Thoughtful Teachers sent Parents a Touching ‘Handle With Care’ note

• Before the first day of school started, co-teachers Kristen and Heather sent a thoughtful note to their students’ parents.
• The note encouraged parents to inform them if their kids are facing a difficult situation by texting them “Handle with care.”
• The teachers said that this will allow them to provide extra patience and emotional support.

---

A simple note has made two teachers viral for their thoughtfulness.

Fourth-grade teachers Kristen Driemeier, 37, and Heather Steighorst, 34, have been teaching at Festus Intermediate in Festus, Missouri for eight years.

This year, the co-teachers sent parents a “Handle with Care” note before the first day of school.

The thoughtful note read: “If your family is experiencing difficulties at home, I would like to provide additional support at school…If your child is coming to school after a difficult night, morning or weekend please text me ‘Handle with Care.’ Nothing else will be said or asked. This will let me know that your child may need extra time, patience, or help during the day.”

The note was then shared on Facebook by a parent who wanted to praise the teachers for their thoughtfulness. That post has since received over 260,000 shares, 10,000 likes, and thousands of comments.

The teachers said they found inspiration from the popular teaching website, Teachers Pay Teachers, so they were surprised that the post still got so much response.

With most students returning to school, health experts have put an emphasis on caring for their mental health.

Kelly Vaillancourt Strobach, director of policy and advocacy for the National Association of School Psychologists, explained, “We don’t know the level of trauma that individual students have had. We don’t know their family situation, if they lost somebody, if parents have lost jobs. So what we are encouraging schools to do is really in those first couple of weeks, just infuse a lot of social-emotional learning, give kids the opportunity to talk about what’s happened over the last year.”

Kristen and Heather said that they wanted parents to know that they acknowledge that their children might need extra patience or support during these difficult times.

Kristen said, “It is important to remember these kids are dealing with all the normal kid troubles plus the unknown, fear and politically-charged time caused by the pandemic. I feel like if I know about their day or their weekend or their morning we can talk about it… instead of keeping it all bottled up inside.”

Heather added, “When our students are with us, we love them like they’re our own.”

Share this story to inspire others to make their environment a safer and kinder place for everyone to learn and grow.

Source: Good Morning America