Rules of Engagement

It’s been one of those weeks in our school and so we’re drafting a code of conduct – with unruly parents in mind. Personally, I’d widen the target audience to ERO inspectors, NZQA memo writers (although they rarely visit our school in person), Ministry of Education executives and the latest wave of visitors, nutrition consultants.

The code of conduct will be the house rules for our visitors – like when I was a kid visiting my Nana & Grandad. No running indoors, no climbing in and out of the windows, eat with knives and forks, no shouting, use good manners at all times, wipe your feet at the door and no picking your nose. My brothers and I were farm kids and my grandparents were townies – you can understand the culture clash required some rules of engagement.

Similarly, when parents come in to our school they’ll have to be well-mannered at all times. They must say ‘please’ when they demand to speak to a teacher or a deputy head. And they must say ‘thank you’ when they’ve vented their entire spleen. They must say ‘sorry’ when they’re busted telling lies on behalf of their spoilt little snot.

Parents must wipe their feet when they come in to our school. This is largely symbolic of course – of leaving any of their non-school issues out of school. This includes marital strife, pending bankruptcy proceedings and psychological issues stemming from under-sized or ineffective genitalia.

We appreciate that it takes a whole village to raise a child but we’re also mindful that a kid is at school a mere fraction of his or her time and so we do not accept responsibility for kids’ shoplifting, TV watching, rudeness, dishonesty and poor bodily hygiene. Of course, as everyone knows, we are responsible for childhood obesity - numerous studies have or are about to prove that this is the fault of schools but everything else is down to sub-standard genes and feeble parenting.

Parents may not raise their voices or shake their fists or drop their trousers and shake their hairy bottoms at us in the Dun Mihaka way. These are not effective negotiation skills. Polite reasonable discussion is acceptable - over a cup of tea with some freshly baked cheese & bacon scones brought in by the reasonable parent is acceptable.

Engaging lawyers and writing septic anonymous letters to the ministry isn’t acceptable either.
Our goal – our in the big sense: teachers, school bosses, parents, kids, parole officers, owners of as-yet untagged fences… our collective goal is to create a reasonably educated, reasonably mannered, respectful next generation. Unruly, dishonest, ill-mannered parents aren’t great role models and aren’t helping the collective cause.

And of course parents visiting our school may not scratch their bottoms (or anyone elses).
Have a good week everyone.