Sometimes, parents can be more difficult to deal with than students, and teachers may wonder what they can do to convince parents that they are only doing their job. 

In Florida, legislator Kelli Stargel proposed a bill "whereby teachers would be required to grade the parents of students on the quarterly report cards," said an opinion article written by Terri Friedlander on FloridaToday.com. 

"Ms. Stargel suggested that parents of children in kindergarten through third grades would be graded by their child's teacher on key factors that such as attendance, communications with teachers and homework assignments," Friedlander said. "The measure stated that public school teachers would assign each parent a grade of 'satisfactory', 'unsatisfactory', or 'needs improvement.' Can you see trouble brewing?"

The proposed bill, Friedlander said, was "being tossed around and even gaining traction." Some teachers argued "that if they must be graded by the performance of their students, why not have the parents also be held accountable?"

Friedlander, both a parent and an educator, said it "became tough to visualize how this process would contribute to building a warm and fuzzy connection between teachers and parents."

"As a parent, my own child-rearing techniques may not always rate as 'highly effective,' she said. "We all make mistakes along the way and don't need the stress of being graded to know there's always room for improvement. As an educator, it's disappointing to find that only half the parents have an account to access the online grading system. Even though my students are teenagers who should be encouraged to monitor their own test results, they still require that ongoing parental oversight."

Luckily, Friedlander said, "the idea of teachers grading parents was an idea whose time never came."

"While I hope it never does, it would be great to keep all lines of parent-teacher communications open. And constructive. We're on the same page," she concluded.

Read the full story.

Article by Kassondra Granata, EducationWorld Contributor 

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