Survey Reveals Working Parents Feel Undervalued by Schools
In preparation for back-to-school, a recent WorldWIT survey found that over 50% of working parents feel 'judged' or undervalued by their children's teachers and school administrators
Boulder, Colo. (PRWEB) August 25, 2005 -- WorldWIT™ (www.worldwit.org), the world's largest online community for professional women, recently surveyed its 40,000 members, asking, Do your child(ren)'s teachers understand the needs of working parents?"
The survey revealed that 37 percent of respondents viewed schools as doing a 'fair' or 'poor' job of relating to working parents, and that the principal areas of conflict were scheduling of school activities, communication gaps, and a narrow definition of "parental involvement" that caused working parents to feel excluded.
One respondent said, My child has been enrolled in many different types of school, yet at all of them they still behave as though 'mom' is a stay-at-home-mom. I would love to be more active and I have vocalized this, but the scheduling conflict is too much. After they found out I worked in corporate America they stopped being interested in my help, although I feel I could offer them quite a lot. The children would win the most if this gap could be bridged."
The survey also revealed that over 50 percent of respondents felt that schools valued them differently and/or judged them for choosing to work. Respondents recounted stories of being rejected when volunteering to help out in the classroom, having little or no notice before important school activities, and poor school-parent communication which, many respondents noted, could be improved through better use of technology.
"With a majority of parents of school-age children working outside the home, the issue of home-school interaction is becoming a huge issue for working parents," notes Liz Ryan, WorldWIT's CEO and founder, expert on work/life issues and mother of five. "When half of working moms surveyed feel that schools value their participation differently than that of stay-at-home parents, something significant is happening."
In addition, WorldWIT survey respondents had the following suggestions for schools: giving more advance notice of upcoming events that will take place during working hours; building more flexibility into parent-teacher conference scheduling; using communication methods other than flyers to convey important information; and reducing homework loads for grade-school children.
WorldWIT founder, workplace expert and award-winning entrepreneur, Liz Ryan offers the following 'ten tips' working parents want teachers to know this fall:
1) E-mail Works: One-way paper blasting is not the best way to communicate with me.
Many teachers rely 100 percent on communication via "BackpackNet" - paper documents sent home in a child's backpack - for everything from classroom updates to field trip permission slips and parent-teacher conference scheduling requests. This is risky, and working parents are already overwhelmed with paper. Email is a great way to complement the flurry of forms that arrive in schoolchild's house every day. It's also more efficient, and saves paper, and makes replying to the teacher a snap.
2) Allow Flexibility: Don't schedule meetings with me in the middle of my workday.
As much as working parents love their kids and value their children's education, it's mighty hard to get free in the middle of the workday to come to a meeting at school. Evenings or early mornings might work much better. Given that in many towns far more than half the parents are working parents, isn't this a realistic change to make to lessen stress on parents and improve the home-school relationships?
3) Promote Diversity: Don't create, or allow, Best Mommy or Best Daddy competitions.
Why do working parents feel that their kids' schools encourage competition among parents? Lots of reasons - like inviting the same few parents to come along on all the classroom field trips, based on their loyalty in the past. Working parents don't want to compete with stay-at-home parents for any Most Devoted Parent honors. If they can't be around as much during the school day, it doesn't mean they're less supportive of their kids.
4) Provide Realistic Options: Keep in mind that this is 2005, not 1965.
One WorldWIT parent I know was recently requested to send her child to school with two empty gallon bleach bottles. Two empty gallon bleach bottles? "I had to go out and buy the bleach bottles and spill the bleach down the drain," she reported. "I don't use two gallons of liquid bleach in six months. What decade are we in?" The old days of handy craft supplies around the house are long gone for many parents (working and non-working). For many working parents, a once-per-year crafts donation would be preferable to regular trips to the craft store.
5) Accept a Lost Cause: If something is lost, it is lost. Let me pay for it!
Working parents report that the combination pitying/scolding looks they receive from teachers upon reporting than an item - a library book, for instance - has been lost, are the most difficult to deal with of all. For many working parents, replacing a lost item is far less costly and more practical than turning the house upside down to look for it. YES, I know my child should be more responsible. But the kid has not been able to find the book - can I pay for it and move on? Teachers need to understand that a working parent's life is more chaotic than many people can comprehend.
