Drinking and driving is illegal, but drinking and emailing is not. Even if perfectly legal, the mix of impaired judgment and instant communication isn't one we'd recommend. According to a new study, though, more than a few parents do just that to their private school’s teachers and administrators.
In its article Don’t Click Send!, Attain magazine asked readers about parents’ communication styles with schools. About 100 Heads replied, and Attain discovered that parents click “send” without thinking. Based on the content, these parents indulged in a nightcap or two before composing the damning letter.
As one Head put it:
We have noted some interesting characteristics with emails from parents. Most of those received during school hours are normally brief and request information and clarification or notify absence etc. The majority of difficult emails are sent by parents in the evening. Those that are composed earlier in the evening tend to be shorter and often relate to an incident freshly described by their child. Emails later in the evening, after what we refer to as the ‘glass of wine’ threshold, are usually the longest ones and often include rhetorical flourishes that would be more fitting in an historical novel.
Attain’s editor Matthew Smith said he was surprised at the results, adding that “[it] seems clear that a small minority of parents do not think about the outcome they are looking to achieve when sending emails [and they] think it is acceptable to just fire off rants [because] they are the customer.”
Abuse in any form by anyone toward any member of your staff is never acceptable. You can, however, curb this intrusion by addressing the inappropriate behavior from the start.
- Establish a school wide policy on how such emails will be handled. This policy would cover who responds to specific sorts of emails, when escalation is necessary, and other similar details.
- Delineate a “chain of command” communication between parents and school members. Going straight to the “top” with an email addressed to the School Head can be one way parents try to get more immediate action. Sure, some problems must be addressed by the School Head, but chances are most issues can be handled by those “lower on the chain,” so to speak. Communicating to parents early on whom they should contact for particular problems may mitigate some of the aggravated midnight epistles.
- Don’t respond immediately. The sender of a late-night rant is clearly not functioning at his or her normal mental capacity. The sober light of day might give him or her a little clarity on the situation, as well as incite a little embarrassment. Besides, responding to angry emails when you’re angry is never a good idea; waiting gives you a chance to cool off.
- Listen. While drunken rants can wander off course and seem impossible to take seriously, there's a reason this parent has contacted you. They feel so strongly about this issue that—with a little nudge of liquid courage—they were willing to email you outside of regular business hours to take care of it. That fact alone is worth mining into the email to discover something with which to empathize.
- Clear logic trumps clouded emotion. In many cases, people become angry due to a miscommunication. Stating exactly what you understand to be the case as simply as possible could do much to help the situation. While we're on the subject of logical responses, don't respond to caustic epithets or threats. (Be careful not to become defensive!)
- Don’t tackle this all by yourself. An email about Timmy’s poor progress report is one thing; a tirade on which every member of the PTA has been copied is another entirely. Know when it’s too much to take on, and ask for support. Your communications policy should outline when reinforcements are necessary.
- Inform parents that this sort of behavior will not be tolerated. Whether by the message recipient or another administrator designated to handle these sorts of incidents, the parents should be made aware that this sort of behavior will not be tolerated by the school. As a last resort and if the messages do not stop, you could reconsider whether to renew their contract for the following school year, once re-enrollments come due. Abuse should never be welcomed or tolerated at your school.
Additional ISM resources:
Private School News Vol. 9 No. 8 Back-to-School Checklist for Parents Includes Social Media Tips This Year
ISM Monthly Update for Admission Officers Vol. 9 No. 2 Reminding Parents of the Greatness of Your School
ISM Monthly Update for School Heads Vol. 10 No. 10 Build a Sense of Community in Your Parent Relations Effort
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 29 No. 13 Use Your Parent Education Plan to Shift Parents From a 'Contract Mentality' to a 'Sense of Community'
I&P Vol. 38 No. 1 21st Century Education and Your School's Parents
