School is not a customer-service company

Schools should listen to parents, but they should not run like businesses, argues Vantaa teacher Pasi Salmela in a reader opinion piece published by Helsingin Sanomat.

Salmela was responding to a proposal that schools could ask parents for feedback in the same way as shops, car-repair services and online retailers. He rejects that comparison, saying the school is not a company, the guardian is not its customer and teaching is not customer service.

Parents have the right, and often the duty, to raise concerns about bullying, missing support for a child or inappropriate treatment. Schools must respond to those issues. But teachers must also make decisions that students or parents may not like, Salmela writes. The child’s best interests do not always match the child’s or parent’s wishes.

Cooperation between home and school remains an important part of teachers’ and principals’ work. Yet schools already conduct surveys, assessments and other reviews. Salmela says teachers’ limited working hours should primarily support teaching, guidance and direct interaction. Trust and open discussion, he argues, offer a better foundation for cooperation than customer-satisfaction surveys.