6) Back Up Your Data!
Frustrated parents across the country report variations of this story: I know my child came in the house with a field trip permission slip. When I asked him about it the next day, he couldn't find it. I wrote a message to the teacher asking for another slip, no luck. She said there were no extras. I had to go to school the day of the field trip and write a letter authorizing my kid to go. Is there no margin for error in the paperwork back-and-forth?
While we wait for the (hopefully near-term) arrival of online permission slips for school events, working parents implore teachers to make a few extra copies of any forms that are expected to go home, get signed, and come back. Maybe because in the business world, it is commonplace to call a colleague and say "I can't locate your email message, can you please re-send it?" and get another copy within minutes, working parents can be stuck when confronted with a "sorry, no duplicates, no exceptions" approach.
7) Over communicate
For all parents, the world has gotten more info-clogged and complex over the last few years. That's one reason that working parents are frustrated with due dates, deadlines, special events and other items that are communicated once by teachers. You mean I missed your classroom St. Pat's celebration? You were supposed to wear green and bring in shamrock cookies? I totally missed that. It's bound to happen to everyone at some point or another. Over communicate, over communicate, over communicate is the key. Even a weekly one-way email list-serve mailing to all parents is a great way to keep them informed and on top of dates and deliverables.
8) Scale Homework Projects: to accommodate today's home (parent and child) obligations.
It used to be that for an upcoming fifth-grade science fair, the family's attention could be diverted for a week or more to support the little scientist through his or her big project. But with families going in more directions and working parents who may work long hours, travel, or have to take work home, these ambitious days-of-old homework projects are an enormous burden. It's not fair to commandeer entire weekends from entire families to prevent a child from looking bad in comparison to other kids whose families have fewer time obligations. Great results on these major out-of-school assignments seem to correlate directly with the parents' time available, up to perhaps middle school age: is this fair, or realistic, to ask of working parents?
9) Revise the Detention Rules.
Really! If the kid is late or misbehaves in class, and has to stay twenty minutes after school, who is supposed to pick him up and take him home? After-school detention programs - under the tired logic of "if the parent is inconvenienced, the message will be stronger" are anachronistic and harmful to working parents - economically, and in their relationships with their children and with the school. Our country is full of Nobel laureates and other brilliant people - can't we come up with a better scheme that accomplishes the same goal?
10) Have empathy.
Working parents report that their kids' teachers see them as alien beings - with a look behind the eyes that says "Why are you always jetting off to one place or another, neglecting your child, anyway?" The answer may well be "to feed my family." Spend some time with a working parent to understand what he or she is going through, and to recognize that his or her love and concern for the child is every bit as strong as a stay-at-home parent's. It couldn't hurt teachers to know something about the business world, either - in the global world we're living in, it's hard to see how a well-rounded educator could succeed without an understanding of the world of enterprise. From presentation skills to technical learning to how to give feedback, working parents have a wealth of knowledge to share with classroom teachers. And most of all, working parents want to support their kids' education and get out of the doghouse! So put away the disapproving looks, please, Classroom Teachers of America, and take a working parent out for coffee today.
For more information on this survey please contact Kristi Hughes at 215-816-2954.
About WorldWIT:
Founded in Chicago in 1999, WorldWIT (www.worldwit.org) is the world's largest online networking organization for professional women in business, formed for women to share advice and ideas with other women eager to connect." It reaches over 40,000 women globally via moderated, local email discussion groups like ChicWIT (Chicago), HoustonWIT and BritWIT (Great Britain), and through local events and activities in 25 countries and 80 cities around the world. WorldWIT is also the proud winner of the 2004 Stevie Award for Best Woman's Business Association.
The membership is free and is comprised of women who range from corporate CEOs, government officials, legal professionals, marketing and media experts to home-based consultants and entrepreneurs. Its founder, Liz Ryan, was the first female vice president at U.S. Robotics, and is a popular columnist, speaker and at work issues" expert. She has been featured by such media as TIME, Fortune, The New York Times, CNN, CNBC and CN8. Liz is also a regular contributor to Business Week Online and the on-air workplace expert for Denver's NBC affiliate, 9 News. WorldWIT is headquartered in Boulder, CO with a satellite office in Philadelphia, PA.
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