In my decade as a school leader, I can count on one hand the number of times parents met with me because they had an idea about how they could help the school community. If a parent wanted to meet, it was because they had a problem. Usually, that problem involved their child’s teacher. As a parent, I admit most of the times I’ve reached out to my kids’ principals have been to address a concern regarding a teacher.
Between pre-K and senior year, most young people will have around 50 teachers. Most should be effective at preparing your child for the next grade. Hopefully, at least a few will be life changing. A few of them will be effective for most kids but not for your kid. Chances are at least one will be someone who needs to be in a different profession.
Teaching remains a profession where almost every one is considered above average and teacher ratings remain disconnected from student outcomes. Improving teacher quality requires parents and principals to work together. I have collaborated to remove teachers as both a principal and a parent. What I have learned is that getting this hard decision right involves the perspectives and effort of both parents and principals.
As a principal, I needed parents to help a teacher realize their current role was not a good fit and they weren’t willing to do the work to grow into it. Parents met with the teacher weekly to communicate their children’s experiences. They included me on their emails to the teacher. They shared assignments and feedback with a level of detail that I could not, with responsibilities to a school of over 1000 students.
As a parent, my child had a teacher that wasn’t treating kids humanely. Each class period included public shaming and threats. The gradebook showed that over half of the students in the entry level course were failing. After meeting with the teacher and seeing no willingness to change, I met with the principal and shared my concerns. Before meeting with the principal I did my homework. I had dated notes and specific quotes reporting what happened in class. I sat in on a class and observed. I shared analysis of the gradebook assignments. I shared the outcomes of my multiple emails and meetings with the teacher. I provided the information that could only be gained from experiencing the class on a daily basis as a learner. That information helped the principal to focus their conversations and feedback with the educator. The principal also observed a lack of change from the teacher and at the end of the year the teacher was no longer in their role.
Addressing these challenges required combining the day-to-day experiences of learners with the coaching and instructional expertise of the leader in service of the teacher’s improvement. It required parents and principals to work together.
One of the biggest challenges in our schools are the gaps in accountability that surface when people do not embrace personal responsibility. Parents, whose position, perspectives, and priorities are well aligned to the role, are best situated to push for accountability. We do it by meeting with teachers and principals with evidence in hand and an unwillingness to accept anything but excellence for our children and their classmates.
While it’s vital that parents know how to work with principals when a teacher isn’t meeting the needs of their child, I want to close with a reminder that it is just as important that families work with the principal to support truly exceptional teachers. Your principal needs just as much information about the teachers who see your child for who they are and do the work that changes their life. We all would be better off if we spent more time letting our principals know what is working in our child’s classroom.
