New Year, New Boundaries: PARENTS [Episode 254]

Rebecca Joyner [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the final week in our 3-week miniseries all about boundaries. Our first 2 weeks covered setting boundaries with email and with students, and today we are going to wrap up this series talking about setting boundaries with parents. Now, some of this will just be reinforced ideas from episode 252, so I hope that you listen to that one. But my hope is that you genuinely feel like you can have healthy boundaries and therefore healthy relationships with the parents of your students and the guardians of your students this upcoming school year so that you can partner with them as opposed to feeling like they are just another thing on your to-do list to manage this school year. So let’s dive in. This is Secondary Science Simplified, a podcast for secondary science teachers who want to engage their students and simplify their lives. I’m Rebecca Joyner from It’s Not Rocket Science. As a high school science teacher turned curriculum I am passionate about helping other science teachers love their jobs, serve their students, and do it all in only 40 hours a week.

Rebecca Joyner [00:01:09]:
Are you ready to rock the time you spend in your classroom and actually have a life outside of it? You are in the right place, teacher friend. Let’s get to today’s episode. When it comes to boundaries with parents, there are 3 kind of areas or categories that I want to encourage you to set these boundaries within. First is like just with students, your availability and access, the ways that you’re available to them and that they have access to you. So go back to episode 252 so that to find out ways that you can become unavailable to parents. I give you a ton of ideas in that because it is important that you are not constantly available to them. They should not have constant access to you. As mentioned in previous episodes, it’s actually a safety issue for students if they can, because if you are being attentive to parents, you’re not able to be attentive to students in your classroom, keeping them safe, doing labs, and making sure they’re learning as best they possibly can in the 50 or 47 or 90 minutes that you see them a day.

Rebecca Joyner [00:02:16]:
So it’s incredibly important that you have a boundary with parents that’s very, very clear. From the very beginning of the school year in terms of when and how you are available and when and how they can have access to you. And even when you do engage with parents, just like I said back in episode 252, we are not going to be spending more than 5 minutes per day on an interaction with a parent. That’s 5 total minutes of reading the email, thinking, and coming up with our response. If we are having to spend more time than that to come up with a response, most likely that is a good indicator that it’s time to get together in person with them in a time that works best for you. I’m a big fan of in-person conferences and doing them early in the year. I think establishing that relationship face-to-face at the beginning of the year helps to humanize you to parents. I think often they just become these keyboard warriors on their computers or on their phones.

Rebecca Joyner [00:03:18]:
And they’re forgetting that there’s a human on the other side. So the sooner in the year that you can become a human to them and they can see you and hear your voice with sincerity and hear your tone and see how you wanna partner with them for the success of their child, the better it’s gonna go for you in the long run. And it helps you kind of be proactive about nipping some of those issues in the bud early in the year, starting that strong foundation with parents before it just becomes someone that you’re managing All year. If they’re emailing you more than once a day, we’re only responding once. So even if they’re sending like 4 emails, we’re sending one response and putting all of our responses in that one place. But again, also, if they’re sending you 4 emails, to me that’s like a huge sign. I’m gonna immediately get an admin involved and we’re gonna meet in person, cuz this is unrealistic expectations. And then you can clearly communicate and articulate your availability to them in person as well as I’m sure you have done.

Rebecca Joyner [00:04:11]:
Mm-hmm. Over your correspondence on your website or whatever, so that they can see like, hey, and, and hear your heart of like, this is why I am less available to you, because I wanna be maximum availability and capacity for your students. And I really wanna equip them to kind of stand up for themselves, to take accountability for themselves and their actions, to really take ownership of their education and practice that with me in this safe high school environment where you are still accessible as well. But to do that so that they are stronger moving forward outside of the high school realm and going into whatever their future holds. And so having those clear boundaries about when you’re available and the access that parents can have to you is important. Please, please, please do not ever give them your cell phone. I don’t want you to have any school communication on personal devices, no access to that. Again, if you are a phone talker and that is easier to you than email, you can get a Google Voice number.

Rebecca Joyner [00:05:09]:
It can be an app on your personal phone so that you can take it with you. But you can also set, you know, schedules on your iPhone if you have one, or if you have a brick that kind of say, this is unavailable from these hours. I’m only going to check it during these hours. And so that way it doesn’t become something that can get abused because I feel like students will leap over and try to climb over your boundaries. Parents will try to abuse your boundaries. So that’s why it’s so important that we establish them and hold them. The second area I want you to have boundaries with parents this year is in terms of respect and care. So they need to respect your time and your priorities in your job and see that in doing so, that allows you to care for their students.

Rebecca Joyner [00:05:51]:
Like, we are all on the same team. I have found, especially when I’m dealing with combative parents, which I talk about back in episode 207, is entirely dedicated to handling combative parents, I’m constantly trying to reiterate, like, we are not against each other. I am with you and for you if you are for your student. Like, then we are we’re on the same page and the same team here. And I think it helps when we get together in person because we can really clearly show all of the ways that we are caring for their student. And I think when we go first in showing how we’re trying to serve their student, that can soften them as well towards us and help them have more respect for us and what we’re doing as educators. So one thing I really recommend with parents is making some sort of one-pager like a printable PDF, one page of all the ways that you are available and serving students above and beyond class time, like the things that you’re doing. This is something you can post on your wall, you send out to parents at the beginning of the year, you have it at orientation and back-to-school night, it’s in your syllabus, it’s on your website, it’s in your LMS, and then it’s also something you’re going to print and hand students when they come to see you in person if you’re having those conferences, like I said, hopefully early in the year.

