The End of the Classroom Phone Call

Owing to constant interruption of teachers while at work by telephone calls from parents to children, it has been found necessary to request the telephone authorities not to make connection with the Washington school except during the noon hour, before school in the morning, and after school in the evening. Any serious emergency necessitating departure from such ruling may be stated to the telephone authorities, who will judge if the emergency in question is sufficient to justify making the connection wanted. Such a ruling may not be understood by parents unless they realize the very great number of times the telephone rings each day with the request that some child be summoned to the telephone. Each call requires that the teacher leave her class in the middle of work, answer the telephone, go to another room, and interrupt the work there to summon the child, then return to her own room to redirect the attention of the class. While each parent may feel that their particular call is unimportant and will not take more than two minutes, no reasonable person can fail to realize the serious interruption caused by forty or fifty such calls in the course of a day. The principal at the Washington building has forty-one boys in her classroom who demand her entire attention. Constant interruption to summon children means that the school work cannot be done.