Have You Ever Called the Principal of Your School, and If So Why?

I have not, but only because the one time I had an issue I felt needed addressed the office staff was able to take my concerns to her and it was handled without me needing to "move up the chain".

The issue was a sub teacher they were having for a week in my son's math class (4th grade). My son has his own sense of style and wears his hair very long. He is never offended if someone accidentally calls him by female pronouns because he understands that, since he presents in a gender neutral way, some will make that mistake, but that they should be respectful of him and use the correct pronouns once the mistake is pointed out. Well, this teacher called him "missy" (which I don't think is appropriate for boys or girls to be called by a teacher) and then proceeded to call him by female pronouns 3-4 more times even after being corrected, at first by my son, and later by many other students in the class. One boy was so upset he told his father about it and his father contacted me, this was in addition to my own son telling me about it. He was not overly upset, he just sort of brushed it off, but knowing it was bad enough to upset even other kids in the class, and knowing how stoic my little guy tends to be, I felt I needed to call the school.

Once when a student threw a rock at the wheel of my car as I was driving by I sent an email. He dealt with it right away. I know another parent who contacted him about a safety concern at after school pickup time. Another mom I know contacted him about a health issue with her son and how to appropriately share that info with his classmates. He went above and beyond what she expected from him.

Most principals have open door policies. If it is a safety issue or a bullying issue, definitely contact the principal. As a teacher, I know how much principals appreciate getting a heads up.

I haven't, but I wouldn't hesitate to if I thought I needed to.

It sounds like you should talk to the principal. No need to hesitate, if the situation doesn't warrant action, the principal can make that decision.

How old is your child?
Is the problem/issue a teacher problem or a student problem?

In our elementary school - I had meetings with the principal(s) one retired and the new one and the school board. I wanted a teacher fired. She should have NEVER EVER been a teacher and told her to her face and to others...after six years - she finally left because other parents FINALLY got up the nerve to complain.

If the problem is with a teacher? Most CERTAINLY bring it up to the principal.
if it's about the PTA? Yes.
It would help to know what the issue is for me.

Call the principal anytime you're concerned or want information. I start by first talking with office staff. Give them a one line idea about your question or questian. They will direct you to the principal or someone better able to deal with it.

I've talked with principals frequently. I was a volunteer. Often our contact was a friendly hello. I've talked about concerns related to my daughter and grandaughter. Professional school employees will keep your information confidential. And there's never a stupid question or wrong reason for giving information.

Nothing negative. I was the fundraiser person for years and organized the family fun nights. He did reach out to me because I was the only involved mom that he knew had science degrees and he wanted me to be on the textbook adoption committee. He was very handsome so I wasn't burdened 😀

I've spoken to our principal a few times, and they were all concerning safety issues. Pretty similar to Margie's situation.

Each principal we encountered had an open door policy with parents and great communication with everyone.

That said, if you are angry with a teacher or something along the lines of "complaining" , it's best to to go straight to the person you have issues with to try to resolve issues before jumping over their heads and going to the principal.

The first thing a good principal will do will be to ask you if you have tried to resolve it before coming to him/her. They are protective of their staff because most are hand picked and considered to be great staff members.

They expect parents to be mature adults.

Only once actually. My child was involved in a scuffle that was with a boy he'd been friends with in the past, but had grown apart. Still friendly but the boy got to be a bit out of control. In fun (I guess?) he would sort of attack my son (as well as other kids). My son got quite freaked out by it and it could have been a lot worse in one instance, so we decided to just have it on record that it wasn't being handled well by the school. So we weren't complaining so much about the kid - as the fact that there didn't seem to be enough intervention from the people on the playground. The boy did eventually end up hurting someone so I think it was merited.

We brought up the issue (supervision) as opposed to having a problem with a child. I'm not sure I would get a principal involved if it was something my kids could handle or I could. In this case it was safety so it made sense to us.

Never...but I have called the school's guidance counselor on multiple occasions.

Our principals have had open door policies. Things I have brought up include the fate of a special program within our school, feedback to safety concerns, and dissatisfaction with proposed changes in policies after an email/letter was sent home. If I had a problem with a child in the class, I'd start with the teacher and/or the counselor.

I've not HAD to call, I've been in contact since I've been in the PTA.

Very hard to answer your question when we don't have enough details.

