2-hour invitation, parents understand as 2 meetings
The situation of some parents being upset when Nguyen Khuyen High School (Phuoc Thang ward, Ho Chi Minh City) closed the gate and could not attend the meeting on September 13th, which Lao Dong Newspaper has reported, parents and the school principal had exchanges related to the incident.
A parent named Nguyen An (full name and last name have been changed) said that the school has a meeting invitation according to 2 time slots. The first content is to work with the principal from 7 am; the second content is to work with the homeroom teacher from 8 am. However, although it came before 8 am, the school closed the gate and did not allow entering, dozens of parents had to stand outside.
The invitation letter written like that makes me understand that there are 2 meetings. At the same time, the school should also respect parents, notify parents to leave and the homeroom teacher to disseminate later, instead of closing the gate and not allowing them to enter without saying anything," Ms. Nguyen An said.
And the parent named Tr was upset because she came to the meeting on time. After the first meeting to work with the principal, Ms. Tr went outside to photocopy additional documents for her child, but when she returned, she was also not allowed inside.
I did not arrive late and came to the school to attend the meeting from 6:50 am, but then went outside and the gate was closed and not allowed to enter. The school should not be rigid and needs to be more understanding with parents, because there will be cases of being busy, or having 2-3 children, so they have to attend at many different locations," Ms. Tr said.
Principal admits improper handling of unfortunate incident
Talking to Lao Dong Newspaper, Ms. Lu Thi Tra Giang - Principal of Nguyen Khuyen High School said that the incident was truly a regrettable incident, and would like to apologize to the parents.
The school has also assigned homeroom teachers to connect with parents to exchange explanations and convey the contents in the working session.
According to Ms. Giang, first of all, the school needs to learn from experience in issuing invitation letters, and needs to clearly state the schedule and content for parents to understand.
Parents attending the meeting and working with the school show their concern for educating their children. The school is very grateful and hopes to cooperate with parents in student education. Therefore, it has prepared carefully for the meeting, arranged teachers to guide parents... to start right at 7 am according to the invitation, in order to show respect for all parents.
The school does not have to organize two different meetings, but hopes that in the general meeting part, the school board can fully and accurately convey the policies to parents. After that, the homeroom teacher will deploy other contents. But the missing invitation does not clearly show it," Ms. Giang said.
Ms. Giang said that she only requested security to close the gate at about 7:52 am, because at this time the content of working with homeroom teachers had been deployed in many classes. Closing the gate is to respect parents who arrive on time and are seriously working with the school and teachers.
In this situation, Ms. Giang admitted that the handling was "not skillful" and would learn from experience, but said that parents also need to connect with homeroom teachers and schools more in this situation.
According to Ms. Giang, homeroom teachers have created groups to exchange and connect with parents. If parents are busy or late, they can notify the school and teachers to grasp, guide and transmit information afterwards. At the same time, Ms. Giang also explained that the meeting from 7 am is to hope that parents can directly feel the school atmosphere, at the location where students are sitting and experience the actual learning environment of their children.
In important activities and contents, the school will notify more clearly for parents to grasp. If parents cannot attend, they should also notify the homeroom teacher, and will be informed later," Ms. Giang said.
The principal of Nguyen Khuyen High School said that the matter needs to be viewed objectively. The school is receptive, learns from experience and will be more flexible in the coming time.
