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Post by Merge on Jun 29, 2023 3:13:27 GMT
You’re out on the playground with zero communication with the office? To me that’s weird and also seems somewhat unsafe. If you did have communication then you should have called immediately. If you did & clearly explained the racist incident & they didn’t bother to respond immediately then your principle or vice principle is a problem. Here, there is always a line of communication to the office in every room & radios on the playground. I would have called the office and expected the principle or vice principle to come to the playground & deal with a racial situation like that immediately. That’s what they get paid the big bucks for. If your principle or vice principle wouldn’t immediately respond to a verbal racial incident immediate that is a problem. As a parent I would have expected a call from the principle or vice principle asap explaining the situation and allowing me to speak to my child. Yeah, this whole thing has been a very subpar experience and I won’t do it again. The way it was arranged, the school was under no obligation to issue us walkies as you would normally have on the playground. We didn’t even have working technology and once again spent our own money getting what was needed. I appreciate everyone’s input. I’m better able to understand the mom’s perspective but also feel that wanting to have an action plan in place before speaking to her was reasonable from our perspective, especially considering the limitations of staffing that we have. Our fine arts coordinator is worse than useless and I’m sure won’t have contacted the mom tonight, so I’ll be the one talking with her tomorrow. Wish me luck!
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Post by Merge on Jun 29, 2023 3:13:56 GMT
So understand that we are basically running this camp out of two rooms within the school. Their principal and staff do not oversee us or help us in any way. We answer to the head of fine arts, who is in a different building far away. There is nothing like typical teaching about this scenario. I mentioned above that we were out at recess when all this went down. I do not have any time without kids present until after dismissal. What we could have done was to take him to the office to ask if he could use a phone in a private office, but we didn’t do that for reasons I’ve already explained. Well, in your first post you said you were going to speak to building principal so they could open an investigation, so that is why I thought you could have had them come to your room. I understand. It’s a very unusual situation. We alerted the building principal because he has jurisdiction over the kids in summer school, but the office doesn’t have anything to do with us on a day to day basis.
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Post by malibou on Jun 29, 2023 6:15:16 GMT
I don't feel like you handled it poorly at all. This was not physical contact. I think the mother is over the top.
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Post by hop2 on Jun 29, 2023 10:33:06 GMT
You’re out on the playground with zero communication with the office? To me that’s weird and also seems somewhat unsafe. If you did have communication then you should have called immediately. If you did & clearly explained the racist incident & they didn’t bother to respond immediately then your principle or vice principle is a problem. Here, there is always a line of communication to the office in every room & radios on the playground. I would have called the office and expected the principle or vice principle to come to the playground & deal with a racial situation like that immediately. That’s what they get paid the big bucks for. If your principle or vice principle wouldn’t immediately respond to a verbal racial incident immediate that is a problem. As a parent I would have expected a call from the principle or vice principle asap explaining the situation and allowing me to speak to my child. Yeah, this whole thing has been a very subpar experience and I won’t do it again. The way it was arranged, the school was under no obligation to issue us walkies as you would normally have on the playground. We didn’t even have working technology and once again spent our own money getting what was needed. I appreciate everyone’s input. I’m better able to understand the mom’s perspective but also feel that wanting to have an action plan in place before speaking to her was reasonable from our perspective, especially considering the limitations of staffing that we have. Our fine arts coordinator is worse than useless and I’m sure won’t have contacted the mom tonight, so I’ll be the one talking with her tomorrow. Wish me luck! Well, that’s on your district then if they can’t even give you a basic means of communication for emergencies. That’s a pretty basic thing. As a parent I’d be upset to have paid for a program that didn’t even have the basics for an emergency in place. Good luck today.
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Post by busy on Jun 29, 2023 10:58:44 GMT
I have not read any other responses, or additional information if any was provided, so there’s that qualifier.
And while I think you were absolutely taking it seriously from a consequences/investigation standpoint and your actions were appropriate from that perspective, I think you were wrong to not let the child call the mom as soon as they asked.
That has to be a very distressing experience for a young Black child, in a way a white teacher cannot really understand or empathize with. Wanting to talk to their parent seems very reasonabe and I think should have been accommodated as soon as it was requested.
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Post by Merge on Jun 29, 2023 11:48:22 GMT
Yeah, this whole thing has been a very subpar experience and I won’t do it again. The way it was arranged, the school was under no obligation to issue us walkies as you would normally have on the playground. We didn’t even have working technology and once again spent our own money getting what was needed. I appreciate everyone’s input. I’m better able to understand the mom’s perspective but also feel that wanting to have an action plan in place before speaking to her was reasonable from our perspective, especially considering the limitations of staffing that we have. Our fine arts coordinator is worse than useless and I’m sure won’t have contacted the mom tonight, so I’ll be the one talking with her tomorrow. Wish me luck! Well, that’s on your district then if they can’t even give you a basic means of communication for emergencies. That’s a pretty basic thing. As a parent I’d be upset to have paid for a program that didn’t even have the basics for an emergency in place. Good luck today. If it helps, the program was free for families. Four weeks of free all-day summer music camp.
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Post by auntkelly on Jun 29, 2023 12:51:34 GMT
I think you handled the situation just fine, especially given that the child didn’t appear to be in distress and didn’t repeatedly ask to call his mom.
You didn’t brush off the incident. You treated it with appropriate seriousness. You alerted the principal.
