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Community Corner

Educational Double Standards

At the start of each school year we parents are inundated with forms and papers to read, sign, and return to the school ASAP. Among these forms are several teachers' individual expectations of students. Dutifully, we parents go over these with our kids and sign the forms.

I began to think about the nature of this one way communication of expectations. Teachers need to be able to talk with parents openly and parents need that same ability to ensure good communication for the benefit of our children. However, there is never a mechanism for parents to directly share our expectations of the teachers and administrative staff...until now.

Some teachers and administrators have come to expect compliance and conformity from both children and parents alike. They send us their expectations, require that we review them with our children, then sign and return the forms ASAP. Yet we parents are usually forwarded to the principal or the school board with inquires of our own. We don't have the luxury, or nerve, to let the teachers we employ know exactly what we expect of them. At least that's what the elitists among them would have us believe. Last week, I was told directly by a principal at the Easton Area Middle School to raise my concern with the school board in the same conversation in which he explained that teachers need to be able to communicate directly with parents. Huh?

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So, teachers may communicate their expectations directly to parents, but tax paying parents must go through the school board to convey their expectations with teachers. Take a minute and look up the phrase "double standard". This elitist attitude is an infection in most public school districts and needs to be eradicated quickly. Teachers, school directors, and administrators need a swift reminder of their roles as employees and our roles as tax payers. They have jobs because we pay their salaries.

This year I created my own pledge form for the teachers and administrators to sign. It isn't a legal document and it isn't binding in any court that I know of. However, it is simply a list of my expectations of the teachers and administrators to whom I entrust my child's education and safety every day. The wording is fashioned similarly to the wording used in the forms I received from the teachers and school district.

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As I write  this today, I have read, signed, and sent in every form I was requested to read and sign, but have not received one single Teacher Pledge form of my own from any of my daughter's teachers or principals. Why is this?

I encourage every parent reading this to copy and print the form below. Send one to each of your child's teachers and make a note of how many you receive back. Perhaps its just me, but I believe teachers should have as much respect for us as they expect from us.

2013 Teacher and Administrative Staff  Pledge Form

 To foster a positive educational experience for our child/children we submit the following list of parental expectations as the floor, and not the ceiling, which apply to the school district’s teachers, health professionals, and administrative staff.

 As a parent I expect my child's public school education to be:

1. free of the instructors’ personal, political, and religious viewpoints. 
2. free of "visual literacy" programs which may include the use of films and documentaries which promote unproven scientific, historic, and/or economic fallacies in place of solid educational facts. (Two examples include "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Sicko", currently used in some school districts)

3. free of all materials, speech, and  references to profanity, drug use, graphic violence and/or sexual behavior, belittling and slanderous speech about targeted groups based on religion, gender, socioeconomic status, etc.

As a parent I expect my child's public school educators, health professionals, and administrative staff to:

1. abide by the same rules, policies, and etiquette they require of students as stated in the school district’s handbook and every local, state, and federal law and/or statute. (ie, gum chewing, dress code, inappropriate physical contact, etc.)

2. fully respect my child's physical and personal space everywhere student/teacher interaction may take place both on school property and elsewhere in the community.

3. obtain parental permission for my child/children to participate in assemblies or any school sanctioned presentation by any political official, religious or social group leader or spokesperson.

4. contact my spouse or me for permission for my child/children to participate in any school, district, state, or federally sanctioned health screening of any type.

5. contact my spouse or me prior to any consideration of disciplinary action by any teacher or member of the administrative staff.

6. evaluate and grade my child/children’s work fairly, without prejudice, and with disregard for my family’s political, religious, and socioeconomic status. Furthermore, if my child/children fairly earns a zero or a 100%, I expect a zero or a 100% to be awarded and not altered for reasons of state standards for funding or for any other reasons.

7. respect my child's unalienable rights and the protections afforded every American as stated in the United States Constitution and that of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

 

 

Please return the following signature portion to me within 5 days of receipt.

 

Failure to return this pledge form with a printed name, signature, and date does not absolve one from the expectations contained herein.

 

Teacher / Administrator printed name _________________________________________

 

Teacher / Administrator signature ____________________________________________

 

Student name __________________________Classroom__________________________



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