I teach K and I am typically very prompt with email responses. I even reply after my contracted hours and usually within the same day an email is received. I had a parent reply to my newsletter email last week about the fact that they would not make it to parent-teacher conferences and requesting an alternate time. The problem is, I never saw or opened it as I had a different parent reply to the same email and the initial reply got buried in the chain. I get about 60 emails per day and don’t always have planning time so it is easy to lose track of things, although I am usually very prompt.
I got an email yesterday from the same parent reiterating what they had said and wondering if I had received their initial email. They did not seem upset it just seemed like a follow-up. I was a bit confused as I did not recall seeing their initial email and then checked to find that it was from 9 DAYS ago with no reply from me. I got back to them right away and apologized for my late response. I am woefully embarrassed and feel quite unprofessional!! It would be one thing to miss replying to an email about a student being absent due to sickness (still not good) but entirely another to miss an email about a parent-teacher conference. Has this happened to anyone else??