Our entire school district has email. Many of the teachers check their email several times during the day and answer any questions immediately. Much better than playing phone-tag!! Who has the time for that??

A way to check if confidences are being breached, ie, if you suspect a staff member is talking too loosely with other staff (about your emial coommunications or verbal ones about your school concerns) or parents who frequent the teacher lounge (yes it happens!!, and some teachers are also parents at the school so many hats are crossed),,,just give yuor teacher or whomever you suspect of leaking your confidences, a red herring, verbally or email kind, and see where it turns up!

Then you know if someone does not uphhold common sense/courtesy or even the laws of maintaining parent/teacher confidences . I learned this trick from a TEACHER at our very own school, they used it to determine if a peer was untrustworthy,,,,as they sensed someone was sharing their infos to non need to know people....and their suspiciaons were confirmed.

Teachers and all staff are 'just' human beings, and the bell curve applies to them as well, some are great, most are just good, and as many as are great, unfortunatley as many are not so great.

It protects our kids in the long run, to know if there are loose lips among the staff, in particular, ones childs teacher couselor or principal.

You can add disclaimers at the bottom of your emails, the generic kind, requesting no copying or forwarding. It doenst mean it wont happen, but at least you have a leg to stand on when they come to you, and say 'oh well, you see, you didnt TELL me I couldnt forward your email, (or you didnt TELL me it was confidential), so I did.

Technically, they have done nothing wrong, but it does defy common sense and courtesy to share ANY infos with non need to know staff.

Ethics vary greatly from person to person.

Emailer beware, is the motto at our school. Unless of course you WANT something spread around quickly, you just drop a line to someone and its goes around quicker than any mode of commmunication!!

yes, thank you for pointing that out. I will be more careful when sending a teacher an email. I am pretty careful about what I put in emails for the same reason the last poster mentioned - people forward emails without asking if it is okay. That is quite annoying! I never gave it much thought as to what I was "discussing" in an email to a teacher though, I just assumed it would stay between me and the teacher, which is probably a poor assumption!

Deb, thanks for that very important peice of advice ref email and public record.

Email correspondence at our school, is in no way confidential. All teachers accounts are an open book to management, and every parent should realize that when putting anything in email to a teacher, that the potential audience is much greater.

These rules can usually be found in the school board policy manual. If not, you should ask your principal or head of school IT.

Email also has the potential additional downside, that some teachers and staff, even principals, play loose with emials and dont think twice before forwarding a parents emial with a concern, on to some other person, for sometimes legitimate reasons (sometimes the reason is more questionable), but oftentimes wtihout even notifiying the sender (the concerned parent) about having forwarded the emial.

I will say, my emails have turned up in the most curious of places without my knowledge, which is how i learned of this.

Once you disccover that the land of email is the wild west, you are best to discuss delicate matters with the teacher or principal direclty.

There is far too much misuse of email forwarding (and note, email texts can be changed easily too and then forwarded) and lack of computer etiquette out there.

We must first protect our children. If it has to be in writing,put it in a letter, that is not so easily distributed. You just NEVER know where an email might land.

Considering most businesses monitor, or can monitor their employees email, I think most people realize this. I would think that most parents would use email to clarify or ascertain something simple, not discuss their child's behavior or medical issues.
Since our teachers ask that email is used when ever possible, they also recommend that your child's name is in the subject line so the email in not deleted as spam by mistake.

I know this comes long after the discussion was first posted, but I see a lot of you rely on email to get in touch with your teachers. Our school also allows this, but you need to understand that if the email address is provided by the school district, then it is public record. All of the teachers in our county have been told not to use student names at all. If a parent emails me, I may only use their child's name if the parent uses it first. Otherwise, I use "your child" any place I would need to name the child or ask if I may use their child's name before discussing any information about the child. Please check your county's policy. I would hate for anyone to discuss behavior problems or academic problems my child is having and it be made public. :eek:

Deb