Uncategorized | Apr 19, 2013
Should principals honor parent requests for teachers?
By Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
Should principals honor parent requests for teachers?
By Angela Watson
This is another one of those highly divisive issues that seem to plague large schools all across the country, yet I don’t see a lot of conversations about it online. Anytime there are multiple classes per grade level or subject area, teacher reputations spread throughout the community and parents (as well as students) begin to express a preference for one teacher or another. These requests might be submitted in writing to the principal, or shared casually. But either way, schools have a big decision to make: should they honor or deny parental requests for specific teachers?
Many people don’t realize the enormous amount of factors that are considered when creating class assignments before the beginning of the school year. There needs to be a semi-equal distribution of students by gender, achievement levels, and behavioral concerns (and balancing all three of these factors simultaneously is no small feat.) Special considerations must then be made for the placement of English language learners and students with special needs. Often student-teacher personality conflicts are considered, as well as interpersonal conflicts between students who need to be separated from their peers. Then, just when a near-perfect balance has been achieved, it’s announced that a student is transferring in or out of the school, and more changes have to be made on a weekly basis all throughout the summer. I’ve been involved in the process of student class assignments many times, and it can take hours for just a single grade level. When you add dozens of parent requests to the mix, the job becomes almost impossible.
That said, I believe that parents have the right to do what they think is best for their kids, and their concerns about the classes to which their children are assigned are valid. It’s been well-documented that the skills of a child’s teacher have a far greater impact than the reputation of the school as a whole. In other words, it’s better to have an outstanding teacher in an average school than an average teacher in an outstanding school. The issue goes far beyond just academic achievement: teachers shape students’ personalities, attitudes toward school, and outlook on life. I certainly don’t blame parents for requesting an educator whose teaching style and personality is the best fit for their child.
So what’s a principal to do?
Picking and choosing which parental requests to honor creates a minefield of problems. What happens if one parent finds out his or her request was not honored but another parent’s request was?
If all parental requests are honored, the effect on the school can be chaotic. Parents who request specific teachers are often highly involved in their kids’ education and support learning at home. If all of those children are placed in one class, that means the other classes will have a disproportionately high number of families who are not actively involved in education. This creates a difficult situation for the other teachers, and an extremely unfair situation for the other kids, who may be assigned to less capable teachers simply because their parents weren’t able to advocate for the “star” educators. (Whether the toughest kids should go to the best teachers is another debate altogether.) When principals and teachers create class lists without input from parents, they have greater freedom to look at the big picture as they consider the needs of all students and how the school will function as a whole.
But if no parental requests are honored, principals run the risk of upsetting their most vocal and potentially supportive families. In some cases, those parents make the lives of both the teacher and the principal miserable until their kids are transferred into the desired classroom. Regardless of how well the parents handle the news, they’re still prevented from having a say in which person will assume a tremendous amount of responsibility for their child’s education over the course of 35 hours a week for almost an entire year. Parents can choose their children’s caregivers and babysitters–it seems natural that they’d have some sort of say in their kids’ teachers, as well.
What do you think? Is there a solution that’s fair for students, parents, and teachers? How are parental requests handled at your school?
Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
Discussion
Leave a Reply
OR
Join our
community
of educators
If you are a teacher who is interested in contributing to the Truth for Teachers website, please click here for more information.
I’m in the position of having 3 of my children at the same school that I teach at. You can bet that I went and asked for specific teachers for my children. If a parent knows that a particular teacher is a better fit for their child’s personality, or they have better classroom management etc, then I think its ridiculous to punish those children by putting them in an inferior class just so that everything is “equal”. So what if one teacher gets all of the kids whose parents are actively involved? Maybe that will make the other teachers sit up and take notice and adjust their teaching. When teachers can affect student outcomes for YEARS, it makes no sense to not enable students/parents to have a say. Also, I find it rather silly that each class must be balanced with low, middle and high students – in order that the low achievers have peers to look up to and be supported by. We make a big deal of peer tutoring, but fail to realize that in most cases we are holding back our high fliers in order to bring along the low and medium ranks. Is that fair to them? If we are all honest as educators we can probably point out at least 1, if not more, ineffective teachers in our buildings. Why on earth should we feel that we are being fair to put children in that class just so that the students with uninvolved parents might have a chance to be in a good teacher’s classroom. And, with parents so uninvolved, will the best teacher even make as much of a difference as would be possible with the student of involved parents?
