In article ,
Louise wrote:

On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 17:27:21 EST, Kevin Karplus
wrote:

On 2005-12-28, wrote:
Two of the parents in my child's third grade class have formed very
personal relationships with the teacher, one of the mother frequently
socializes with the teacher outside of work (shopping trips, movies
etc), the other family has taken to inviting the teacher to their
social events, such as holiday parties etc. This teacher is not a
transplant, but grew up in a community nearby to the school district
and appears to have family and friends independant of the school.

It is not unusual nor inherently wrong for a teacher and parents to be
part of the same social network, especially in a small community.
Teachers are human beings also and are allowed to socialize with other
adults.

That's kind of tricky. If I were advising the teacher or the
teacher's friends, I'd point out that it was important to avoid the
appearance of favouritism and the potential of awkward situations, and
suggest that they defer pursuing the friendship very far until the
kids have moved out of that class. I avoid pursuing closer
friendships with the parents of kids I coach, for that kind of reason.
Whether or not the friendship is harmless, the appearance is not.

I'd advise against pursuing a NEW friendship with parents of a kid
currently in your class; I think that IS crossing a boundary.

However, where a prior friendship exists -- even if it started out after
an older sibling was in the class -- I see nothing wrong with continuing
that friendship.

That's the point many of us have been trying to make: especially in a
small town, a teacher may well have students enter his or her class who
are the children of friends. It is important to maintain appropriate
boundaries, but there is nothing inherently wrong with teaching the
child of a friend.


Several of us parents have concerns about the appropriateness of the
external friendship that has formed during the first course of the
school year betwen the two sets of parents and the teacher. We feel
that the teacher has crossed the line of professionalism, and that in
several recent cases involving the two children of these parents, she
has shown a decided bias in her decisions.

Favoritism in the classroom is unprofessional behavior and does need
to be addressed. Don't confuse the issue, though, by bringing in
outside-of-school friendships, which are none of your concern.

Even the favoritism gets tricky for another parent to address - seems
to me the principal would respond better to a request for your child
to get more attention than an observation that one or two kids get
undeserved attention. I like Kevin's idea of having a group of calm
parents try to make that point, though -- that would look more
objective.

At question is *not* the relationship between the
teacher and the friendly parents (which is really none of the school's
concern, as long as it is a mutually agreeable relationship), but the
relationship between teacher and students.

Actually, I don't know anything about whether the school board might
have guidelines, or the community might have customs, about teachers
limiting their socializing with parents.

That would be extremely rare -- I've never heard of any professional
guidelines about this, only about relationships with students themselves.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care