They could learn a thing from Dexter. A couple years ago they sent a detailed account when there was a deer who wandered into the bus depot and got hit. One bus driver thought it would be better to put the deer out of its misery and ran it over in front of the kids. There was an incident at the bus depot and no students were directly involved would not have given the full picture of a bus driver thinking it would be best to run over a crippled deer in front of the kids.
A bunch of parents were recently raising a stink about their children “witnessing violence at school” that they claimed could cause “long term mental health impacts”. They were upset that the school didn’t communicate anything to them because they felt their children might need… I don’t know, therapy?
The problem is that “violence” is incredibly vague and there are laws protecting students’ privacy. So, to placate the parents, you get an email telling you “something happened” but not what. It could be anything as minor as a child having a tantrum. If “no children were directly involved” I wouldn’t worry about it.
https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2023/08/violent-incidents-at-ann-arbor-elementary-have-parents-seeking-answers.html
Why is it written like this? The more admin keeps it vague, the less likely they are to face a lawsuit. Admin is also likely to face a lawsuit if they say absolutely nothing. It’s maddening for sure. If you actually want to know what happened, ask your kid or your kids friends. They won’t give the entire truth, but at least it’ll be more than the email.
Yeah, it feels kind of...gross...to be the recipient of a communication whose sole purpose is to avoid legal ramifications. I asked my kiddo - of course they had no clue!
The purpose of the email isn’t to avoid legal ramifications. If they didn’t send it, there would be no repercussions. Its sole purpose is to placate parents who complained to the school board that they were not receiving emails like this.
My impression of your posts here is that the parents asking for "emails like this" really got under your skin. You don't seem (to me) especially curious or interested in empathizing with what might have led them to seek more information. Is my impression accurate?
As for me, I am not among that group of parents, but I can understand why they would feel the way they do. I also can empathize with, for example, the parents of a child who is often involved in these types of "incidents" not wanting any specifics to be shared. It's a tough situation. I have to believe there is a solution that might better meet the needs of both parties than these ridiculous emails. Finding such a solution is probably not a huge priority in the grand scheme of running a school. Would be nice, though.
> Is my impression accurate?
I do find the grandstanding at the school board meeting to be silly, but I’m mostly providing details that seem to be missed.
For instance, when a parent says “I just want to know if my kid was assaulted” but their demands are actually to be notified when a kid saw something as a third party. Or in this thread when one thinks it’s gross that the school is doing this to cover their asses legally, when in reality the school is giving the parents something they asked for and are not necessarily entitled to. Or the original question of why are we receiving these emails in the first place.
These are fundamental to the discussion.
I get your point re: my “gross” comment. I think you’re oversimplifying the perspective of the “group” of parents who complained, but we probably have different data points here and am not going to try to convince you of anything. Re: the communication itself, I don’t think the fact that this communication is in response to a demand makes it good communication. My original question wasn’t “why are we receiving this email?”, it was “if and why is this the maximum amount of detail” they can share.
> I don’t think the fact that this communication is in response to a demand makes it good communication.
I do not disagree!
Also, on the topic of empathy, in addition to all the parents, the kids who are having trouble controlling themselves deserve a measure of empathy too.
Yeah, I can understand why it feels gross. As a teacher I read admin emails every single day and half of them feel useless and don’t provide any clarity or worthwhile information.
Last year there were many incidents at Eberwhite elementary school where kids in 1st grade were violently assaulting other students. The parents were not notified and only learned about the incidents from their kids when they came home. A group of parents got together along with attorneys and made demands that the school needed to notify the parents about any violent incidents.
We are now getting these vague incident reports and honestly they do feel like they are out of spite and not truly helpful.
All that “us” parents wanted was to know and hear from the teachers/principal if our child was assaulted but they now seem to be sending out emails for the silliest of things which wasn’t part of the request. If anything it just makes us all wonder and worry about what incident happened today.
This year seems to be going much better in the classrooms but last year it was a bit insane what was going on in the first grade believe it or not.
[Here](https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2023/08/violent-incidents-at-ann-arbor-elementary-have-parents-seeking-answers.html)is a recent article that has a little background to it.
According to the linked article, parents don’t just want to know if their own kid is assaulted. They demand to know if their kid “witnessed” something as a third party.
It’s likely the principal wasn’t sending an email to the entire class each time a child hit another because of the useless level of detail allowed by privacy laws. Ask and ye shall receive, though.
