School Information System: Are visits by parents to schools a threat to teaching?

December 5, 2011

Are visits by parents to schools a threat to teaching?

Paula Prosper worried that her son was not ready for the differences between his private Montessori school and the public Fairfax County seventh grade she planned to transfer him to next year.

Prosper, a teacher, asked if he and she could sit for a few hours at Longfellow Middle School "to see what happens in classes and to get a feel for the school in general." The answer was no, with explanations that made little sense.

Prosper said Longfellow's director of student services, Gail Bigio, told her "it had to do with privacy issues for the teachers -- the public employees whose salaries are paid by my tax dollars. Then she brought up immunization and likened it to the students attending the school who wish to have a visiting cousin shadow them." Longfellow Principal Carole Kihm told me Bigio did not mention teacher privacy.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 5, 2011 5:08 AM
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Comments

Are they threatening? Of course, if tens and hundreds of parents do this regularly. But for the case above, that shouldn't be a problem.

I had the same experience at Orchard Ridge back in 1995. My daughter was 7 years old, having spent 2 years at the Montessori Children's House, and I had to decide whether to continue at another Montessori school, at OR or Leopold. It was going to be a jarring experience no matter what, and I needed to make a good decision.

The OR principal refused to allow me check out the school. Once he did that, I knew I was not going to send my child there. Any school that does not welcome parents is not a school into which one should enroll a student. The decision was quite easy, then.

I would never want to force schools to open their doors to parents just for the above reason. It gives parents a quick indication of whether the staff and school is competent and will work with the students and parents, or whether it is incompetently run.

The next step after this conclusive finding that the school is not competently run, is to determine who the culprits are and remove them from the district. Case closed.

Posted by: Larry Winkler at December 5, 2011 1:33 PM