Even the Best Teacher Could Be Considered a Negligent Parent is a thoughtful post at Ed Week Teacher by Marilyn Rhames.

Here’s an excerpt:

When parents are going through tough times in life, I want to be the kind of teacher who uplifts them and their children. It is not my place to judge or assume that the mom who says she is too busy to come to parent conferences just doesn’t care.

While I want to encourage and challenge parents to do better by their kids, I must walk a fine line so that my actions or words do not also make them feel out of place in their child’s school.

I know. I understand. I am a parent, too. I used to wonder why some parents would let their kids come to school with uncombed hair. But now I have two daughters with crowns full of thick, beautiful, kinky black strands. As I dropped them off at the front door of the school today, I realized that I forgot to brush their hair and sign their nightly reading logs–for the second day in a row.