Teachers and others where spouses work together

Actually, my question is about when one spouse supervises another spouse, to make my point quickly. My kids' principal has been named the principal of another school in our district where his wife has been a long-time teacher. I assume she's not leaving, since we live in a small district and she couldn't teach her grade level anywhere else. It's a school of about 700 students and one or two vice principals.

I mentioned to another parent that I wondered how they will handle that - principal supervising his wife - and she said she didn't think it was a big deal, spouses work together all the time. I agreed, but said presumably not in a supervisory capacity, but inside I felt a little like an immature school girl for asking. Is this really no big deal? And, out of curiousity, is it awkward as husband and wife to not say things about coworkers when you all work together, especially when one is the supervisor of those coworkers? Do school district make an exception to the chain of command to avoid a person supervising a spouse (like assign supervision of the spouse to a vice principal or assistant superintendent?)

A bit unrelated, but have any teachers here taught a child of a supervisor or fellow teacher? Were parent teacher conferences or communication awkward? That has also been the case for these parents, and they appear to have handled that with no problem.

I believe this will all work out, but I am just curious about the inner workings.

Where I used to work, it was a big hospital with upwards of a thousand people employed there. So, there were quite few spouses who work together, however admin always made sure one or the other is never in supervisorary role over their spouse/partner. It just creates a power of inbalance and not to mention the conflict of interest too. Surprised the school didn't implement that kind of similiar thinking? i can see so many potential issues arising from that set-up.

Right now, I am teaching DS's teacher's child. My dd is good friends with DS's other teacher's child. Last year, my supervisor taught my child. We also have family members supervising one another at my school. Start to factor in all of the close friendships that exist in addition to the familial relationships, and it gets really complicated! :rotflmao: Surprisingly, it has not been as uncomfortable or challenging as I expected. Because there are so many of us in that situation, we are all aware of areas where potential awkwardness could arise and tend to tread more carefully. Honestly, I feel like the layers of relationship actually add to the sense of community I feel at the school. There is added trust there. The only challenging part has been setting aside some of the personal issues that I've known some people are struggling with. It's a little weird to know your child's teacher's personal weaknesses. These are things I wouldn't know if I didn't work with them. At the same time, I work closely enough with them to know that those things are not affecting their teaching, so I try to set them aside. In terms of the situations where there are family members supervising one another, it's never really been an issue. I assume that if there were issues, someone a step above the supervising family member could step in to handle things.

Honestly, it's kind of like being part of a family business. We all know each other perhaps a little better than we want to, but we all still manage to work together and create a pretty fantastic school.

We currently have 3 married couples on staff at my school (possibly more, I just may not be thinking of everyone). None of them actually supervise each other, so we don't have that particular dynamic, but if this is going to be at the HS level, IME the principal does relatively little hands-on supervising of the teachers. They might do some observations of staff members, but that task gets divided between the principal and the vice-principals so they could easily arrange for another administrator to handle that.

I've taught numerous students of fellow staff members and haven't had any issues with any of them. The kids have been great and when there have been concerns, it's been super easy to track down a parent :) I know some of my colleagues have had challenges with other teachers questioning the way they do things, but in general I think that's pretty limited.

My mother team taught high school English with my English teacher, so I was in the same classroom and effectively taught by my mother as well. All my assessment was done by the other teacher and if they split the classes into 2 groups, say you had a choice of 2 books, I always had to go in the group with the other teacher.

My mother would use her inside knowledge when it came to class placement. She would find out our teachers from the vice-principal before he made it public to the teachers, and she would have him swap us if she didn't like a teacher. No one else could request teachers like this - not professional at all.

I think teaching another teacher's child is quite common, so it gets worked out.

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Originally Posted by american_mama

A bit unrelated, but have any teachers here taught a child of a supervisor or fellow teacher? Were parent teacher conferences or communication awkward? That has also been the case for these parents, and they appear to have handled that with no problem.

