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
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Parents don’t always know what’s best when it comes to teachers. Some parents succumb to their own prejudices and preconceived notions. When I was a young teacher, some parents were appalled that their child might get a male teacher in second grade. Some even suggested to the principal that a male who chose to teach second grade must surely have “ulterior motives”. However, when I was assigned to third grade the next year, some of those same parents requested me so their child could continue with me. They just need to be open-minded to what the school decides.
While I agree that parents might not know what is best in a teacher, I am okay not to have their child if they don’t believe in me for whatever reason. I am both highly requested and not requested-those not wanting me usually want something for their child besides a good education and I have a reputation for good classroom management and good communication/documentation. Those who want an easy A and no behavior consequences don’t pick me and that’s fine by my.
I’m also a department leader and I spend a lot of time coaching my team so they can be equally as tough. The sooner the parents making the latter type of request figure out we’re not here to play games, things can settle down. I’ve got one who was removed from my class last year (went through every teacher on my grade level and subject) who complained he was miserable with the other teacher this year. He’s back with me. I don’t mind. He knows what to expect.
Our school has a problem with this. There is a ‘pipeline’ of teachers through the school that always get requested. Typically they end up with a group of students that has been together each year because their parents request the same teacher. Often these are teachers kids or super-involved PTO parents-kids. Unfortunately not only does it create conflict between teachers, but by the end of those years, it can cause a big problem for the requested teacher. We’ve had groups of students that go through the ‘pipeline’, and by the end they are ‘too cool for school’, because they’ve got their best buds in class & feel like they can do anything. Then the requested teacher has to try to deal with a situation that should have been avoided by splitting up the students.
Sadly, the opposite is also true sometimes. While some parents requests are honored, some parents are not. It is not unusual for a parent to request a teacher, but another teacher requests that student, so administration honors the teacher’s request. This causes issues because now the parent knows how many requests are honored, but theirs was not. If that is the case, then I think the idea posed by someone else would work, in which parents can choose one teacher not to have & know it will be honored.
In my 20 plus years of teaching, it has been my experience that parents get together and request a teacher in order to have their child put with their friends. In less about the teacher’s style or effectiveness and more about their child’s social needs.
Denise, never more true than when you teach in a small town with only 2 classes per grade where everyone knows each other.
I have been teaching in the same small-city school for almost 20 years. When I first arrived, the other Gr 1 teacher was a very strong, very well-liked teacher, and everyone wanted her because they knew her reputation. Thank goodness for my son’s friend who wanted me because he knew me. I will love that little guy forever, plus his parents who “wanted me.” It wasn’t that I wasn’t a strong teacher, it was the few people knew me. No I am viewed as the very strong, very well-liked teacher that everyone wants because they know MY reputation. The “new” teacher is in the same situation I was in years ago. Yes, she, too, is a very good teacher,people just don’t know it yet! When parents ask how they get their kids in my room, I feel it’s my job to thank them for their confidence, but to also reassure them that the other teacher is as capable as I am. I wish someone had done that for me years ago, instead of “taking all the glory.” What goes around, comes around!