Reports of verbal aggression and degrading behaviour incidents from parents

Dear Parents,

Last week, APEEE published the new schedule for your contacts with staff (during "public hours"). Their aim is to ensure a balance between their other tasks and the responsiveness to users.

All staff members do their best to provide information and to reply to your requests, while they contribute to improving constantly the new electronic platform for enrolment and payments. A huge work of re-engineering and simplification of our administrative workflow has been underway since May 2017.

Having said that, we received reports of some incidents of verbal aggression and degrading behaviour from parents towards APEEE staff members in the performance of their duties. These simply cannot be accepted.

APEEE staff members act in conformity with existing policies and under the instructions of the Office Manager as well as of the Board members and bodies in charge of the individual areas. A fully-fledged system of accountability has already been put in place and an external audit for addressing higher quality and performance standards was tasked to provide recommendations, as appropriate, in December 2017. In June 2017, APEEE staff members underwent a training for efficient communication. 

With respect to all above, we underline everyone's duty to demonstrate dignity, respect and politeness in their contacts with our services. All requests are treated equally.

Staff have been requested to report to the Board any incident of inappropriate behaviour in the future. They were told also not to undertake any step in administrative tasks, if they feel threatened or insulted by a few individuals.

We hope sincerely that this appeal for decent behaviour in all our relations within the school community will bear fruits for the benefit of all, thus reducing stress and frustration.

A new electronic reporting system for individual complaints will be made operational in the coming weeks.

You will be informed of its functionalities very soon.

We wish to thank you for your attention.

On behalf of the APEEE Board,Tasos Papadopoulos