I recently had a conversation with a teacher who was terminated from her teaching positon and reduced to a parapro with a resultant salary decrease of $41,000.00. The union was unable to help her. I asked her how it came about and she said that a new VP had it in for her but it had been provoked by "parent complaints". I am not here to say whether parents have a right or not to complain but I do have a concern that "parent complaints" are often the source of friction between a teacher and the administration and when things get bad enough they can end up like this teacher whom I met. For the purpose of conversation. I know we have a senate at Nathan Hale but has the Senate created a policy for how "parent complaints" should be handled. Here is my suggestion.
In most highschool situations "parent complaints" are derivative of "student complaints". Not attempting to disparage students and their intentions but from my standpoint student's have two primary objectives when it comes to their classes 1.) getting a good grade 2.) not getting in trouble with their parents. Not getting a good grade or having attendance problems leads them to getting into trouble with their parents. This dynamic often leads to a complaint against the teacher for numerous and asundry reasons. If the student is vociferous enough in their complaint to their parent, and persistent enough and the student can claim "every student" feels that way a parent will often take it upon themselves to complain to the administration.
I am very concerned about this uncontrolled and unregulated complaint system against teachers. I think we need a policy about how parent complaints should be handled. I believe we should have a form that includes; "the student complaint" plus "affirmation of the student complaint by the parent" and this form should be submitted to the administration at which point the administration should forward the complaint to the teacher and give the teacher a few days to provide their response. After this process the administrator should attempt to resolve the problem for the benefit of all those involved.
What do you, think?
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3 comments:
Years ago I worked with a principal who refused to talk to parents until after the parent had talked to the teacher first. She wouldn't comment on anything the parent said she just referred them to the teacher. If in fact teachers are being demoted or let go due to parent complaints should there be some way to verify the validity of the complaint and shouldn't there be steps in place for increasing the effectiveness of the teacher by offering specific workshops/classes instead of just demoting them?
I think that the most important thing our union can do for us right now--and where SHMUEL's seemingly boundless energy could be applied with some assistance from the rest of us--is in the area of compensation.
Other matters such as rumors about a teacher who was wronged or parent complaints should go on the back burner and the focus should be on compensation only.
I totally agree with Karl. I think that the folks who fund education would absolutely love to see us hash out issues like parent complaints and difficult administrator relationships at the expense of talking about our pay.
In Washington, DC they're voting on a contract that trades job security for a salary of $130,000 for a 5th-year teacher. I'm not worried about being fired, and for that money I sure as hell wouldn't be worried about the people who did get fired.
Pay teachers what they're worth!
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