What is an appropriate teacher parent relationship?

I was wondering from other parents, what defines a proper parent
teacher relationship? At my child's school,parents of two of the

toto...

A good parent-teacher relationship is a partnership between
the parents and the teacher.

There should be open communication between the parents and
the teacher. Conferences between parents and teachers should
have a specific purpose and should be relatively short and to
the point.

Parents should be able to visit the classroom.

Parents should communicate concerns directly to the teacher
and in cases of disagreements the school policy for resolving
them should be followed.

Parents should avoid criticizing teachers in front of the children.
Teachers should avoid criticizing other children or parents in
front of the children as well.

children have formed rather close, personal friendships with the

toto...

What grade is this? Is this a small town? Do the teachers
live near the parents in question?

teacher outside of the classroom (their children are in my child's
class). This includes inviting the teacher to parties at their house,

Nikki...

This is certainly not unheard of where I am. I live in small towns. If the
teachers eliminated parents from their social circle they wouldn't have a
social circle.

socializing with the teacher (going to movies, shopping) etc. Several

toto...

This used to be quite common, you know. Teachers even lived
in the homes of some of their students. A good teacher can
certainly be objective about the students even if she is very good
friends with a parent.

of the other parents are now expressing concern abuot potential bias; a
recent incident occured in the classroom that was clearly the fault of
one of the students that are currently in her social circle, and the
teacher in question showed a "benefit of the doubt" approach that was
above and beyond reasonable expectations. In another incident that

toto...

Were you in the classroom when this happened or are you taking
the word of other students who may have been involved in the
incident?

included my child and the same child mentioned above, a solution was
put in place that clearly impacted my child that the teacher actually
told us we really didn't need to have input on.

Nikki...

If you feel your child was treated so unfairly that it needs addressed then
I would address it. I would not mention the other child or the teachers
friendships, your concern is only for your kid.

toto...

What was this solution? How did it impact your child?

Is it worth while to address this issue with the principal? Is this

Nikki...

Who the teacher is friends with? I would never take that to the principle.
If the incident with your child was quite serious and ongiong I would first
address it with the teacher and if that was unsatisfactory I would go to the
principle. If the incident was not serious and ongoing, I would just leave
it be and wouldn't address it with anyone, teacher or principle.

something minor that we are blowing out of proportion?

dragonlady...

It's hard to know, without specifics. Unless you really fear that your
child is getting a seriously hampered education, it may be unwise to do
anything about it.

In most schools, students have each teacher for one year, only. The
reason I mention this is that it strikes me as difficult to establish
this sort of relationship this fast, and an inappropriate boundary issue
if the parents and teachers persued this relationship just this past
year -- IOW, developing a party/shopping/movies friendship in the few
months since school started seems somewhat unlikely. I'd like to think
that most teachers are too professional, and too aware of the potential
pitfalls, to pursue a personal freindship with the parent's of their
students.

However, it is possible that they were friends before; in that case,
while it is important to know where to draw what lines, it seems to me
that it would be unfair and ill-advised to suggest that they STOP being
frineds just because one has become the teacher of the others. I know
growing up in a small town, for example, there were times when my
teachers were friends of my parents, but my parents knew them well
before they were my teachers.

Even here, living in the 10 largest city in the country, there was a
year when one of my daughter's teachers was someone we already knew. We
didn't stop being friends just because my daughter was in his class --
but we DID avoid discussing school during non-school events.

If "several parents" are discussing the possiblity of bias, it strikes
me as appropriate to sit down with the teacher and find a way to discuss
it with her, rather than talking about it behind her back. But taking
it to the principal seems over the top, especially if you essentially go
over her head without ever talking to her.

toto...

This really depends upon the actual facts of the case and those
are difficult to determine from what you write above. Was the
solution clearly unfair? Does the teacher give most of the children
the *benefit of the doubt* when it comes to the particular kind of
misbehavior you are talking about? Is the teacher kind and
respectful of all the children in her class?