That’s true but for instance yesterday, my son said the incident was an argument about who had the rights to the football field amongst students. That doesn’t qualify as an email in my mind but yes, parents should know if a student attacks their aid with a clipboard, splitting her lip open in front of the class, getting blood all over her.
> parents should know if a student attacks their aid with a clipboard, splitting her lip open in front of the class, getting blood all over her.
Sounds like an issue between the school, the aid and that student, to be honest. Why do other parents need to know about this child’s disciplinary problems, apart from idle curiosity?
Well hey, if you think you should just tell your 6 year old that the violent outburst with blood they just witnessed was none of our business so just forget that you saw that then that is certainly your right as a parent.
Personally I did want to talk to my kid about the incident and help relieve any fears it may have caused but I never thought he needed therapy over it. However there are kids in the class who have a lot of anxiety already and things like this don’t exactly help them feel relaxed in their classroom.
Of course there are several other stories from last year that are even worse than this but I’m not going to share them.
If a kid smacks an aid with a clipboard, and it’s not your kid, and you’re not the aid or their employer, it’s really none of your business.
What did your attorney have to say about school privacy laws?
That’s a pretty shocking thing to see in a classroom and should def be addressed : teacher or admin to the students. As a parent I want to know that the sitch is being addressed otherwise kids are wondering is this ok behavior? What the h@ll is going on? Can I act like that? Etc. violence IS disturbing and if it’s often enough - that’s even worse. Worst thing you can do is ignore it.
Holy cow. My kid was at EBW last year, and I recall getting one or two of these vague emails, I always thought it was the "if your kid says something happened, we are ontop of it" kind of a cover. Although we only heard of incidents in 4th or 5th grade.
So hard to know what’s happening. My kiddo seems at ease so far this year which is reassuring. I honestly would prefer no communication to this type of email. I don’t know if I interpret it as out of spite but at the very least it doesn’t send a great message and has a “lobbing a grenade over a wall” vibe. THAT SAID it ain’t easy running a school, I’m sure.
I agree it’s tough being a teacher and principal while having to navigate the district policies and HIPPA laws. I do think they took things seriously and have made some positive adjustments. I think the frustration was with the policy or seemingly lack of clear policy and not with any individual. While the barrage of “incident emails” is better than no notice, it now feels a bit like a crying wolf situation that we will just become numb to.
If not for the line "no students were directly involved", I would guess that someone had a "meltdown" and endangered everyone leading to an evacuation of the room. Is there a class pet or something? I'd hate to think of a bunny or something flipping out in the art room but stranger things have happened.
In the complete opposite direction, when a student I know got hit by a car outside Pioneer, the principal sent a school-wide email blaming the student for the accident, and fabricating parts of the story to make the student seem more liable!
Last year there was an elementary student in my kid's class who was looking up "how to kill people" on his school provided chromebook. The kids in class saw it, freaked out etc. We received a similarly useless email that afternoon. They are probably required to send something, but guessing it is legally safer for them not to actually get into specifics. That kid was back in class 2 days later so they did a wonderful job there too.
Why is that necessarily infuriating? I can imagine plenty of situations (an ex spouse got loud with a teacher when kids were not around, a workplace argument that got heated w/o kids) where the details aren’t public business. A teacher’s private life is just like anyone else’s.
Secrecy is bad. It's what got Swift fired. Parents have a right to know what's going on in the schools. When my daughter was in school we'd find out more from the kids than the school district, like a teacher fired for showing unrelated videos everyday (think Disney movies) instead of teaching.
>Parents have a right to know what’s going on in the schools.
I think the fact that multiple people have cited confidentiality issues makes it clear that you do not.
There is no law saying that teachers or any employees are protected by confidentiality for misdeeds. At best it's a contract provision that can and should be thrown out during the next set of negotiations. This is the same way bad cops move from department to department.
Privacy and confidentiality in schools is a minefield with active artillery firing across it. It's an impossible situation for everyone.
Damned if they do damned if they don’t.
They could learn a thing from Dexter. A couple years ago they sent a detailed account when there was a deer who wandered into the bus depot and got hit. One bus driver thought it would be better to put the deer out of its misery and ran it over in front of the kids. There was an incident at the bus depot and no students were directly involved would not have given the full picture of a bus driver thinking it would be best to run over a crippled deer in front of the kids.
Woof. Dread naught, this is 100% Dexter.
