Schools Correspondence and Grammar

Yes, generally speaking my kids' teachers/staff have had very good communication skills, both verbal and written, as have other parents, coaches, etc.

Yes. I see some typos every once in a while, but that's about it.
I would be concerned if the person that was teaching my child is not able to write a sentence without issues.

Mine didn't really correspond much directly with me. Her impairments were not answering direct emails and being an ineffective principal.

That said, yes, they ARE that busy.

You have complained about this principal many times. It seems like you focus on the mistakes he's making as a matter of habit and turn them into conversation. That is probably not the most helpful thing you could be doing for the school. Maybe it's time to either address it with their supervisor or let it go?

I'm a very literate person and make mistakes in typing at times. Guess what? When we're in a hurry, we sometimes aren't perfect! I have to laugh, as someone has already posted that the principal is 'uneducated or lazy' but also had a typo in their own post. People, please! One does not need a bachelor's degree to care about this OR to write well. Those are entirely expressions of one's own desire to communicate in an effective manner.

(Have you considered the irony of your own post in the context of the subject, being that your principal does not use correct English? You did not capitalize or use correct punctuation throughout most of the post. The word "grammarly" does not exist. Several necessary apostrophes were also neglected. Poor, sad forgotten apostrophes!)

From what you've written in the past about your school, it seems that they are so understaffed that grammar and typos are the least of their worries. Sorry.

Not to mention the state of Illinois is in trouble with ALL of its budgets.....

I know in our school, if there is a paper being sent home and it has minor grammatical errors, it is sent to try to save paper. But that would not be the case for email.....

I strongly encourage you to attend school board meetings, PTO/PTA and volunteer in office if you don't already. You get a lot of 'behind the scenes' info and get recognized by school staff who may be more apt to work with a friendly concerned face then an anonymous complaint.

This is a huge irritation for me - a typo is one thing, although spellcheck should catch some of those. A teacher/principal can certainly be dyslexic, just like a student. I don't think those teachers should be prevented from teaching, but I do think there needs to be support for them as there is for kids with the same issue.

That said, major grammatical errors showing the person doesn't have a command of English or a willingness to have someone else look it over makes my skin crawl. So, something like "did you child tell..." is maybe just an oversight. "They was being..." is a much bigger problem, in my view.

Anyone who is so careless makes me worry about attention to detail in other areas: Is my child's record accurate? Are report cards and attendance records correct? Are medical records (nurse notations/visits) correct? Is the administration watching the budget with such lack of care? Are they reading the bus list correctly so all the kids are getting on the right buses? (We had a year or two where so many young kids, especially kindergarteners, were "misplace" - put on the wrong bus, taken to the wrong after-care facility, dropped off by mistake at home in a freezing rain instead of to the local community center, left asleep in the back of the bus when it went back to the bus yard, and so on.

If it were to happen now, I would print it out, make the corrections (if you are positive of them, and if not, ask for help from a professional writer/proofreader/editor), and send a marked-up copy back to the administration/author. I'd say something like, "I understand completely that you are overwhelmed with paperwork and parental communications, but I think communications like this which are written in haste and not proofread can do a lot of damage. Parents who receive something hastily or poorly written may dismiss the thoughts, policies and other content in the email because they assume the writer is not knowledgeable in any area, not just language development. I am concerned that our educators need to present the highest level of competence in language skills that they demand of the students. I would like to volunteer to proofread (or to enlist the services of a volunteer editor) for any outgoing correspondence or notices. I would be willing to sign a confidentiality agreement asserting that I would not divulge the contents of any draft messages prior to their distribution to the school community." If you cannot make the volunteer commitment, you can leave that part out and say you are concerned that recipients will be dismissive of the information if it is not presented in the most professional and accurate format possible, and you recommend that the administration obtain the services of a skilled proofreader or a faculty member of the English department to ensure accuracy and clarity of expression.

I'm a freelance editor/proofreader and a former teacher, so I am a stickler about these things. And yes, it matters - even if people tell you it doesn't.

We used to get emails from the school counsellor where the grammar was not correct. Nice guy, busy, I just didn't let it bother me. He still was a great counsellor.

I'm wondering if your principal was responding to your email by phone? My husband who is educated and normally writes correctly, sends the worst emails and texts because of auto correct. Instead of correcting the typos, his phone seems to substitute words and doesn't check for grammar.

In answer to your question though - newsletters are reviewed by the secretary or volunteers before sent out, so they are typically error free. Emails directly from staff sometimes have the odd typo.

Added:Nervy made some good points. We have an annual survey we complete, anonymously, on what we feel could be done better at school - opportunity to have our thoughts known. Do you have such a thing? If not, that could be something you suggest.

There are frequently mistakes in the emails that come from my principal and it drives me crazy. So many of them could be caught with simple proofreading. I find it embarrassing.

I find mistakes when I read novels all the time, too. It surprises me every time that no one caught them during the editing process.

The correspondence we get from both our kid's schools is grammatically correct. I honestly have never noticed a mistake, and I usually notice that sort of thing. It would bother me. I don't know how I would address it though...how embarrassing for that principal! He/she needs an editor before things get sent out.

Yes our administrators use the same discourse as the parents use. Apparently it is the same in your district.

I have noticed an error in an email or 2, but nothing that makes me think the principal is uneducated or lazy.

This is excessive. The first example I can give a pass (maybe he or someone edited the word 'member' to 'members' and didn't update the verb to match). They second example is lazy. I have typed 'you' in place of 'your' when typing fast, but "they was" is just unacceptable.

I would be bothered. If that is how they're communicating with parents, how are they communicating with the children? My guess is that most of the messages are drafted by someone other than the principal and aren't reviewed carefully. If they are drafted by the principal, there's no excuse for a college-educated professional to write that way. An occasional slip-up? Sure, that happens to everyone. A chronic problem with poor grammar? Not okay.

I would be more concerned about how the actual teacher's writing skills were. I would probably be inclined to bring the errors to someone's attention. Perhaps tell a secretary in the office that the newsletter needs some proofreading. It will probably get back to the principal who can get someone to review it. This correspondence could give the whole school a bad reputation.

i can see a hasty email having a snafu, but i agree that it behooves an institution of learning to take the time to proofread.
spellcheck is not foolproof, but most places have someone on staff who is good at this stuff and should be used appropriately.
my boss is a brilliant woman, but it just so happens that writing and grammar are my magic powers, so she generally either has me write newsletters or ads, or has me give a once-over to check for errors.
it's simply good management to a) make sure you're communicating correctly and b) to have people in place who can double-check it.
especially in a school.
khairete
S.

Not always. Communication from the principal is usually ok, but our daughter had a kindergarten teacher whose instructions and updates were so full of errors that I marked them up with a red pen and wanted to send them back... but my husband stopped me. I found this very disturbing, and English is not even my native language.

Just wondering , do you attend meetings where he speaks? If he speaks correctly, maybe it's the autocorrect and just in hurry.

Does the communication go out to the whole school? How often?

If there is a lot of it, use a red pen, like Sonja is talking about, and correct the mistakes on all of it at once. (Make sure you are right in all the corrections. Get help from a trusted English major if you need to.) Put the envelope in the principal's box at the school, if you can, in bulk without a note and without a return address. Either he/she will be appalled by the mess he/she is making, or won't care.