Switching places

So, you know, I taught middle school for many many years before I transitioned up to the high school level. I now have a child of my own in middle school, and boy, have things changed!

I just went to a parent conference, and one of my kid's teachers stated that he was concerned about kiddo being distracted in class since the first day of attendance in his class several weeks ago. And yet, not ONE phone call have I received from this person, nor even an email. And I teach in the district. It's not like it's hard: simply type my name in and the email automatically gets sent with a minimum of effort.

Now, when I was teaching middle school, it was expected that we would be proactive and contact parents early, especially about situations like this where it may not be obvious from checking grades online. Instead, I got a surprise comment about behavior after allowing the situation to fester for weeks without a word. It is infuriating! I no longer teach middle school, and I STILL proactively contact parents about any concerns I have. What in the world is going on down there?

The principal there was not there when I was, so I wonder if he has simply decided that this is acceptable. I mean, look, I would blame myself if there was a GRADE issue I could have seen online, but this is different, since teachers don't post evaluations of effort and behavior until the end of the grading period-- too late for me to do anything, again. This is not the standards of progessionalism that I would expect were I an administrator. It sets up an adversarial relationship with some parents as well if they feel that teachers wait until conferences to play "gotcha."

You know, when I am acting as a teacher, I always try to think about what I would hope to know if I were the parent of each of my students. I guess I'm just an old fossil.