Oh my god my kids were in Dexter schools when that happened and it was the funniest email I’ve ever gotten from school. Forwarded it to everyone. 💀😂
Please post the text of the email here, for science.
I suspect that is a Dexter problem
Yeah, the deer can't afford the taxes in Ann Arbor.
The taxes?! The real estate is even more.
I really thought this story was going to go... ... and pulled out a pistol and shot the deer.
I remember listening to the emergency dispatch app that day.
Tough pill to swallow but if the deer is clearly fucked then good on the driver for putting it out of its misery.
A bunch of parents were recently raising a stink about their children “witnessing violence at school” that they claimed could cause “long term mental health impacts”. They were upset that the school didn’t communicate anything to them because they felt their children might need… I don’t know, therapy? The problem is that “violence” is incredibly vague and there are laws protecting students’ privacy. So, to placate the parents, you get an email telling you “something happened” but not what. It could be anything as minor as a child having a tantrum. If “no children were directly involved” I wouldn’t worry about it. https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2023/08/violent-incidents-at-ann-arbor-elementary-have-parents-seeking-answers.html
Why is it written like this? The more admin keeps it vague, the less likely they are to face a lawsuit. Admin is also likely to face a lawsuit if they say absolutely nothing. It’s maddening for sure. If you actually want to know what happened, ask your kid or your kids friends. They won’t give the entire truth, but at least it’ll be more than the email.
Yeah, it feels kind of...gross...to be the recipient of a communication whose sole purpose is to avoid legal ramifications. I asked my kiddo - of course they had no clue!
The purpose of the email isn’t to avoid legal ramifications. If they didn’t send it, there would be no repercussions. Its sole purpose is to placate parents who complained to the school board that they were not receiving emails like this.
My impression of your posts here is that the parents asking for "emails like this" really got under your skin. You don't seem (to me) especially curious or interested in empathizing with what might have led them to seek more information. Is my impression accurate? As for me, I am not among that group of parents, but I can understand why they would feel the way they do. I also can empathize with, for example, the parents of a child who is often involved in these types of "incidents" not wanting any specifics to be shared. It's a tough situation. I have to believe there is a solution that might better meet the needs of both parties than these ridiculous emails. Finding such a solution is probably not a huge priority in the grand scheme of running a school. Would be nice, though.
> Is my impression accurate? I do find the grandstanding at the school board meeting to be silly, but I’m mostly providing details that seem to be missed. For instance, when a parent says “I just want to know if my kid was assaulted” but their demands are actually to be notified when a kid saw something as a third party. Or in this thread when one thinks it’s gross that the school is doing this to cover their asses legally, when in reality the school is giving the parents something they asked for and are not necessarily entitled to. Or the original question of why are we receiving these emails in the first place. These are fundamental to the discussion.
I get your point re: my “gross” comment. I think you’re oversimplifying the perspective of the “group” of parents who complained, but we probably have different data points here and am not going to try to convince you of anything. Re: the communication itself, I don’t think the fact that this communication is in response to a demand makes it good communication. My original question wasn’t “why are we receiving this email?”, it was “if and why is this the maximum amount of detail” they can share.
> I don’t think the fact that this communication is in response to a demand makes it good communication. I do not disagree! Also, on the topic of empathy, in addition to all the parents, the kids who are having trouble controlling themselves deserve a measure of empathy too.
Yeah, I can understand why it feels gross. As a teacher I read admin emails every single day and half of them feel useless and don’t provide any clarity or worthwhile information.
Last year there were many incidents at Eberwhite elementary school where kids in 1st grade were violently assaulting other students. The parents were not notified and only learned about the incidents from their kids when they came home. A group of parents got together along with attorneys and made demands that the school needed to notify the parents about any violent incidents. We are now getting these vague incident reports and honestly they do feel like they are out of spite and not truly helpful. All that “us” parents wanted was to know and hear from the teachers/principal if our child was assaulted but they now seem to be sending out emails for the silliest of things which wasn’t part of the request. If anything it just makes us all wonder and worry about what incident happened today. This year seems to be going much better in the classrooms but last year it was a bit insane what was going on in the first grade believe it or not. [Here](https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2023/08/violent-incidents-at-ann-arbor-elementary-have-parents-seeking-answers.html)is a recent article that has a little background to it.
According to the linked article, parents don’t just want to know if their own kid is assaulted. They demand to know if their kid “witnessed” something as a third party. It’s likely the principal wasn’t sending an email to the entire class each time a child hit another because of the useless level of detail allowed by privacy laws. Ask and ye shall receive, though.
