Parents’ WhatsApp Group vile comments

[MadeleineMummy]

i am a member of my year’s WhatsApp group and one of the parents has posted rather a vile comment about one of the teachers. The child got a bad mark and the parent said she looked at the homework and the questions were ambiguous and badly worded. She then had a rant at the (rather young) teacher and said that she told her daughter that the teacher was an idiot and to ignore her. I posted that this was not an appropriate thing to say and would undermine the discipline in the school. Then several other women started having a go at me also stating concerns with the teacher due to her harsh marking and strictness. They said the WhatsApp group was the place to discuss concerns about the teacher and if I did not like it, I could leave the group.

I think the comments are inappropriate but also find the group invaluable for school issues, last minute changes and information about trips etc. but I find a small group of women seem to have taken over the group to rant about one teacher and victimise her. My child says she is strict but likes her as she is a good teacher and she loves the subject.

I feel like telling the teacher or the school as I have taken screenshots of the conversations, the comments are pretty bad and includes stuff about her personal life along the lines of (“she obviously needs a good shag”, “She looks like a frump”, etc). Do you think it would create a bad feeling if I share this with her? I also don’t know what it would achieve if I broach this with the school but I think that undermining a teacher is the most appropriate use of the whatsApp parents group.

what should I do?

What year is your child in?
Those women sound like vile bullies and they should be ashamed of themselves. They clearly aren't listening to your concerns, so I'd take it higher. It's just not acceptable.

The parents have a right to discuss what they like between themselves in a private group, if you think that they are making personal insults which are inappropriate you can either correct them yourself, ignore or leave the group. The teachers should have no interest in private discussions between the parents and its not your job to breach that.

I would have reported it quietly.
Given you were so brave to speak out, probably stating what everyone was thinking.

We had this problem before too. The parents were given notice of impending legal action if they continued. Everyone in the school was sent a letter outlining expected codes of conduct and eventually now we have monitored school apps with strict rules around what can be posted. Sub groups have sprung up with groups of friends but notably most parents have decided to steer well clear! And use SM for information only - which should be the purpose.

In our case the group was trying to gain support to have an English teacher sacked. It was horrific the things he was accused of. I wish honestly people would consider the harm they are doing.

As for the mean girls on this thread, it’s helpful to see there are people that happily bully even as adults and never gain maturity and emotional intelligence.

Well done op 💪🏻

Totally, horrificly inappropriate! And I can't imagine them slagging off their G P. in this vile way. But teachers are seen as fair game for rudeness (no I am not a teacher). Do not tell her she will be devastated. Definitely contact the headteacher. Good for you having standards and principles! A friend (headteacher of a primary) had this and put something into every newsletter about contacting the school with concerns, not bahaving inappropriately on social media, it did make most of the parents involved see sense (eventually)!

As a teacher you should know that the school can take legal action and schools actually have. It is defamation. As pp have said parents can be banned from the premises.
I'm sure the parents would be outraged if teachers started WhatsApp groups saying those things about parents!

That's patently ridiculous.

Don’t report, it’s not a school whatsapp, not school’s responsibility.

You’ve made your point, you now decide to stay or leave. Note that staying doesn’t mean you agree, it means you find receipt of some communication useful.

Does the op think that the teachers don’t have private discussions between themselves in the staff room, including criticism of certain children or the interactions of certain parents between the school? If so what is the difference?

if the school expects to see a private whats app group for parents prehaps they should put a public webcam in the staff room.

Wise up! They're defaming the teacher!!!

Do you engage in that sort of behaviour? Do you find it acceptable??

Because it's not fucking 'published'!!!

No parent has the right to verbally abuse and slander a teacher on a WhatsApp group that is used by other school users.
That is absolutely unacceptable.

If you have an issue with a teacher or homework marking you take your issue to the school directly and discuss your concerns like an adult.

You don’t leap on SM after a few wines and become abusive.

Thank you for explaining why these comments are not appropriate. Please don’t go directly to the teacher but send the screenshots to the HT. School will deal with this directly with the parents involved. The teacher may choose to involve their union for support.