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I don't have anything to add for your main question since I never experienced such a dynamic at the places I taught. However, I have taught fellow teachers' kids and never had a problem at all. Usually, the children were all excellent students and if there was a problem, I could communicate easily with them. It really depends on the child and the parent like any other student-teacher relationship. My colleague taught another co-teacher's son and had a lot of issues because that teacher was just a prick. He would show up between classes, lunch time, planning time to check on his son's progress. This is 8th grade and not elementary school. It was really annoying. It wasn't like the kid had any issues but the teacher parent kept up the annoying behavior. It strained their relationship--both with the teacher and the kid.

Not exactly that, but my husband never tells me anything that is in violation of hippa laws. Just habit to maintain professionalism at home. Sounds like he is not her direct supervisor. I bet they can work it out.

I used to work in a school, where 2 girls were daughters of my colleague. In fact, her desk was next to mine, and we became pretty friendly. Most of the time it wasn't an issue, I think because I didn't teach a core academic subject. One of her DD's was having a lot of issues in jr high though, and I always felt a little awkward when conference time rolled around and the middle school faculty had to discuss each kid individually (to make sure we were all on the same page. I was a middle school advisor). At those times I just said as little as possible.

I don't know about teachers, but my former (media) company has a strict policy about supervising other family members. I think they are afraid of lawsuits if someone feels they are given worse assignments while the spouse gets the good ones.

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Originally Posted by Karenn

Right now, I am teaching DS's teacher's child. My dd is good friends with DS's other teacher's child. Last year, my supervisor taught my child. We also have family members supervising one another at my school. Start to factor in all of the close friendships that exist in addition to the familial relationships, and it gets really complicated! :rotflmao: Surprisingly, it has not been as uncomfortable or challenging as I expected. Because there are so many of us in that situation, we are all aware of areas where potential awkwardness could arise and tend to tread more carefully. Honestly, I feel like the layers of relationship actually add to the sense of community I feel at the school. There is added trust there. The only challenging part has been setting aside some of the personal issues that I've known some people are struggling with. It's a little weird to know your child's teacher's personal weaknesses. These are things I wouldn't know if I didn't work with them. At the same time, I work closely enough with them to know that those things are not affecting their teaching, so I try to set them aside. In terms of the situations where there are family members supervising one another, it's never really been an issue. I assume that if there were issues, someone a step above the supervising family member could step in to handle things.

Honestly, it's kind of like being part of a family business. We all know each other perhaps a little better than we want to, but we all still manage to work together and create a pretty fantastic school.

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:yeahthat: I grew up in a small town, and the teaching/school situation was very similar to this. Lots of my friends had parents who teachers; MANY (probably most) teachers had students who were also children of their co-workers almost every year; many of my teachers were also my parents' friends; several of the principals and vice-principals also had spouses who were teachers within the school and/or district. I know of multiple teachers who also taught their own children in MS and HS. Perhaps it was awkward at some points for these families (when conferences rolled around and such), but honestly, it was so normal that everyone just rolled with it, and I don't know of it ever causing problems. That's life within a small town. As PP noted, it definitely added to the sense of community within the school and town. And I think this situation is fairly common in private schools.

I think the school is big enough that it won't be a problem, but we have a lot of those situations at the university and it does lead to a different dynamic. Its almost worse for the lower person as they are somewhat excluded from the day to day complaining/discussions of the boss that goes on in most work places. I do know that a dept chair for example can't directly supervise their spouse for promotion, yearly progress report etc, they are skipped in the chain and the spouse is signed off on by the Associate Dean above the Chair, I guess they will do something similar at school because I think thats a state requirement.

Good points, Lucy. I was going to be coy about what I said b/c I figured you'd know exactly who I was talking about and it feels like gossip mongering, but it's been publicly announced several times. Everyone at the larger school must have known it immediately, since the two people have the same last name.

There's a difference between working together as teammates or just being based at the same location, but different departments, and having one spouse/partner in a supervisory role.

For some companies, this is an extreme no-no because it looks like nepotism.

In the past this has come up at my company, on teams I was a part of. There were people who were dating, one was an assistant manager (with whom I did not get along) and one had just been promoted to a manager position from an assistant manager on another team. When the new manager took over, the assistant manager was shifted to the other team.

It just looks bad when it's supervisor/supervisee because of the implications that the supervisee is getting "special treatment" - whether he/she is or not.