Unfortunately, when we do not weed out ineffective teachers we are bound to end up in a situation rife with unfairness. I don’t think we should compound that unfairness by denying parental choice in teacher assignments.
The unrequested teacher is not always “ineffective”, sometimes the parent is trying to avoid a teacher who has high expectations for his or her students. I am both requested and not requested. I have high expectations for my students. Many parents want me for this reason and many do not.
I believe, as parents, we all want what is best for our children. As a teacher, you may have a little more insight about what is best for your children, both academically and personally, in the classroom. I do, however, agree with Debbie. An unrequested teacher may not be ineffective. I believe that the school administration is more capable in determining their effectiveness than we are as parents. Who is to say that a teacher that someone had trouble with isn’t the best teacher for my child. What they have to offer could be exactly what makes my child a better student. I know I will not always be there to make decisions for my children and I know each year there will be an opportunity for them to learn something…even if it is how to deal or cope with an undesirable situation. I think the ability to do that will serve them well throughout their lives.
Your statements made me so angry, I needed to take a few breaths before replying. Requested does NOT equate effective! I’ve seen teachers getting high numbers of requests because their classrooms are pretty, or because they do crafts all day, or because they’re easy. I’ve seen plenty of teachers being passed up because they have high expectations for their students and parents choose ease over good, honest, hard work and achievement. Plus, teachers making requests within their building for their children is ridiculous and unprofessional. It’s a great way to ALIENATE other professionals you’re supposed to be cooperating with. It’s just wrong. Lastly, with teacher evaluations forcing teachers to compete with one another, classes should be evenly grouped.
I am a building principal. Many parents attempt a casual conversation or phone call to request or nonrequest a teacher. Once I ask for it in writing – a very few number follow through with it. I always respond that we try to balance numbers however valid concerns from parents will be considered. No guarantees but at least they are heard.
Our biggest problem is the placement of children and grandchildren of teachers.
I have worked in both larger (multiple classrooms per grade) and smaller (one classroom per grade or split class situations) schools, and in each school the administration would accept parent requests in writing, to be taken into consideration. But it was not advertised. Administration always stated to the parents that the students would be divided according to ability, gender, social, behavioural, and personality considerations. Sometimes we agreed with their request and sometimes we did not. Yes, parents do know their children the best, but teachers know the classroom the best, and how a group of students will work and live together when there are 25 of them (as opposed to 2 or 3 at home of different ages not required to concentrate on learning for 6-7 hours per day). I do not think a class should be stacked with higher or lower academic achievers or with all or none of the behaviour challenges. Not only does this unnecessarily burden teachers, it widens the gap between the levels of achievement, and creates a stronger case of the haves and have-nots. “Oh, that’s the smart class. We’re part of the dumb class.” This happened when I was an elementary student. The class one year below me was a small group of 14, so the decision was made to have 7 placed with the grade above (my class) and 7 with the grade below. The groups of 7 were originally chosen by academic ability. All the students soon figured out which ones were considered smart or not. Then the decision was made that the arrangement would last throughout elementary – to create better classroom cohesion and community the students were never rearranged. It was an interesting social experiment, but the gap in the levels of learning widened, and one group was always known as the “slow” ones. Not a good plan.
I would think that schools should at least listen to parent requests for certain teachers and try to honor them as much as possible, letting parents know that it is not a guarantee but the concerns will be considered. Another aspect to solving this problem would be for school leaders and teachers to create an atmosphere that minimizes teacher competition and enhances grade level collaboration. Grade level cohesiveness also becomes a part of the school and teacher reputations. I had an interesting conversation with a former parent of mine who is very active in our school. She named 2 grade levels in which she stated it did not matter which teacher her son got because she knows that they are strong teams. Please understand that I’m not saying that teachers should be carbon copies and do all of the same things, but (in many cases) grade level teams can be encouraged to work together and share things that work so that families can see how well they work together.
There have been some really interesting ideas and perspectives in the comments. As a parent, I think I’d be reasonably satisfied if the school said they’d welcome parent input but can’t make any promises about the results. They could consider parent preferences, but leave room to override them when it just won’t work out with all the other concerns. I’d assume most parents would not challenge the override once they put in their initial request, and those who do get what they want can’t prove whether it was due to their request or just the way the dice fell in the first place, so no one can really complain that you listened to someone else’s request more than theirs.