{"id":2687,"date":"2010-03-31T09:42:43","date_gmt":"2010-03-31T13:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=2687"},"modified":"2010-03-31T09:42:43","modified_gmt":"2010-03-31T13:42:43","slug":"the-negative-impact-of-certified-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/the-negative-impact-of-certified-letters\/","title":{"rendered":"The Negative Impact of Certified Letters"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/gallery\/share-button-gray.png\" style=\"border:0px\" alt=\"Share\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_border=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"wrightslaw\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"The%20Negative%20Impact%20of%20Certified%20Letters\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin: 5px 10px;float:right\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/images\/certmail.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"87\" \/>At Wrightslaw, we have always recommended creating a paper trail through documentation in letters. Many parents think you should send important letters to the school by certified mail.\u00a0 <strong>This could have a negative impact on your relationship with school personnel.<\/strong> It may cause the recipient to feel defensive and mistrustful.\u00a0 So how do you establish that the school received your letter?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>If you send a letter to the school by certified mail, you put the recipient on notice that you want &#8220;proof of delivery,&#8221; probably for legal and evidence purposes.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Hand Deliver Your Letter<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A better way to establish that the school received your letter is to hand-deliver your letter to the recipient.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Take your original letter and one signed copy.<\/li>\n<li>Note the time you enter the office.<\/li>\n<li>Observe the office layout.<\/li>\n<li>Pay attention to the secretary or office manager.<\/li>\n<li>Note the person&#8217;s age, dress, hair color and style, and other distinctive characteristics.<\/li>\n<li>Ask the person to give your letter to Mr. Chris Rogers, principal.<\/li>\n<li>Do not ask for a signed receipt.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you don&#8217;t know the secretary&#8217;s name, introduce yourself.\u00a0 &#8220;Hi.\u00a0 I&#8217;m Cate Rice, Evan&#8217;s mom. I have a letter for Mr. Rogers.\u00a0 Would you mind giving it to him?\u00a0 I don&#8217;t think we&#8217;ve met before.\u00a0 Your name is&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After you leave, note <em>everything<\/em> you observed on the back of your copy of the letter.\u00a0 Write what you said and what you were told.<\/p>\n<p>If a week passes and you do not receive a response, write a short follow-up letter.\u00a0 Attach a copy of your original letter to the follow-up letter.<\/p>\n<p>When you go to the office, you may have a chance to refresh the secretary&#8217;s memory.\u00a0 &#8220;Hi&#8230;we met last week.\u00a0 Do you know if Mr. Rogers got the letter I gave you?\u00a0 I have another copy in case.&#8221;\u00a0 Because you remembered the secretary&#8217;s name, she will not forget you. When you leave, write the details of what happened on the back of your follow-up letter.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">You Have Proof of Receipt<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Your proof includes your testimony and your contemporaneous notes that you wrote when you delivered the letters.\u00a0 You did not create hostility and mistrust.\u00a0 You did not polarize the relationship with the school.\u00a0 You may have even made a new friend.<\/p>\n<p>Remember, when you deal with the school, your goal is to secure a good educational program for your child.\u00a0 If you take actions that cause school personnel to feel defensive or mistrustful, you are less likely to accomplish your goal.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Letter Writing Tips<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fetaweb.com\/05\/ltrs.tips.pdf\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Letter Writing Tips<\/span><\/a> on p. 229,\u00a0 Chapter 23, &#8220;How to Write Good Evidence Letters&#8221; &#8211;\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/bks\/feta2\/feta2.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Wrightslaw: From Emotions to Advocacy, 2nd Edition<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In Chapter 24,\u00a0 &#8220;Writing the &#8216;Letter to the Stranger&#8217; &#8221; we have a section that begins at page 246 that is titled &#8220;Do Not Send Certified Letters&#8221; and discusses why this approach is wrong and will backfire on you. Instead, the following section entitled &#8220;Strategies: Hand Deliver Letters&#8221; on page 247 explains that important letters should be hand delivered and why.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of each chapter are a number of sample letters. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/bks\/feta2\/feta2.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/bks\/feta2\/feta2.htm<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At Wrightslaw, we have always recommended creating a paper trail through documentation in letters. Many parents think you should send important letters to the school by certified mail.\u00a0 This could <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/the-negative-impact-of-certified-letters\/\">Continue Reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,150,136],"tags":[1303,560,273,260],"class_list":["post-2687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-letters","category-strategies","tag-documentation","tag-letter-writing","tag-paper-trails","tag-tactics-and-strategies"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2687"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2706,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687\/revisions\/2706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}