Thank goodness our independent school district allows teachers and parents communicate by e-mail. The district also provides online tools for reviewing grades, attendance and lunch account updates. One of my kids runs into a situation a little more than the average student, so e-mail plays a valuable role in keeping communication open between the school and me.
It also makes me feel like a true parent. Rather than taking the easy way out and calling my husband, the staff knows they can send me an e-mail. When people skip around me — it makes me feel inferior. Just like when I saw a manager go around fellow co-worker — who was also deaf — and talked to her manager instead. He didn’t want to try communicating with her through writing since her communication preference was through sign language.
I rarely run into a teacher who doesn’t like to respond to e-mails. Heck, one that was bad about e-mails was also bad about returning phone calls. Some parents are paranoid about sharing their child’s information by e-mail, but I think involvement outranks paranoia. Besides, the e-mails don’t discuss my children’s appearance and other specific details. They cover a situation or a subject. If someone hacks my e-mail messages to a teacher, G-d forbid they learn something.
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Yes, I agree with you that the emails are heaven-sent, to facilate the communication between the teachers and the parents. Unfortunately, my son’s teacher at ISD was awful with the emails and would not answer the emails… which hurt my son in some ways, so I had no choice but pull him out of ISD and mainstream him where he is a lot happier now. All the teachers (with an exception of my son’s ISD teacher) appreciated the emails from me and because of it, my children’s academic successes were high.
Like Karen says, emails are heaven-sent. She couldn’t have said it better. I’ve been communicating with my son’s teachers since he was in middle school. He’s now in high school (going to be a senior this fall). From my experience, most of his teachers are responsive. So much for technology.
🙂
Hetty
well, I dont have little tiddlers yet, but My fiance and I cant wait, and Ill be the first to sugest communication through Email, though I can speak and am well able for one to one conversation, with my hearing currently deteoriating as it is, when the time comes when I do have funsized people to look after, at least im happy in knowing the option is there 🙂
Hello,
Establishing good rapport with your children’s teachers is understandably important to you. As a person who is Deaf, communicating with teachers through email allows you to feel that you are an active parent who takes part in your child’s academic life. It is frustrating that some people avoid using email because they are afraid of discussing too much personal information. It seems that you do not agree with some parents’ paranoia about using the computer but perhaps you really wish that people would recognize that Deaf people are parents too and teachers should be willing to accommodate their preference of communication. I am happy that currently you are satisfied with your children’s teachers and I hope that teachers continue to contact you directly about your children in the future.