Dear schools,

In the most gentle, loving way I can possibly say this: Lay off.

I’m not talking to individual teachers. Several of my loved ones are teachers who have scrambled to balance the needs of their students with the dictates of the schools, administrators, and governments they work for – no easy task. It’s no secret that those needs and dictates aren’t always in complement, and the teachers are stuck in the middle.

And some schools are doing a beautiful job of supporting their parents, students, and families with flexibility, tact, and grace. I’m not talking to those schools, either.

I am saying this to the system as a whole who, in some cases, is dictating and assigning “requirements” to parents and children at an alarming and irresponsible rate. So – administrators, schools, and bureaucrats, with as much grace and love as I can muster:

You all need to knock it off. You’re working too hard, and in many cases you’re asking parents to work too hard, also.

Parents have so much on their plates right now without the added reams of paperwork, assignments, instructions, zoom calls, emails, google hangouts, and other virtual meetings you are giving them to replicate the work you would normally have their kids do in school.

A parent’s job has never been, and is not now, to replicate what schools do with children.

Ideas and resources are wonderful. Offering livestream or mobile support is great. But telling parents they are “required” (oh really?) to give spelling tests and math quizzes and dozens of assignments per day…is not.

Most parents have more than one child in the system. And most of those children have more than one teacher at school. Not one of those classes or teachers are the center of the child’s educational universe.

Parents of just two or three kids are getting upwards of fifty emails a day. I have one friend whose children have no less than a dozen daily zoom meetings. I have other friends with little kids – we’re talking kindergarteners and first graders – who have been given so many instructions and assignments and “requirements” (that word is in quotes on purpose) that it’s delusional.

These schools – and yes, some individual teachers – are revealing a grossly overinflated sense of their own importance. At the same time, they’re exposing a grossly underinflated understanding of both education and priorities in this time of crisis. It is utterly misguided.

Here’s the truth: Parents have known how to teach their children long before schools came along to make them feel they were unqualified to do it.

All this busywork may be well intended. Or, it may be meant to further press home the message that many schools have always given parents: You don’t know what you’re doing with your kids. Let us tell you what to do.

And maybe some parents are believing that message more than ever, while also trying to juggle suddenly working from home, suddenly dealing with new routines, suddenly losing their jobs, suddenly missing out on normal activities, and suddenly being low on toilet paper or other basics.

But maybe other parents are realizing that schools were never very good at replacing parents in the first place.

Maybe there are parents out there who are suddenly seeing the absolute waste of time all the busywork is. Maybe there are parents who would rather just read to their kids, or teach them to garden, or show them how to balance the checkbook. Maybe there are parents who could get more of their own work done with less stress and still have the presence of mind to play a game with their kids during the day if they weren’t so exhausted and stressed out from the added burden of schools presuming to tell them what to do…and how to do it…and when to do it…and how often.

I’m not saying that schools don’t have their place. I’m saying that the home is not one of them.

Further burdening parents in a time of crisis is not one of them.

Telling parents what to do with their children as though the schools make the requirements and rules is not one of them.

Consuming the time of families and dictating the schedules of much of their day is not one of them.

The schools that are doing this have forgotten their place. To clarify, here it is:

Schools work for the parents. Not the other way around.

And the only way for schools to work with families and help them through this time of crisis is to take a step back and remember that.

Kudos to the schools, teachers, and administrators who are doing that. Bless you.

But parents, if you’re dealing with the other kind of schools? Remember, they work for you. You know your kids better than they do. You make the rules for your kids and your family.

And if you need to trash the busywork, skip the tests, play hooky for a while, and just take some time to get your feet under you as we all navigate this season, do it.

Your kids might forget half the stuff they did in school before Spring Break, but they’ll never forget living through this.

Your kids are learning every day. Probably more than you realize, and definitely more than you give yourself credit for. They are learning from you, from the world around them, and from the atmosphere you create in your home. This has always been the case.

_____

Parents, want this reminder somewhere you can see it often? Download a free printable bookmark here and free printable 5×7 here.