If it's about a teacher? I would most certainly contact the principal.
If there are behaviors that are NOT acceptable going on in school? Make sure you have notes and proof because what YOU feel may be unacceptable, is okay to someone else. Like the definition of "normal".

I think if you have a concern and you have tried other ways to solve it without success, you should talk to the principal. Our principal (elementary school) makes himself very available - he is often outside in the mornings before school, holds quarterly coffees where you can just go and chat about anything, etc. He has specifically said that he wants to know when there are bigger issues, especially ongoing problems with teachers, because if the parents don't tell him he often doesn't know about it, and therefore can't do anything about it.

I always believe in trying to resolve the problem by talking to the teacher first, whether it involves another student or if it's a problem with the teacher herself. Those situations have to be handled delicately, but at least you're making a good effort to try to resolve it before going all the way to the top.

For example, my son's scooter was stolen from the school bike rack on Friday. Luckily, his phone number is on it and we ended up getting it back. I went straight to the principal and explained the situation and asked him to review footage from the security camera at the bike racks (though the camera probably didn't pick this up based on how the kid took it). Anyway, I don't think it was taken by a student from our school, but he is definitely going to try to check the cameras just in case, because he'll need to deal with it directly if it was one of our students.

I call when my kiddo has an issue with the teacher that I feel needs "Their" bosses intervention.

I call the principle if I want my kiddo evaluated for learning disabilities or if I'm requesting observation of the kiddo in the classroom.

I call the principle when I feel that it is beyond the teacher's scope.

IF I felt a child was being abused or neglected at home I'd call the principle and talk to them, they can't betray confidentiality BUT "I" can say "I have observed XXXX wearing torn shoes to school in the snow and not having an adequate coat. I saw they had on the same clothing they'd worn the day before when I was in the classroom dropping off my kiddo yesterday".

"I" can say "I saw a bruise on XXXX's back when he bent over to tie his shoe while I was picking up my kiddo and he came out first. I am concerned that he might be abused somewhere. Can you find a way to check him out? Talk to him and see if he's okay? Since I'm not in the classroom with him every day I don't have any sort of information on his home life so this is why I'm asking if you can intervene on his behalf."

There are ways to inform the principle of suspicious observations without being mean about it. Asking them if they'll check the kiddo out makes it not the teachers problem. This way the teacher can spend their time teaching in the classroom and leave outside stuff to others that can pop in and check things out without it being obvious.

oh yes. my older sailed through elementary school, but my younger had issues. he had lots of ear infections and his hearing was on the very low end of the normal spectrum. i asked his 2nd grade teacher to move him to the front of the class. she informed tme hat his hearing was 'selective' and didn't comply until i called a powwow with the principal, who was very helpful in that instance.
then i had another, same kid, when he was taken on a field trip to a local 'outdoors camp.' i ended up being off that day so went along at the last minute. the place was a blast, at least until the big skit at the end of the day which turned out to be a hellfire and brimstone vignette that ended up with christ's cowboys galloping into town, pulling down the saloon (destruction of someone else's property? really?) and building a church in its place, and a big loud hallelujah group prayer.
i was LIVID that my public-schooled kid was taken to a religious event without my being informed or giving permission. the principal did not come with me on it- he beetled his brows at me from across the desk and said that no one else had complained, adding 'young lady, i DO believe in god' and suggested i write a letter to the board of ed. which i did.
had it happened today i'd have made more noise. but i can say that at least while i had kids in that school there were no more trips to that particular camp. i do hope that if they go today (and it really is a fun place) that they either inform the parents more fully or dial back the religion.
there were several other smaller issues with both boys, but they were all handled satisfactorily between me and the teachers involved.
khairete
S.

Yep. I have called several times. When my daughter was in 2nd grade, boys were slapping her rear end. I worked with the teacher first and no resolution, I moved on to the principal. In 3rd grade, her teacher was HORRIBLE...we involved the principal after 6 months of trying to work with the teacher.

This year my youngest son is in 3rd grade and a boy is making racist comments to him (this child is black and my child is mixed) and physically putting his hands on my son. I bypassed the teacher with this one because it's not okay and I will not stand for it.

The way I see it is that the school is there to keep my children safe. That's their main job. When that isn't happening, I will call and address the issue with whoever I think will fix the problem most efficiently.

