100 Posts in 100 Days
This is the fifth in a series of blog posts about lessons learned from parents
In my second school principalship, the demographics of my school were quite different from those of my first school. It was a smaller school, in a different district, in an upper-middle-class neighborhood. We had just under 400 students in grades kindergarten through 5. The majority of our students were Caucasian. Prior to my arrival, the delivery model for ELL services in our district had been to locate the program at certain school sites. Although that had changed so that services were available at all schools, children who had been enrolled at specific sites were allowed to remain, if their families chose to, in order to avoid a change in schools. So, we had a small number of these students who continued to come to our school, from a different neighborhood, every day.
One afternoon, I received a written behavior report from one of the bus drivers. Her report detailed the behavior of a 5th grade student. It stated that he was continuously out of his seat while the bus was moving, yelling in the faces of other students. When asked to sit down, he refused. The driver was concerned about his behavior toward the other students and about the serious distraction it was causing her as she was trying to safely transport a whole group of children.
After receiving the report, I printed a copy of our school district’s bus guidelines. The next day, I called the student into my office to discuss his behavior and the expectations. Together we read the bus guidelines, identifying which ones had been violated and why that was a concern. We both signed the guidelines, acknowledging that we had talked about them, and he was issued a warning that more serious consequences could follow if this continued to occur. This process included parent notification of the initial behavior report, a summary of how it was addressed, and the warning. When this student’s mother received the written notification, she became quite upset and promptly called me.
She was angry that I had spoken to her son about his behavior without her present. She felt that it was not my role to issue any consequences or discipline without her express consent, that it was unreasonable to ask him to sign anything and that I had coerced him into doing so. I explained that it was in my purview to discuss and discipline for his behavior at school and on the bus and that I could have issued more severe consequences, but opted not to. I don’t remember what we were saying to each other as the call ended, just that it was a conversation that was over, but not resolved.
A couple of days later, I received a notice from our district’s Compliance Officer that she had made a complaint about me and about the events. I was advised to have a meeting with her to address her concerns and that she would likely bring a community advocate with her. Reluctantly, I arranged for the meeting, unsure of how it would go, but confident that I had not overstepped my role as principal.
On the day of the meeting, she did arrive along with her community advocate, who was also a family friend that knew her son well. I had made arrangements for our school counselor to join the conversation, as someone who also knew her son. And so that I would not be alone in the conversation.
The face-to-face conversation picked up right where the phone conversation had left off. We were going back and forth about whether or not I should have spoken with her son without her permission and without her presence. During the conversation, she began to express her self-consciousness about her level of English and her responsibility as the parent to be the one to discipline her child. Her advocate reinforced her positions.
While I appreciated that she could decide about whether or not there were consequences at home, I continued to reiterate my responsibility for maintaining order and safety at school. And with that came the right to speak with students about their behavior. At some point in this back-and-forth exchange, my counselor leaned in to the conversation, quite literally. I can still picture the moment when she leaned across the table and touched this mother’s wrist. She looked the mother in the eye and said something akin to, “I understand you just want to protect your son.”
In an instant, this mother changed. Her face relaxed, her shoulders dropped, she sat back in the chair. She paused and she took a deep breath. I remained silent and let the counselor lead the conversation for a few moments. As they talked, and I listened, I learned how this mother was scared. Every day, she put her son on a bus to a different neighborhood, to a school far away from the one he could have walked to. He was a minority student coming to a white school. His friends at home didn’t attend our school and his friends at school didn’t come to his home. She was worried about his life at school, away from her and the community in which they lived.
After listening for a few minutes, it was clear that my pragmatic responses to her emotional concerns were a giant mismatch. It was also clear that I had failed to consider why she might have the emotional response that she did. She was worried and she was protective. Re-starting from a place of empathy and greater understanding, thanks to the work of my counselor, we were able to come up with some agreements moving forward, the biggest of which was for greater personal communication if there were behavior or discipline concerns at school.
When the meeting ended, the counselor and I debriefed. I thanked her for how she had acknowledged this mother and made her feel seen. I thanked her for how she had helped me shift my own mindset and approach to the situation. I told her and our office staff, “We only have a few weeks of school left and then he will move to middle school. But, when they look back on his school experience in a few years, I want them to say that no other school listened to them like we did.”
A few weeks later, the last day of school did arrive. The whole family came, all dressed up. He had on dress pants, a dress shirt, a vest and a tie. His younger sister was in a frilly dress and had her hair all done up. Mom and a family friend were all dressed up also. They were full of smiles and taking pictures non-stop. They asked for pictures with me. Mom gave me a big hug, thanked me for all the school had done, and thanked me for listening to her. I gave the credit to our counselor. The whole family was proud that morning.
That afternoon, I got a report of an altercation on the playground at recess. I came to the office, and there was her son. My heart dropped. I talked with him and the others involved to get more information. And I called her. I shared what I knew of the incident, that there would be apologies and calls to other families. I also shared that I was obligated to document the events in our behavior management system. I was ready for anger and push back. What I got was support for the school’s actions and an appropriate sense of parental frustration. We both apologized to each other that this was the event that now marked the last hours of his elementary school career.
I thought that was going to be the end of our interactions, I got an unexpected phone call from her about a week after school ended. Not only was I surprised to get the call, but I was surprised about what she shared. She was calling for my opinion; for my advice. Her son’s father lived across the country and she was contemplating whether or not they should move so that he could have a relationship with his father. She wanted to know if I thought it would be a good idea, if I thought her son would be able to transition okay to a new school in a new city. She reiterated that life as a single mom was hard and maybe things would be a little easier if her son’s father was close by. If anyone had asked me 6 weeks earlier if we would be having that conversation, I would have called them crazy. But, here we were.
About 2 weeks ago, I was talking with the wise Jennifer Abrams, author of several books, including Having Hard Conversations and Stretching Your Learning Edges: Growing (Up) At Work. She relayed a story to me in which she posed the question, “Do I want to be right, or do I want to have a relationship?” Although that conversation was not in reference to my experience with this parent, I believe it fits perfectly. Thanks, Jen!