Your say: Readers react to bold plan to put Qld teachers off limits to parents

School leaders are fighting to protect the rights of teachers to disconnect triggering fresh discourse. HAVE YOUR SAY

School leaders are fighting to protect teachers’ right to disconnect.

• Plan to put teachers off limits to parents

A bold move from the state government to give parents strict guidelines about when and where they are allowed to contact teachers, including over email, has been supported by Courier-Mail readers.

School leaders, staff and unions raised the alarm over parents’ unrealistic expectations regarding responses from teachers.

They’re fighting for to protect teachers’ right to disconnect.

Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek announced statewide guidelines would be set through a one-page document expected to be released next week.

More than 90 per cent of readers voted yes to teachers being off limits to parents outside of traditional school hours, according to a Courier-Mail poll.

Readers also supported the concept, with more than 100 comments, largely in favour of limiting parent-teacher access.

See what you had to say below and join the conversation >>>

WHAT YOU SAID

Scrubbed out

Parents thinking it’s OK to walk into a class room during lessons and fight a kids battle with the teacher is not just disrespectful it’s bizarre.

Gordon

A friend who is a teacher once received 70 emails from parents over one weekend. The issue was that they were organising a school camp that started on the Monday and parents had questions about that camp. As they said: just read the information I sent you!!!! It’s all in there!!!!

Uncle Bob

Teachers have a right to their privacy & family time. I have two daughters that are teachers & I see how much of their own time is spent at home planning & marking papers attending school discos school camps etç and the list goes on, so parents need to give them the respect they deserve. Unless you have teachers in the family you will never know how much of their own time they already give up. When I worked under the privacy act personal details of staff was not allowed

Premier David Crisafulli and Minister for Education John-Paul Langbroek at Carbrook State School for the launch of the 2025 Premier’s Reading Challenge.

Leigh

Parents should be banned from entering the school premises unless going directly to Admin office, an arranged meeting or attending a function or event.

With the exception of the first week or two of Prep, there should be no need for adults to have to walk children to their classrooms in the morning (and then hang around for hours), or stand around chatting outside the classrooms for an hour before school finishes at the end of the day.

Children are quite capable of finding their way from the gate to the classroom and back on their own.

Linda

Parents can send through an email at 2am but they shouldn’t expect it to be read or responded to. They wouldn’t expect it from a doctor, plumber, supermarket so why expect it from a teacher? Make an appointment if you want to discuss something.

Bernice

They should be contactable until 5pm weekdays. And for 48 weeks of the year. Normal business hours. And also at times during the day when they aren’t teaching.

Stephen

Having worked in Education for many years, i can advise most teachers work hard and do a lot of extra work outside of paid hours ,to ensure kids succeed. I think most of the issues are in the home and the poor old teachers are the scapegoat.

Display name

Society no longer values good manners and respect for one another and unfortunately teachers are expected to be the solution to poor parenting. Yes my Wife is a teacher and I see firsthand the disrespect shown by parents to teachers.

John from Northgate

Great initiative by the government. Time for teachers to be respected as professionals, rather than quasi parents

Peter

You don’t walk into your family GPs surgery without an appointment, so why do parents think that they can walk into a teacher’s classroom without an appointment?

Sandra

Teachers have a right to their privacy & family time. I have two daughters that are teachers & I see how much of their own time is spent at home planning & marking papers attending school discos school camps etç and the list goes on, so parents need to give them the respect they deserve. Unless you have teachers in the family you will never know how much of their own time they already give up. When I worked under the privacy act personal details of staff was not allowed.

Originally published as Your say: Readers react to bold plan to put Qld teachers off limits to parents