I came to my conclusion after thinking about it for a few minutes and reading all the comments. I can’t imagine how hard it is to make these snap decisions on a playground or in a classroom while supervising a bunch of kids.
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Post by worrywart on Jun 29, 2023 13:45:33 GMT
I just want to say that teachers make decisions many times a day that they think are best at the time. The pace of teaching and lack of privacy or think time means that sometimes you have to make quick decisions to get a situation seemingly 'under control'.
Good teachers reflect as you are doing on their decisions so that in the future they may handle something a little differently if needed. Thank you for not dismissing this student's issue and taking it to administration for documentation. I get the mom is upset in the moment but hopefully she will also recognize all you did right for her child.
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Post by 950nancy on Jun 29, 2023 14:18:00 GMT
You say you didn't have coverage. The school must have the office open, correct? Is school principal on site? How old are kids? Couldn't one of them gone to office to ask principal to come down so you could talk to him right out in hallway? Assuming you don't have a classroom phone (which does seem unlikely). I would have let kid call. I also would have gotten principal involved immediately if he was on site. So understand that we are basically running this camp out of two rooms within the school. Their principal and staff do not oversee us or help us in any way. We answer to the head of fine arts, who is in a different building far away. There is nothing like typical teaching about this scenario. I mentioned above that we were out at recess when all this went down. I do not have any time without kids present until after dismissal. What we could have done was to take him to the office to ask if he could use a phone in a private office, but we didn’t do that for reasons I’ve already explained. Yes, summer school is a different can of worms than the regular year in many schools.
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Post by katiekaty on Jun 29, 2023 20:26:13 GMT
You are teaching at a music camp that is housed in th same building as summer school. Both are two separate programs. The incident should have been reported immediately to the camp director and the child should have been allowed to call his mother. The camp director should have contacted the summer school program. The teachers from the music program should not have tried to have the child identify the cild from the summer school program. Once reported to the director , it should have been out of your hands. Talking to the mother was not your job. I am sorry you had to deal with this. Teachers just get the worst of it no matter what ou do these days!
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Post by Merge on Jun 29, 2023 20:40:56 GMT
Bump for update. Thanks to everyone who showed me a perspective I hadn’t considered in that moment. Always good to have new perspectives in the toolbox.
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peabay
Prolific Pea
Posts: 9,891
Jun 25, 2014 19:50:41 GMT
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Post by peabay on Jun 29, 2023 20:42:00 GMT
I'm so happy to read it had a satisfactory ending - particularly for mom and child. I really, really hope there were some repercussions for mouthy, racist kid.
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Post by Merge on Jun 29, 2023 20:43:24 GMT
I'm so happy to read it had a satisfactory ending - particularly for mom and child. I really, really hope there were some repercussions for mouthy, racist kid. I’m not privy to that. The building principal did come by at lunch and thank us for bringing it to his attention so the matter could be handled.
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peabay
Prolific Pea
Posts: 9,891
Jun 25, 2014 19:50:41 GMT
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Post by peabay on Jun 29, 2023 20:45:17 GMT
I'm so happy to read it had a satisfactory ending - particularly for mom and child. I really, really hope there were some repercussions for mouthy, racist kid. I’m not privy to that. The building principal did come by at lunch and thank us for bringing it to his attention so the matter could be handled. As you shouldn't be; I get that. I just really hope so.
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luckyjune
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,687
Location: In the rainy, rainy WA
Jul 22, 2017 4:59:41 GMT
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Post by luckyjune on Jun 29, 2023 21:16:23 GMT
Thanks for the update. I'm glad everything was solved. I do wish you'd been contacted last night. An event like that would cause me to lose a night's rest.
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Post by hop2 on Jun 29, 2023 21:19:29 GMT
I’m glad there was a resolution. Now you can let it go and not worry over it.
Was this your old district? Or a new one?
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Post by Merge on Jun 29, 2023 21:46:03 GMT
I’m glad there was a resolution. Now you can let it go and not worry over it. Was this your old district? Or a new one? Same old district, now under new management (taken over by the state).
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Jun 30, 2023 1:02:57 GMT
Good update for you teachers. Sorry they couldn't be bothered to tell you yesterday!
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Post by mymindseyedpea on Jun 30, 2023 3:31:09 GMT
Fortunately the update is anti-climactic lol
So you didn’t have to call the mom back?
I read through the whole thread taking consideration for all the views. Is there a protocol in place for a situation like this for the normal school year?
I would guess the first step would be to notify the principal, heaven forbid it to ever happen again you may now feel more prepared.
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Post by Merge on Jun 30, 2023 3:48:59 GMT
Fortunately the update is anti-climactic lol So you didn’t have to call the mom back? I read through the whole thread taking consideration for all the views. Is there a protocol in place for a situation like this for the normal school year? I would guess the first step would be to notify the principal, heaven forbid it to ever happen again you may now feel more prepared. What we did was protocol.
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Post by iamkristinl16 on Jun 30, 2023 17:19:56 GMT
A kid asked to call mom, you should have let him. I would be livid. Calling mom wasn’t about identifying the culprit. Calling mom was about needing to talk to someone about being called N-, which you, as a white teacher, do not understand the same way mom understands. Calling mom wasn’t about punishing the other child, calling mom was about the psychological harm done to the victim. As a mom of biracial children I would be fine with how you handled it.
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