Rebecca Joyner [00:07:03]:
And you kind of say, hey, I just want you to know, here’s what I’m committed to doing for your student outside of the 4th period block where I’m seeing them every day. I am updating my website every single day to make sure the grades are up to date. I am making sure that in Google Classroom, all the due dates are accurate and those are being live updated so they’re never unsure of what’s due when. These are the guidelines I’ve given absent students. All they have to do is watch the lecture video before they come back. I have no other expectations of them. Here are all the different times of day that I’m available for tutoring, you know, and you line all of that up and you can say, these are the times of day that I’ll be checking my inbox, you know, and you show them all that, especially if you have like a YouTube channel or anything else like that where you can show them, or if you use It’s Not Rocket Science resources and you want to say, here’s the YouTube channel we use with all of our lecture videos where they can hear it from someone besides me, because it’s good for them to learn from different voices. Like, Have that in a one-pager, because I think that’s really effective to be able to hand to parents and say, hey, I just want you to know, like, here’s what we’re— where we’re starting.

Rebecca Joyner [00:08:06]:
This is what I’m committed to doing. Now let’s talk about, are there things on top of this that you need or your student needs so that you can feel comfortable in this classroom seeing that your student is successful? But going ahead and being proactive so that you have that, you’re not scrambling, you’re making those decisions on the front end. So I really think that’s a great way. Again, you’re able to then show them how much you care for their student, and then hopefully in return they can respect you and the decisions and boundaries you’re holding as a teacher. And the last boundary I want you to hold is not doing this alone. Okay, especially if you’re dealing with those extra special parents that are extra difficult and want to fight you at every turn. Okay, but you are not in charge of managing parents on your own. That is exactly what admin are for.

Rebecca Joyner [00:08:52]:
Admin are supposed to be helping you and partnering to see students successful so that you can focus on what only you can do, which is teach them science. And of course some life skills along the way as well. But your admin’s job is helping with management and management of these people. And I can tell you something, if this parent is having an issue and being difficult in your class, most likely they’re going to be like that with another teacher. And if not this year, in a future year. And so this is actually really helpful for all teachers involved if you go ahead and bring the admin in. So that they can help be equipped to serve other teachers that have these similar issues with this parent or with siblings down the road later on. You don’t need to like fight in silence in your own room and have these battles.

Rebecca Joyner [00:09:35]:
Now, do you go to your admin straight away with the first sign of a conflict? No, obviously you’re going to do your best to kind of like mitigate that conflict. But again, if you respond, the parent keeps coming back and they’re trying to go back and forth with you and you’re like, I think we should just have a parent conference. You can go ahead and then let your admin know like, hey, I’m gonna go ahead and meet with this parent. I think it’d be a really good idea to just kind of nip it in the bud. Would it be possible for you to attend this meeting type thing? And then also say, hey, here’s what I’m planning on presenting. Here’s my one-pager of all the ways I’m serving their student. Is there anything I’m missing? Any other tips you have for me before we go in there? And even just having them there as a witness, I think can be really helpful too. Again, especially if it’s a combative parent.

Rebecca Joyner [00:10:13]:
If you’re dealing with that and if you’re listening to this and it’s, or I mean, we’re in September here, it’s early in the year and you already know this is gonna be a problem. Please go listen to episode 207. Okay, so not a lot for you today because so much was covered back in episode 252, but I just felt it was worth having a standalone episode about parents to encourage you about them specifically and really to challenge you before I let you go to make that one-pager. And if you’re like, I don’t have anything to put on it, this is a really good time to kind of reflect on that and say, okay, what are the ways that I can set up some things to run in the background? And set up some systems and routines that can be going on regularly so that there are places parents can go, like to the website to see up to date what’s going on in the classroom. They can go to the YouTube channel to watch lecture videos if they want to know what you’re teaching. They can go into the online gradebook and know that it’s live and you’re updating it, you know, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or at the end of every week it’ll be updated every Friday. Or maybe you’re like me and you updated it every day at the end of the day before you left. Like, this is the kind of information we’re laying out, or like, this is when I’m gonna have tutoring.

Rebecca Joyner [00:11:20]:
And you’re doing that work on the front end, making those decisions, and then that makes it a lot easier in the moment to kind of mitigate that drama when, if you find yourself in it this year. And then of course to hold those boundaries of like, this is where I’m starting from. If you need more to that, like, like we can talk about that and talk through some options, but like, I’m not just gonna like lay down my life for the sake of your student to get through this class. Or I’m not going to kill myself so that your student who has a 90 can get a 99 because you think that’s realistic in every class they take. So those are some things I want you to consider as you’re holding new boundaries with parents this new school year. If you want to check out any podcast episodes I’ve done about parents and those relationships, I have a couple good ones. I will link them in the show notes at itsatrocketscienceclassroom.com/episode254. And if you have not left a rating or review for the podcast, please subscribe or follow the show wherever it is that you listen.

Rebecca Joyner [00:12:19]:
And if you’re on Apple, you can leave a review if you are feeling challenged and encouraged from this episode to engage parents differently this school year. All right, teacher friends, that wraps up today’s episode. If you’re looking for an easy way to start simplifying your life as a secondary science teacher, head to it’snotrocketscienceclassroom.com/challenge to grab your Classroom Reset Challenge. And guess what? It’s totally free. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I’ll see you here next week. Until then, I’ll be rooting for you, teacher friend.