PACE: Patience Workshop
PS9 PACE is a framework developed and supported by the PTO for building on who we are as engaged parents to enhance our school partnership. It is centered on four cornerstone values: Patience, Awareness, Curiosity, and Empathy. We are exploring each value in a series of workshops to draft community norms together.
Patience Workshop Overview
The PACE value of Patience value reads as follows:
Patience creates space for collaboration. When we take a breath before responding and allow reasonable time for communications, we enable thoughtful work.
In our workshop, we explored a scenario about a child coming home hurt from recess. Together, we discussed how taking concerns directly to teachers—rather than starting in classroom chats or going straight to administrators—helps build stronger partnerships and leads to better outcomes for our children.
Community Norms: Patience
These norms were drafted together by parents at our PTO and Class Leads meetings:
We pause before responding.
- Notice when emotions are high and pause before sending a message
- Consider sleeping on it: draft tonight, review and send tomorrow
We reach out to our teacher first.
- Start with the teacher who knows our child and the situation, before involving administrators or posting in classroom chats
- Use classroom chats for sharing information, resources, logistics questions, notes of appreciation
We wait for a response before escalating.
- Recognize that accurate information can take time to gather
- Recognize that patience isn't the same as silence — we can advocate strongly and be patient
These norms are aspirational. We're not always going to get it right. When we mess up, we learn and try again. We're building a practice together.
Key Insights: Teacher Outreach + Recess
Here are some of the insights related to the recess scenario we explored together. They lend themselves to building Awareness — the A in PACE — about how our school community functions.
What to expect when you reach out to your teacher
Timeline: Teachers may need a few days to investigate incidents—especially recess or other scenarios when they're not present at the moment. Coordinating with staff members who have different schedules means conversations may take time.
Level of detail: Responses are typically factual and brief—what happened, how it was handled, next steps, and what you can do at home. Teachers are balancing giving you enough information with time to teach and support all their students.
For longer conversations: If you have more questions after the initial response, you can always ask for a phone call or meeting, when the teacher can plan to make time in their schedule for a longer conversation. Our parent coordinator, Ms. Jacob, is also available to support ongoing conversations.
Student privacy
When your child has a conflict or incident with another child, the school cannot tell you what specific follow-up or consequences the other child receives. This protects all students' privacy. What you can know is that the situation was addressed, both children were taught about safer play, and staff are monitoring ongoing interactions between these children.
Use of the word "bullying"
Bullying has a specific definition: aggressive behavior that is intentional and involves an imbalance of power or strength, generally repeated over time. It's serious and when there's actual bullying, we need to name it and address it immediately.
Staff members have shared that our community—including staff, parents, and students—sometimes uses this word more broadly than its actual definition. When we call every conflict or incident "bullying," several things can happen: it escalates anxiety, it can make it harder for schools to respond effectively, and it can label another child unfairly.
When we hear that something has happened more than once, our parent alarm bells rightly go off. "This is repeating, it must be bullying!" But sometimes it's that your child really enjoys playing with this other child, and they keep choosing to play together in ways that are rough. They're both still learning how to play safely together.
Play fighting
In situations involving rough play, school staff shared that what often happens is both children are actively participating in the game, and the play escalates and gets rougher than intended. This is common in elementary school. Staff try to discourage play fighting because it tends to turn into real fighting—kids can often tell you this themselves because staff talk about it with them daily.
But kids love this kind of play. It's developmentally normal, it's how many connect with friends, and they always insist it won't turn into real fighting for them. So when these incidents happen, they're teaching moments—helping both children learn how to set and respect boundaries and play together safely.
Questions or Support?
Our PACE norms and insights are here to support you when you need to navigate conversations with the school. You're always welcome to reach out to the PTO if you'd like support from another parent. The contact information for current board members can be found here.