How Can You Deal With
Complaints Against Teachers?

Here is a question that I received from "A" and my answer to her about dealing with a formal complaint against her.

Honey, I have been teaching for 10 years and I have recently had a "formal complaint" filed against me. A parent said that I "beat her son down to where he did not want to go to school, I would not help him, and I made him walk at recess for asking a question."

All of this is highly untrue and she waited to file this complaint until July, one and half months after school was over. She also said that I never returned her emails (I have 18 saved that I returned and read). All of this is simply not true and her son (usually sweet kid) was not responsible and did not turn in his work.

My question is, what happens with a formal complaint when it goes to county? I want to know if I should worry or not. This has me really stressed out because I have never had to go through anything like this before. I have had no other complaints ever filed.

Answer

Dear A,

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. When something comes out of the blue like this when clearly you are not at fault, it is quite understandable that you are quite upset and stressed. It's difficult to deal with angry parents when these days, more often than not, they side with their child before hearing the facts.

You didn't mention if your principal is aware of what has transpired. Is he supportive? Does the parent have a history of being unstable?

Here in my province of Ontario, Canada, teachers are part of a union and we have a federation representative that can help and advise us on what we should do in these types of situations. In your county, are there school or school board advisers that can assist you?

These days in school, you can look at a student the wrong way and they run home and tell their parent(s) and right away the parent(s) complains to your principal instead of speaking to you first to find out what happened. The student should also be held accountable.

Please read my page on dealing with parents and my videos on how to deal with complaints against teachers.

I discuss a number of different ways of handling parents complaints that I'm sure you will find helpful.

Good luck!

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