Understand Parents’ Rights
Consider these common situations: Parents believe a teacher is picking on their child. Parents
are unhappy with their child’s grades. Parents expect to talk with the teacher every day about
their child's program. Parents have their own ideas about what and how teachers should teach.
In any of these scenarios, parents can turn their concerns into a positive experience with
their child's teacher, but they can also easily turn them into serious problems. To ensure
positive experiences, parents and teachers should understand parents' rights and boundaries within
the educational process.
Parents have strong but limited rights to participate in their children's education. They have
no right, however, to disrupt their child's school or monopolize a teacher's time.
Visiting the school
Although parents don't have an absolute right to access classrooms, most schools allow them to
visit classrooms for limited periods of time. Generally, parents are only bound by reasonable
rules of visitation such as scheduling appointments ahead of time, not visiting during testing or
not staying longer than a specified time. Many times, teachers also prefer to have no more than
one or two visitors at a time. Parents who fail to adhere to schools' visitation rules or who
repeatedly cause disruptions can be restricted from the classroom. Also see
Unexpected Parent Classroom Visits
(video).
Moving their child to another class
Parents can request that their child be assigned to—or away from—particular teachers or classes. A
school cannot unreasonably deny such a request, but it doesn't have to honor it if it would affect
another student's assignment.
Reviewing their child’s records
Schools must give parents access to any school records pertaining to their child. This includes
instructional material, lesson plans, tests (after the test has been administered) and subjective
evaluations of students made as part of entry into cocurricular activities.
Receiving updates from school
Parents have a right to full information regarding their child's school activities, so
communication from the school, particularly the child's classroom teacher, is essential.
(Classroom newsletters are a good tool for this.) Teachers should also answer parents' specific
questions in a reasonable manner via personal conferences, phone calls or notes sent home with the
child.
When problems arise with parents
Knowing parents' rights helps teachers avoid many potential problems, but there will always be a
few. Thus, school districts should have procedures in place for parents to bring concerns to the
attention of the appropriate employees.
When teachers cannot resolve parents' concerns, they should direct the parents to the
principal, who might then direct them to the district's grievance procedure. This gives the
district a chance to investigate and resolve parental concerns, and it lessens the chance of
parents venting potentially incorrect and harmful information to other parents.
As with any interpersonal relationship, courtesy, respect and communication are key in
maintaining good teacher-parent relationships. Remember that parents, just like educators, have a
job to do. Clear guidelines and expectations as well as quick responses to parental concerns will
go a long way toward creating an exceptional learning environment.
This article was the result of a July 1999 meeting of representatives from ATPE and the
Texas Parent Teacher Association in which the two groups discussed ways in which parents and
teachers could better work together for the benefit of students.
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