Tough Situation

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Home : 2004 : November : 15

Tough Situation
By Tough Situation

This is a tough situation you face.

We had something SOMEWHAT similar, in that teachers were talking about parents and in doing this unintentionally identified fellow teachers who were also parents. We were discussing
Open House issues. A few teachers were supporting hosting Open House on different nights, at different times, for different grades, designed especially for parents who had more than one child in the school or twins/triplets whose teachers they needed to see. Their argument was that it would so much more accommodating to these parents. I can see the ideal.
The other teachers were supportive

of having Open House on one night only, for about 45 minutes. They felt it wasn't reasonable to require or even ask teachers to be at school during night hours for more than one night, because they all have families too, not to mention they're here all day long and have to be there at night as well. In short, they felt parents needed to learn to manage their time and juggle a little to be able to make it work. I can see the logic.

However, it was discomfiting to see the expressions on those fellow-teacher parents among the staff who were clearly feeling biffed. I was of the opinion that the teachers supporting a One-night Open House should have used more couth.

So ... nothing was said about it.

You have a choice. You can talk to your administrator or team to gather ideas on how best to handle it, or you can muster up the courage to say it yourself without consulting anyone b/c it's something you really believe in.