Sure..is your Principal really so unapproachable that you wouldn't be comfortable talking to them? Primarily I have talked to my Principal about academic issues that were not resolved through the teacher first. The difference for me is that I volunteer a good bit at the school through PTA so I know the faculty and administration well. I have many conversations with them that have nothing to do with a problem and make a point of complimenting them on things that have gone well too. Because of this rapport, I wouldn't hesitate to bring an issue to the Principal.

Follow chain of command.

I believe in following the chain of command. For instance, if my child has a problem with another child on the playground I expect my child to first try to deal with the other child himself. If that doesn't help he is to report to the playground supervisor. If that doesn't help he is to approach the teacher. If that doesn't help he may go to the principal. I have called the principal directly if my issue is directly in relation to school policies and policy making, but otherwise I prefer to follow the chain of command.

yes for general issues, not about issues related to my kids. if issues arise in the classroom, I contact either the parent or the teacher. it usually gets resolved. i would involve the principal, if i have exhausted all the other options.

I have approached principal once, which was great, he was very helpful, and once I didn't contact him about something because it didn't occur to me that I should, and in the end, I should have because he would have been very helpful. Our particular principal is great guy, beloved by kids and parents....

I have brought two issues to the table with our small private school. Once on the first day of school where another parent brow beat my daughter into tears for asking her daughter if she was left or right handed and saying it was really cool that she uses both. (One and a half years later, I learned that the mom does not like her to use her left hand.) The other was recently when another girl moved my daughters lunch and told her to go sit somewhere else. That was the lunch room and there are volunteers working during that time.

If it is basic arguing and saying they don't like each other, I don't bother. I even tell her to ignore them if she is kicked or pushed, as long as they did not hurt her. I pass some of that stuff off as purposely-accidental. Then I pay attention to how many of those type incidents happen.

My kids attend a Catholic Pre-k-8 school. I have called only twice in the 10.5 years my kids have gone to the school. Each time, I felt I had a valid concern, and each time, the school downplayed the situation:

The first time was approximately 5 years ago. Our school doesn't have it's own playground so they will occasionally go to a park adjacent to our property to play. During this time period, some of us would take our kids to the same park after school,and we would frequently find used condoms, empty beer bottles and other items strewn about. I contacted the principal to ask that they refrain from using that park until the situation could be remedied. His solution was to have the maintenance man go over there in the morning and look around and clean up any potential hazards.

The second time I called was just a couple weeks ago. My son is in 4th grade Jr. band. During the after school session, another student pulled out a pocket knife, opened the blade and was holding it inches from my son's stomach. She wanted to show it to him. He backed away and told someone. I was so upset and called the principal as soon as my son told me. I went in for a meeting the following morning, and was livid when he told me that it was a bad judgement call on the girl's part and that they talked about it and all was resolved. I told him that it was not resolved for me, and I wanted her to be suspended or expelled based on the written policies in the handbook. Once he knew I wasn't going to settle for anything less, he decided to give her an in-school suspension.

Best of luck with your situation!

1. To get her assistance when I needed to bring our son lunch and witness him eat it in the privacy of a room in the front office after he was released from eating disorder treatment. (She was great and set aside a conference room.)

2. When I noticed a chronic problem with certain "special" parents driving in the exit to the parking lot. The principal wasn't aware and the next day there was a sign out there saying it was an exit only.

I'm going to try to answer this from two perspectives, parent and school employee. First as a parent: Yes, I contacted the principal once all the other efforts were exhausted in dealing with a teacher. It resulted in my daughter receiving services I was not even aware she qualified for and changed our plans for helping her to succeed. I also contacted a principal to offer ideas for a new program that was later implemented and is still in use today.

Second as a front office school employee: please don't contact the principal if your child doesn't have enough time to use the bathroom between classes, or if your child just doesn't like a class and the counselor isn't changing their schedule, or worse, if your child doesn't have the same lunch period as their friends and you want their schedule changed so they can eat with their friends. School is for their EDUCATION, not solely for socialization. Big schools, or even small schools have some but limited flexibility when it comes to schedules, teachers or even bathroom breaks. Communicating directly with teachers, or teaching your kids how to communicate with those adults clearly and respectfully is a life lesson that will serve the student well into their future.