“We like the establishment from the outside, we would like to visit to see if we will put our child here”

Regularly, in her nursery school in the east of Paris, Astrid (name has been changed) sees a very particular type of family come to her. Parents, in general “rather well-off”come to compliment him. They say: “I made inquiries, you are the best school in Paris.” Or again: “We like the school from the outside, we would like to visit to see if we should send our child here.” With a career spanning forty years, including twenty as a school principal, Astrid is not the type to be impressed by parents who are sizing up their local establishment. “as if visiting an apartment”On the contrary, this misunderstanding about the nature of the public education service makes her laugh. “People still don’t understand that you don’t choose your schoolshe jokes. I tell them that it doesn’t work like that, and that it’s not because they flatter me that their child will be enrolled.”

Astrid calls them the “school consumers”. Others speak of “customer parents”. When their child turns 3, they enter the national education system as if they were in a store, demand the schedule of school trips, criticize the quality of the workshops offered, and sometimes even the methods. Then, as they get older, they contest the grades, the sanctions, the suggestions for orientation.

According to many teachers interviewed, the phenomenon is on the rise, even though these client parents have always existed. The Covid-19 crisis, which forced families to put their noses more into learning during lockdowns, and therefore into teachers’ methods, may not be unrelated. In any case, it has pushed digital communication with families to the point of no return. Messages on platforms, quickly typed and quickly sent – including in the heat of the moment, including at night – have clearly accentuated teachers’ feeling of being under constant pressure from protesting parents.

In her annual report released on July 17, the national education mediator, Catherine Becchetti-Bizot, noted the explosion in referrals for disputes between parents and teachers. With conflicts between families and schools now constituting 40% of the annual volume of referrals (i.e. double the number five years ago), she was alarmed by the emergence of a “culture of power relations, the opposite of the educational alliance necessary to ensure the support and quality of students’ journeys”. Rather than a crisis of authority, the mediator preferred to speak of a “crisis of confidence”. “Families are wary of education staff”she insisted.

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