past their sodding bedtime...

Head mutters darkly about 'disciplinary action'.

AIBU to be thoroughly pissed off?

[fizzbuzz]

But...you are allowed emergency time off if c/care breaks down.

Am sure this is the law, here

Even if it was known about in advance, things happen.....like dp's double booking.

Having said that, my dp KNOWS my parents evenings come first. But if you offerd to contact/ see parents then you are covered anyway.Not really disciplinary stuff

[pointydog]

ANyway.

Let's focus on the people who really matter here - the parents.

Raven phoned all her parents and they were perfectly happy, seemed very undertsnading of a tricky situation and she has made alternative arrangements to suit them, whether face-to-face or phone, depending on their preferences.

She is a [professional and she has satisfied customers. She has done an excellent job. So, since your customers have been dealt with very well - much better than many private sector customers - YANBU that your boss is being so hostile.

[pointydog]

Teachers can be so damn insecure on teh one hand and so high andmighty on the other. It is an annoying trait of teachers.

How often do you get other professionals asking 'oo I had to let a client down because of xyz issue in my personal life, how bad am I?' And then getting loads of similar professionals wading in and bashing them? You don't. I've got cross with teachers before for being such apologists. Get tough, everyone else is.

It's like this myth that is perpetrated that the private sector shows us how things ought to be done while the public sector (and not-for-profit) shambles along. What rot. They just never, ever admit when they have ballsed up and their accountability record is not dragged up in a multitude of public forums.

[SummatAnNowt]

YANBU

I also think you're very brave to post the issue on a site where people are so anal about their children's schooling!

[ravenAK]

No, it's fine - I posted on AIBU, I wasn't expecting everyone to agree with me!

Anyway.

Head has now got back to me re: the memo I sent him after our convo formally setting out that on this ONE occasion, I couldn't attend this ONE Parents' Evening, & giving a detailed breakdown of the utter impossibility of finding childcare, & the attempts I'd made at the eleventh hour to do so...

He's said he completely understands, accepts that the situation was unavoidable & has thanked me for my efforts.

It appears that what he was REALLY pissed off about was finding out at the last minute, which is fair enough.

I still maintain IANBU to think he should've asked me to clarify the situation before assuming I was brazenly malingering & shouting threats of disciplinary action at me.

Anyway, the au pair's out of the question at least until we move house, but dh now has an A2 copy of my work calendar with all evening commitments high-lighted in flouro orange...

[twinsetandpearls]

glad it was sorted out

[PeachyAndTheSucklingBas]

my friend is a cm to a teacher who did what your head suggested and made that call

teacher no longer has a cm and can't find another, is ouut of work (CM 'sacked' her as she had her severely ill dad to care for and couldnt risk it happening again as she cannot have dad, dementia in last stages and kids home at time- her dad is now passed on)

so the alternative was not a disciplinary but a job loss

yanbu, as a parent I would have understood as i ,erm, yes have kids too

our parents evenings btw are organised days not weeks ahead

[Mumsnut]

As a parent, Raven, I would have put it down to LIFE and forgotten about it.

[Mumsnut]

You having to cancel, i mean.

[pudding25]

Haven't read all the post but YANBU! I can't believe people think you are. You have dealt with all the parents and rearranged things. Your head is a shit. Get in touch with the union for advice just in case.
Your DH should have spoken to you first but if it is a huge crisis mtg he is going to, then some things cannot be avoided in the current economic climate.

[pudding25]

Oh, glad you have it sorted now.

[MsHighwater]

No way were you BU. Stunned at how many posters seemed to think you were.

Shit happens. Glad your HT eventually saw sense. I hope some of your critics on this thread do the same.

[dilemma456]

Message withdrawn

[dilemma456]

Message withdrawn

[EightiesChick]

I do think your DH should have taken on the task of sorting out who would look after the kids, crisis or no crisis. It's excusable for him to forget one time, yes, but having done that, it's then his mess to clean up. Seems unfair to me that you had to take the hit at work. He seemed (from what I can gather) to just tell you and assume you would sort it.

I think it was ultimately excusable, and glad it has worked out OK now. However, I'm in a not dissimilar job and I have to say, my first thought would have been to see the options in this order:

• tell dh that childcare had to be found as my commitment was a major one
• only then, if it really was completely impossible, would I have said I couldn't do the parents' evening.

whereas you seem to have done it the other way round, seeing missing the parents' evening as the first choice option.

However, the threat of disciplinary action was definitely OTT. If anything, I would have thought hauling you into the office for a stern (but off the record) chat about how it must not happen again would be the way to go. You'd have felt narked and told off but there would then be no consequences unless it did happen again.

[ravenAK]

'you seem to have done it the other way round, seeing missing the parents' evening as the first choice option'

Definitely not!

I did say in the OP that my first reaction was to explore all the possible options for childcare. It's how I spent a substantial chunk of last weekend.

There wasn't a viable option for love OR money.

Quite apart from professional obligations, from a purely selfish perspective, I have spent every free period, lunch hour, & after school this week playing phone tag with parents.

There is absolutely no way that I would see all that extra buggeration as a 'first option', believe you me.

This is the response that annoyed me in the first place, tbh - the Head simply assuming - on no basis whatsoever in my previous track record of professional commitment - that I'd fail to attend in any circumstances other than having completely exhausted absolutely every alternative.

[findtheriver]

Very interesting reading this thread!
Having worked in both the private and public sector, I know just what a pile of poo it is when private sector workers tut tut and do the whole 'It wouldn't happen in the private sector. Standards are so much higher, there's none of this slacking!'.

When I worked in the private sector, leisurely lunches were a regular event. I worked hard, but the work load was always manageable.

I am also a trained teacher and have worked in private and state sector. As a state school teacher, I rarely had a lunchbreak. My lunch hour (ha ha 45 minutes!) consisted of writing emails, phoning parents, seeing kids - in other words full-on. But still a piece of piss compared to what you're doing the rest of the day - standing in front of a class of 30 teenagers, teaching and interacting in an interesting and effective way. It's damn hard work, and IME, workers in the public sector tend to have a more professional approach to their job than private sector. Certainly I found the job of teaching far more stimulating and challenging than working in the legal profession.

I think the Head in this case behaved like a bit of an arsehole with very limited people skills - but it sounds as though he realises this himself and backtracked later!

[noonar]

raven has pursued all her usual avenues as far as finding childcare goes, so here is a question to all those of you who think raven is being unreasonable...

do any of you have such young children? if so, would you ring up an agency to request a babysitter that your children dont know, in order to attend the parents evening? it sounds as if that it raven's only option.

my children have never been looked after by anyone that they do not know/ met in advance. to have a stranger babysitter look after them would be very distressing for them. perhaps raven feels the same about her dc. they are very very young.

she has offered to rearrange the appointments. she is not trying to get out of anything!

[noonar]

how many of you would let a complete stranger put your 8 month old baby to bed? i certainly wouldnt?

[noonar]

well? would you?

[nooka]

I wouldn't let a total stranger put my 8 and 9 year old to bed. They would be very unhappy if I did. I certainly would not have done this when they were little.

[twinsetandpearls]

findtheriver there are ultra professional and damn lazy ones.. I suspect they would be ultra proffessional or lazy whatever job they did. It is about the people in the jobs that the job title.

[twinsetandpearls]

Noonar if it was the only option to meet my proffessional commitments I would do. But I know I am the exception.

[noonar]

i teach too. i would meet my professional commitments on another day