Working parent or non-working parent is completely irrelevant. This thread is not about (in my mind) parents not wanting to be involved – it is about a school not involving the parent. It is the school which has not fulfilled its role in the partnership, not the parent. The school has a communication book – it hasn’t used it. I assume the school hasn’t defined how it wants its working relationship/partnership to work as “parents must visit the teacher or email or phone on a monthly basis to track the progress of their child” - (I would be very surprised if any school explicitly said this as most teachers I know wouldn’t want 24 parents emailing or phoning them on a monthly basis just to check everything is going smoothly) . By having a communication book the school has defined some of the terms of the working relationship/partnership, but has then failed to use it (I might suspect that somewhere the school has defined the terms of use of the communication book) – the original poster hasn’t not followed up on things they have been notified about (that would suggest a lack of parental involvement), they have never been told.


Say the OP had emailed after 6 weeks, and only at that point been told about issues with the friend and the principle during week 1 at that point – would that have been acceptable – no, the school should be communicating with the parent at the appropriate time.


If this is how schools work – then the school should define this e.g. “parents must visit the teacher or email or phone on a monthly basis to track the progress of their child, and find out about any issues that are occurring, it is up to the parent to contact the school, the school will only provide information on issues once/twice a year at the designated parent/teacher interviews”.

It is a perfectly reasonable assumption for a parent to make, that if there is nothing in the communication book, and their child has not voiced any issues that everything is fine – and if that is not the case then a school should be explicitly stating what is required of a parent in terms of getting in touch with the school (do people really think it is fine for a school to not inform parents that this is what they need to do, what about those who have arrived new in the country and are used to different schooling systems, those who are less educated, it is hardly an equitable system where children of parents who "check in" at the school all the time get the most out of the system). A lack of parents chasing up the school all the time does not equate to a lack of parental involvement – and I think is extremely unfair to suggest it does.



After all, why should my child be interested in her education if I can't even go and introduce myself to her teacher?? What message does that send about how much I value the importance of her time spent at school? How otherwise does she know I care about what she is doing with the bulk of her time?
If my child decided how much I value their education, based on how often I interacted with their teacher (via email, phone or in person) or made any judgements about how much other parents value their kids education based on how frequently their parents see the teacher etc. I would think I have not done a great job as a parent, what is important is what you do with the info you are given, how you react and move forward not the method by which you request it.

It is a very sad state of affairs if teachers are judging parents and their view about their child’s education based on whether the parents are “checking in”, but if that is the way it is – then let the schools state that explicitly – I suspect confronted with all parents “checking in” in all the time (as most parents do want to be involved in their children’s education, and will do "check in" it if it is defined how the interaction should happen) – then suddenly using a communication book, or just notifying parents to come in for a chat etc. when it is appropriate will seem like a far more attractive proposition and better use of time.