When Your School Reaches Out, Reach Back Out, and Quickly

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Many parents will have a knot in their stomach when they get a call or email from their child’s teacher or principal—especially late in the school year. But it’s important to know, whatever the reason, so you can take meaningful action to support your child.

Clearly, teachers—and sometimes principals—don’t reach out for no reason—and they don’t reach out just to be nice, at least not for the most part. Think about it. How often do you get an email from your child’s teacher simply to tell you something great? If you’re very, very lucky, maybe you do. And you should know that not only are you lucky to have such a child, but you also have an exceptional teacher. Even when teachers see students doing good things, they rarely have time to send positive emails because, ideally, every week there are multiple moments of greatness in their classrooms. And reaching out is an even less frequent occurrence if it is from the principal.

Right now is a time of year when teachers and administration are reflecting on students’ progress. Teachers have put supports in place to address any social, emotional, behavioral, or academic obstacles. Now, they are evaluating the success of those efforts—and if you are hearing from them, it’s because they believe additional action is needed.

When a teacher or principal reaches out, it’s almost never a casual check-in. Unless the teacher is an unusually high-anxiety personality (and while a few exist, they are rare), multiple points of contact usually mean there’s a persistent concern. Some parents will never hear from the teacher at all. If you receive an email or phone call, I recommend you offer to meet. And if you’re receiving more than one of the above—or even just have a gut feeling that something is off—I’d ask to meet. No teacher is looking to add extra emails, phone calls or meetings to their already full plate unless they feel they must.

If you’re unsure how concerned the teacher is—or if they’re just a generally high-alert personality—you can always ask, “Do you usually reach out to parents when you don’t have concerns?” If the answer is no, that’s your cue: a meeting is warranted. In any case, responding promptly shows you’re taking the concern seriously and gives you a chance to hear directly what’s going on. And I would opt for a face-to-face meeting if at all possible; you want to have the best sense of what’s really going on. You want to be able to read the body language of the teacher, and you’re much more likely to be able to do that in person than over the phone. But if you can’t do this for some reason, it’s not the end of the world.

When you do connect, you want to find out how long the concern has been present. But take care. If the teacher reveals that they’ve been working on something for months without contacting you sooner, don’t jump on the teacher. Your goal is to address the difficulty your child is having now, not to take issue with what the teacher should have told you sooner.

At the meeting, ask what the school has tried and how effective (or ineffective) those interventions have been. Keep in mind that if they are suggesting to meet now, whatever they tried was not as productive as they had hoped.

Sometimes schools attempt multiple strategies so they can show that they’ve exhausted all other options—especially if they anticipate needing to recommend a step you might otherwise hesitate to take, such as tutoring, an outside evaluation, counseling, or occupational therapy. They may believe they need to establish that there is nothing left to do but what they think you would not want to do.

Essential Questions to Ask—and Why

When you meet, you want to ask some key questions that you may really not want to know the answers to, but that you need to ask so that you are in the best position to help your child. You can’t fix what you don’t know about, and sometimes schools are reluctant to share the unvarnished truth with you because of what I call the Pollyanna Effect—the tendency of schools to sugar-coat messages so that you don’t even know there’s an issue, much less what the issue is.

They may soften or obscure the message because they don’t want to upset you, encounter parental defensiveness, or put themselves in the position of having to defend difficult news. In an effort to avoid conflict—or simply because of a culture of political correctness (not wanting to say hard things too bluntly), fear of upsetting parents, or fear of backlash against the messenger—teachers and administrators may describe a situation in ways that leave parents unclear that there even is an issue, much less the nature or severity of it.

Areas of Inquiry (and Why They Matter)

Because you know, based on outreach alone, that the school believes the issue is serious, I suggest you explore the impact in several possible areas:

• Instructional impact: Is your child interfering with the teacher’s ability to deliver content?
• Academic impact: Is your child’s behavior interfering with their learning acquisition—or that of others?
• Social impact: Is their behavior resulting in marginalization from their peers?
• Peer impression impact: Are parents, students, or faculty developing a fixed, negative narrative about your child?

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Here’s What to Ask—and Why

Are other students experiencing similar challenges? And where would you rank my child relative to others facing similar issues?

Why: If your child is one of very few, that tells you the concern is individualized—and likely more serious. No school is going to come right out and tell you that your child is the most challenging, but asking this question gives the teacher permission to be more candid/transparent. You are trying to ascertain how much additional effort is being expended on your child. You also want to have a sense of how peers may be viewing your child—and how your child may be feeling about themselves, because even very young children are self-aware enough to realize that the teacher is always or frequently calling their name.

Is my child’s behavior affecting the learning environment for others?

Why: If your child’s actions are impacting classmates’ ability to learn, schools will be more motivated to seek change quickly. It also suggests broader classroom consequences that you should know about.

Is my child standing out negatively among their peers—and are other children starting to pull away socially?

Why: If other students are starting to notice and distance themselves, that may indicate your child’s behavior, emotions, or social skills are wearing on peers. This can affect your child’s social standing, self-esteem, and overall engagement with school.

Are other parents complaining? Is a narrative developing about my child?

Why: Once a “story” takes hold among other parents or students, it can be harder to change perceptions, even if the behavior improves. The smaller the school, the harder it is to change a narrative, even if your child is young. Parents and teachers will talk. Parents will complain to teachers about students taking up instructional time with classroom management or social intervention.

Final Thoughts

Even late in the school year, it’s not too late to act. Addressing concerns now can set the stage for a stronger start next year—academically, socially, and emotionally. And your willingness to engage now signals to your child—and the school—that you’re in their corner.