This is excellent advice! I especially appreciated the part about respecting boundaries. As a school administrator I would frequently have to contact families about discipline issues. I quickly noticed a pattern - parents would often become very upset when I would tell them about the consequence that their child was facing but was unable to tell them about what consequence any others involved might have. As a parent myself, I completely get it - you want to make sure that your child is being treated fairly. But I could not legally share that information. Understanding and respecting that there are boundaries that we just cannot cross in a school builds much respect from school staff towards a parent.
Being a parent also shifted my lens on IEP meetings. Two of my four children had IEPs and one has a 504. I remember sitting in one of those first IEP meetings feeling completely overwhelmed. Afterwards I thought about the fact that I have two degrees in education as well as years of experience in multiple roles in a school district. If it was overwhelming for me given my background, I cannot imagine how overwhelming it must feel to someone without that background. It had an impact on how I participated in those meetings as an educator - specifically making sure that parents had a clear understanding of everything that was being discussed.
This is excellent advice! I especially appreciated the part about respecting boundaries. As a school administrator I would frequently have to contact families about discipline issues. I quickly noticed a pattern - parents would often become very upset when I would tell them about the consequence that their child was facing but was unable to tell them about what consequence any others involved might have. As a parent myself, I completely get it - you want to make sure that your child is being treated fairly. But I could not legally share that information. Understanding and respecting that there are boundaries that we just cannot cross in a school builds much respect from school staff towards a parent.
Being a parent also shifted my lens on IEP meetings. Two of my four children had IEPs and one has a 504. I remember sitting in one of those first IEP meetings feeling completely overwhelmed. Afterwards I thought about the fact that I have two degrees in education as well as years of experience in multiple roles in a school district. If it was overwhelming for me given my background, I cannot imagine how overwhelming it must feel to someone without that background. It had an impact on how I participated in those meetings as an educator - specifically making sure that parents had a clear understanding of everything that was being discussed.