Dear Fellow Jewish Day School Heads,

Want to know why you are having such a hard time negotiating a higher percentage raise for your faculty? Or why you have to continually remind parents that teachers are not babysitters, they are professionals with degrees, expertise, and serious careers?

Because you are posting pictures of them at this time of year eating pizza and playing team-building games on your school social media platforms.

Without question, this is not impressing the CEOs, surgeons, attorneys, and other professionals in your parent body who are spending these weeks navigating childcare needs because their children’s teachers need “professional development.”

Frankly, I am hurt by it, too.

As someone who has spent the last 15 years in school leadership advocating for an approach to teachers and the field of education that is respectable and demanding, one that expects faculty excellence, further education, and ongoing professional growth, I do not like to see our profession represented this way. I have personally spent long hours as a student, researcher, and serious educator because I believe deeply in the intellectual and professional work of teaching.

Of course, I love my work. I love the children. And I believe a little fun here and there can make meetings better.

But watching our faculty stand in line for food and play games is not going to garner the respect our field deserves.

If we want our parent body to respect our faculty, we need to go first.

Let’s stop posting pictures of teachers at what looks like an adult birthday party.

There is a lot we could post: the long hours of preparation that go into one lesson; the kind word and encouragement a teacher gives a student; the many hours of professional learning and research required to understand child development; the collaboration and thought that go into becoming an excellent educator. We know that teachers aren’t “off” in the summer, they are preparing lessons, refining curriculum and learning about their incoming students. The faculty orientations before school are critical for a successful school, they are packed with meetings about individual students, best practice and professional learning. Parents need to hear more about that.

Let’s show the work. Let’s show the expertise. Let’s show the profession.

But please, stop posting pictures of ice cream bars and sushi platters at a time of year when parents, many of whom have a lot less fun at their jobs that they hold to pay tuition, are watching from their work-from-home desks while their children are pulling on them.

If we want our teachers to be treated as professionals, we need to start treating, and portraying, them as professionals.

With great admiration for all of your leadership, and a hope that together we can shift the narrative about teachers,

Dr. Pesha Kletenik