This is one of the reasons so many teachers are leaving the profession - the daily abuse on social media and parent sites is just hideous.

It absolutely is a school issue because a member of staff is being attacked by parents. It is completely unacceptable behaviour and will be actioned if shared with school leaders.

The Head will act. Ours does. She takes no nonsense when it comes to parents bitching about her Staff. Schools find it hard enough to retain staff without a bunch of Whatsappers putting the boot in.

If you won't say it out loud, don't say it at all.

The threshold for defamation is quite high. For example if they falsely accused the teacher of molesting a child - that's defamation. Saying "she's frumpy and needs a shag" is disgusting, crass, trashy, misogynistic etc but it's not defamation because it does not affect her professional reputation. You'd get absolutely nowhere trying to set up a legal action for defamation on this basis.

Teachers setting up WhatsApp groups about parents would be unacceptable, yes, because the teachers are being employed and must maintain professional standards as part of their contract.

Can you really, really not see the asymmetry in the teacher-parent relationship?! Teachers have to be professional. They're being paid. Parents do not have to be professional. They're certainly not being paid and in some cases pay fees.

You sound like one the nasty parents in the group. The issue is if this is not addressed it undermines the teacher I'm the classroom with these parents telling their children negative things about the teacher. It's nasty and childish behavior.

Saying something like ‘she needs a good shag’ is so vile and misogynistic I’d be in the same situation as you op. Totally frustrated and wanting to do something about it but also fearful that rocking the boat could affect my child at school.

Do you have any allies? Can you form another separate nicer WhatsApp group? If not I’d probably do a slow drip drip of counter posts like ‘My child didn’t do as well as she could either but I think high standards are a good thing’ or ‘she hasn’t got the easiest job and deserves our support’ or ‘you’d probably be better off talking to the school about that Lauren.’

If a member of school staff spoke this way about a parent or child they would face disciplinary procedures as it is not acceptable. Parents who post things like this about teachers who are doing their job should be challenged about it. Most schools have acceptable behaviour policies for parents and they should include publishing defamatory remarks about staff. Parents need to remember these ‘private’ groups are not like friends or family groups and are seen by huge numbers of the school community. Would they want their professionalism challenged in this way?

It’s likely the school will have a social media and/or parent conduct policy, or some other form of expectations of parent behaviour. I don’t think many people realise that WhatsApp messages are considered alongside any other shared social media platform and comments that are libellous will be taken seriously. I work in a school and comments about a staff member in a parent WhatsApp group were shared with the school and the parents concerned received a letter from the local authority solicitor. It’s vile, and caused a lot of stress to the member of staff. I’d bring the comments to the attention of the headteacher, or a parent governor.

It's only a matter of time before this thread is picked up by the media, OP. I'd ask MNHQ to pull it if I were you.

Those parents sound disgusting. If they disagree with the teacher's marking they should take that up with the teacher, not tell their child to ignore it and then slag the teacher off to all the other parents. That's just nasty and immature.

No I wouldn’t report it,what’s said on the group should stay there. What difference would it make? Mums will always have a moan about teachers, why would you want the teacher to know? It may devastate her. I go by the “what people say and think about you is none of your business” approach.
Leave the group if you don’t like it, it’s not school run, you’ll just have to be better at keeping up to date with school activities.

Telling the teacher/the head is ridiculous. Do you tell everyone who is saying what behind their back?!

You’ve called out the bad behaviour, now you choose whether to aggravate a group of mums you likely won’t be rid of for a decade or keep your head down/leave the group.

I can see that. However schools can take legal action. There was an article quite a while back where a school did take legal action against a parent who wrote things in a WhatsApp group about a teacher. I've tried to find the article but can't. And the school won. It has been used by schools (the one I work at and several others where I have friends who are teachers) as an example of what can happen. People can not seriously believe it is their right to define others on a public forum (I understand it is not open to all public but you get what I mean) and there will be no consequences.

As other pp have said their school have taken legal action due to the comments being libellous. Which may be a better use of terminology rather than defamation as I said.

The mistake many posters are making here is in assuming that WhatsApp groups are private and therefore you can say what you want in them. They're not.