Should you expect parents to have email?

[Shippou-Sensei]

I'm currently chasing absentee students and would love to drop an email over to the next of kin.
Problem is that for a bunch of them I only have mobile numbers.
I don't know about anyone else but frankly I hate ringing up a bunch of people and playing voicemail tennis when a quick email would do the trick.




It is the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty one.
We are in the 51st year of the UNIX epoch.

Is it now ok to expect people to have an email address?

While I do get that some people can't afford a pc or smartphone even £5 phones can access email.


Edited to add

And if they do have one should they be expected to give it to their kid's teacher.

And if it is sexybabe69blazing420@ballz.net either man up to it or make a work safe one .

 

[killer b]

if you don't have their email address it's because they haven't given it to you, not that they don't have one.

 

[MickiQ]

Yes, I find it hard to imagine that any adult especially a parent could function without email in modern society. Even my 86 yr old Dad has an email. But like killer b I suspect that you haven't got it because they haven't told you.

 

[Sweet FA]

Lockdown certainly caused a lot of parents to change their email addresses. A couple had addresses like hotsexychick@hotmail or sweetelaine69@yahoo

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

if you don't have their email address it's because they haven't given it to you, not that they don't have one.

Because they prefer voicemail?

 

[killer b]

Because they prefer voicemail?

Much easier to ignore voicemail

 

[strung out]

If you'd rather send an email instead of calling, then the obvious alternative if you don't have an email address is to send them a text message instead.

 

[Elpenor]

And if it is sexybabe69blazing420@ballz.net either man up to it or make a work safe one .

How did you know my email address?

 

[andysays]

I'm currently chasing absentee students and would love to drop an email over to the next of kin.
Problem is that for a bunch of them I only have mobile numbers.
I don't know about anyone else but frankly I hate ringing up a bunch of people and playing voicemail tennis when a quick email would do the trick.




It is the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty one.
We are in the 51st year of the UNIX epoch.

Is it now ok to expect people to have an email address?

While I do get that some people can't afford a pc or smartphone even £5 phones can access email.


Edited to add

And if they do have one should they be expected to give it to their kid's teacher.

And if it is sexybabe69blazing420@ballz.net either man up to it or make a work safe one .

I don't think it's realistic to expect that every single parent or carer will actually have an email address.

I also think that whatever contact details parents do give would/should normally be held by the school or college under some sort of confidential system, and only made available to teachers in a limited way for specific purposes (although contacting the parent of an absent student is certainly a legitimate purpose).

So no, I don't think it's reasonable to expect parents to give their email address (or mobile phone number TBH) to their child's teacher.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

If you'd rather send an email instead of calling, then the obvious alternative if you don't have an email address is to send them a text message instead.

I would but I don't have a work phone and ms teams does calls but not texts. There is a texting system online but it one way. Texts are also often limited in how many characters you can send. Also no attachments.

Also why not just have an email.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

I don't think it's realistic to expect that every single parent or carer will actually have an email address.

Why?

 

[Aladdin]

I've occasionally had to help parents set up a gmail account.
Vast majority of parents will have at least one email address. IME

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

How did you know my email address?

I'm on your mailing list.

 

[andysays]

Why?

Because not everyone has an email account.

ETA Some people are not able to use or at least comfortable with using things like email that most of us now take for granted.

 

[killer b]

they do have an email, they just aren't very interested in you contacting them about their child's academic achievements or absenteeism

 

[trabuquera]

Not everybody is literate, speaks English, understands technology, has daily access to a pc or tablet, is sighted, etc etc etc etc etc
I mean it's unusual, but not unheard of, and if your default technology is guaranteed to exclude some people (parents) that's a bit of an issue

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Because not everyone has an email account.

Yes but given how easy it is to get one and the predominance of this form of communication wouldn't it be a reasonable request for parents and guardians to have one.
And if not why not? We already require a phone number and postal address. Frankly I'd have thought an email address was easier than a postal address.

 

[Orang Utan]

I encounter many people in my job who don’t have an email account. 5 million British people have never used the internet. and you’d be surprised that not all of them are older people.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Not everybody is literate, speaks English, understands technology, has daily access to a pc or tablet, is sighted, etc etc etc etc etc
I mean it's unusual, but not unheard of, and if your default technology is guaranteed to exclude some people (parents) that's a bit of an issue

But surely the same is true of the phone?

I often get next of kin who don't speak English or do so very poorly.

I do get there are exceptions to any rule but this applies to all forms of communication.

Is expecting email worse than expecting calls or letters?

 

[andysays]

Yes but given how easy it is to get one and the predominance of this form of communication wouldn't it be a reasonable request for parents and guardians to have one.
And if not why not? We already require a phone number and postal address. Frankly I'd have thought an email address was easier than a postal address.

Does your school have a policy about contacting parents in this situation?

I'm genuinely surprised to hear that if individual teachers like you are expected to contact parents, you aren't given guidelines on how to do it.

And TBH, I would really expect that this would be done by the school, sending a letter to a postal address, rather than by a teacher by whatever method they thought best or easiest for them.

 

[PTK]

Yes but given how easy it is to get one and the predominance of this form of communication wouldn't it be a reasonable request for parents and guardians to have one.
And if not why not? We already require a phone number and postal address. Frankly I'd have thought an email address was easier than a postal address.

What if someone does not have a computer? How then will they access email? They would go to a public library.
It seems ridiculous to me to have something that you have to check at least once a day in case you have a message on it.

A landline is always on, and it is easy to check for messages.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

We are absolutly expected to inform next of kin for all under 18s and strongly recommend to do so for 18+ living at home.

Or social workers where appropriate.

It also gets flagged as a safeguarding issue if it is persistent.

 

[killer b]

A landline is always on, and it is easy to check for messages.

lol right. I'd say waaaay more people have email than have an operating landline.

 

[PTK]

lol right. I'd say waaaay more people have email than have an operating landline.

You may be right. It seems to me that email is an over-complicated way of communicating with someone.

Digressing a little: There was an item on You and Yours today about how a woman was conned out of some money by series of WhatsApp messages purporting to be from her daughter, claiming that she was in dire straits financially. I could not understand why the women did not have an actual telephone conversation with her daughter before sending the money.
I think that email is feeding social phobia.

 

[Orang Utan]

talking on the phone is not a good way of communicating for everyone. many people prefer to write down their thoughts instead

 

[Cloo]

I think quite a lot of adults use WhatsApp instead of email now. My husband barely ever looks at his Gmail.

 

[Elpenor]

When I did payroll for a cohort of low-paid London school cleaners, largely non-English speaking they were very much WhatsApp / mobile in terms of communication. Not email. Whether it was a language thing, or more likely as they didn’t have access to a computer, i don’t know.

 

[Winot]

More and more people only have a mobile phone so do everything on WhatsApp. Email takes a bit of knowledge to set up whereas with WhatsApp you just need to put in your number.

Young people don't seem to use email. I do some mentoring for a charity and they tell us that they need to persuade kids to get to grips with email if they want to fit in to the world of work.

 

[weltweit]

What you want, isn't just that they have email, but that they check and deal with their email regularly.

My son has email, sending him an email is a waste of time though because he never checks it.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

What you want, isn't just that they have email, but that they check and deal with their email regularly.

My son has email, sending him an email is a waste of time though because he never checks it.

Actually part of me just wants this as a box to tick.

I do get why people may prefer other means of messaging but given the fact this is an official form of communication I am quite limited in what I can do.
Office line via MS teams or email are about it.

Technically I think I could ask for a letter to be sent but I can never remember who authorises that and it is rather one way.