When you have a student who you feel could stay at school, but still called the parent to inform of his/her complaint and parent decided to pick up, but it is going to take them a while to arrive, do you usually send the student back to class to wait or have them wait in the H/O?
I have learned that parents often take longer to arrive than expected. So when a student is fine but will be picked up, I often send back to class to wait. We do not always have room for a student to rest and I don't think it makes sense for a stable student to sit in our boring office for a long time, compromising the privacy of other students who come in.
Usually teachers are appreciative that there is at least a plan for dismissal. Last week, I had a calm and afebrile student with a stomach ache who I sent back to class after my normal stomach ache drill. He was sent back down after 10 minutes. Still appeared well with no distress but I called mom to inform and she said she would pick up in 30 minutes. I sent him back with a note that mom would come in 30 to pick up and we would call him down (my mistake was probably writing the expected wait on the pass). Mom took longer than expected, and teacher called me to let me know the student was "not happy in the classroom" and as I was telling her that there was no room for him to rest here she said, "well I'm having him pack up his things and I'm sending him down." (Mom actually arrived like two minutes after he came down.)
I ended up sending her a brief email at the end of the day because I felt she may have thought I unloaded a sick student back into her classroom. Maybe it would have gone better had I called her to explain the plan rather than write it on the note. I am not super bothered about the situation but am curious whether anyone else would have been even slightly bothered. In the "I would not tell you how to run your classroom" kind of way. It's the end of the year and everyone is tired but I still felt the need to back myself up and clear any misunderstanding. Especially because we have been so darn busy here and I feel run over, myself.
Thanks for reading my wordy post! I did not want to make a separate thread for this but could not figure where else it should go.
(Actually, just as I finished writing this post, teacher sent back a very kind reply. So I'm glad I emailed her, because sometimes a negative interaction is the only interaction I'll have with a teacher for a month and I don't like that to hang in the air uncleared!)
