Email the blight of School Principals

I am told and read that one of the major problems for the contemporary school Principal is parents being able to email the school.  A proportion of these parents expect almost instant response and tend to become angry when this is not possible under the weight of all the emails a school receives. It is becoming more frequently reported that Principals experience parental abuse some of which is physical.

I can only imagine the additional burden this is for Principals, who are under other major pressures like the expectation of top level student academic output.  In Australia this latter pressure comes for the politicians when Australian students do not perform well in standardised compulsory academic tests.

Teachers also can be emailed and I am in no doubt are under the same pressures.

Physical abuse of teachers also seems to be on the rise from students and parents.  I recently observed a TV program interviewing teachers now in a poor mental state as a result of student abuse.

I hypothesise that the answer to this is to build a strong and purposeful wellbeing program that embraces within a school community the students, the staff and the parental cohort. I suspect that such a school community culture would push back on parental and student aggressiveness.  Within that climate of wellbeing there would be no room for such aggressiveness. It would become the exception rather than the rule.

I might now expect some comments that I have been out of the Principal game for too long and have become too altruistic.  I defend myself in anticipation by stating firmly that I would establish the wellbeing culture should I once again be in the position of Principal. Every child and every staff member should enter the school gates every day feeling respected and loved as members of their school community.  The same should apply to parents.

I have not touched upon the potential for parents and students to use social media platforms to stir up trouble for school Principals and teachers. I guess such perpetrators would have to be careful what they put out there in what could be classified as the public domain.



May the Force be with you!


GD