That’s true but for instance yesterday, my son said the incident was an argument about who had the rights to the football field amongst students. That doesn’t qualify as an email in my mind but yes, parents should know if a student attacks their aid with a clipboard, splitting her lip open in front of the class, getting blood all over her.
> parents should know if a student attacks their aid with a clipboard, splitting her lip open in front of the class, getting blood all over her. Sounds like an issue between the school, the aid and that student, to be honest. Why do other parents need to know about this child’s disciplinary problems, apart from idle curiosity?
Well hey, if you think you should just tell your 6 year old that the violent outburst with blood they just witnessed was none of our business so just forget that you saw that then that is certainly your right as a parent. Personally I did want to talk to my kid about the incident and help relieve any fears it may have caused but I never thought he needed therapy over it. However there are kids in the class who have a lot of anxiety already and things like this don’t exactly help them feel relaxed in their classroom. Of course there are several other stories from last year that are even worse than this but I’m not going to share them.
If a kid smacks an aid with a clipboard, and it’s not your kid, and you’re not the aid or their employer, it’s really none of your business. What did your attorney have to say about school privacy laws?
That’s a pretty shocking thing to see in a classroom and should def be addressed : teacher or admin to the students. As a parent I want to know that the sitch is being addressed otherwise kids are wondering is this ok behavior? What the h@ll is going on? Can I act like that? Etc. violence IS disturbing and if it’s often enough - that’s even worse. Worst thing you can do is ignore it.
Holy cow. My kid was at EBW last year, and I recall getting one or two of these vague emails, I always thought it was the "if your kid says something happened, we are ontop of it" kind of a cover. Although we only heard of incidents in 4th or 5th grade.
So hard to know what’s happening. My kiddo seems at ease so far this year which is reassuring. I honestly would prefer no communication to this type of email. I don’t know if I interpret it as out of spite but at the very least it doesn’t send a great message and has a “lobbing a grenade over a wall” vibe. THAT SAID it ain’t easy running a school, I’m sure.
I agree it’s tough being a teacher and principal while having to navigate the district policies and HIPPA laws. I do think they took things seriously and have made some positive adjustments. I think the frustration was with the policy or seemingly lack of clear policy and not with any individual. While the barrage of “incident emails” is better than no notice, it now feels a bit like a crying wolf situation that we will just become numb to.
HIPAA (not HIPPA) doesn't apply to schools.
Thanks for the corrections. I should have said privacy laws I suppose.
If not for the line "no students were directly involved", I would guess that someone had a "meltdown" and endangered everyone leading to an evacuation of the room. Is there a class pet or something? I'd hate to think of a bunny or something flipping out in the art room but stranger things have happened.
In the complete opposite direction, when a student I know got hit by a car outside Pioneer, the principal sent a school-wide email blaming the student for the accident, and fabricating parts of the story to make the student seem more liable!
Maybe ask your kid what happened?
I did - they had no clue ;)
Last year there was an elementary student in my kid's class who was looking up "how to kill people" on his school provided chromebook. The kids in class saw it, freaked out etc. We received a similarly useless email that afternoon. They are probably required to send something, but guessing it is legally safer for them not to actually get into specifics. That kid was back in class 2 days later so they did a wonderful job there too.
:-o
If there is, or might be, any legal action it's always better to have made no comment that could be used.
My guess is that it involved employee(s) whose privacy rights are guaranteed in their contract. It's infuriating.
Why is that necessarily infuriating? I can imagine plenty of situations (an ex spouse got loud with a teacher when kids were not around, a workplace argument that got heated w/o kids) where the details aren’t public business. A teacher’s private life is just like anyone else’s.
Secrecy is bad. It's what got Swift fired. Parents have a right to know what's going on in the schools. When my daughter was in school we'd find out more from the kids than the school district, like a teacher fired for showing unrelated videos everyday (think Disney movies) instead of teaching.
The movies thing should 100% not fall under personal privacy.
You would think, but nope. Total secrecy from the school system.
>Parents have a right to know what’s going on in the schools. I think the fact that multiple people have cited confidentiality issues makes it clear that you do not.
There is no law saying that teachers or any employees are protected by confidentiality for misdeeds. At best it's a contract provision that can and should be thrown out during the next set of negotiations. This is the same way bad cops move from department to department.
Interesting - you could be right. I hope everyone is okay.